How many of yall really think that downloading music for free is the way to go? There are many different ways to look at this conundrum of an issue and opinions are like assholes, we all have them. But I ask you to do this if you area true music fan. Dig into this issue a bit more with the article below and really think on the trickle down effect of the
Free Culture generation and how it has changed the music industry
Nothing in life is free and if its actually worth something, there is always a price. For all the bands and music you enjoy, get out to a live show and help to support them in the best way possible, fan appreciation.
Link to original article on The Trichordist
Recently Emily White, an intern at NPR All Songs Considered and GM of what appears to be her college radio station, wrote a post on the NPR blog
in which she acknowledged that while she had 11,000 songs in her music
library, she’s only paid for 15 CDs in her life. Our intention is not to
embarrass or shame her. We believe young people like Emily White who
are fully engaged in the music scene are the artist’s biggest allies. We
also believe–for reasons we’ll get into–that she has been been badly
misinformed by the Free Culture movement. We only ask the opportunity to
present a countervailing viewpoint.
Emily:
My intention here is not to shame you or embarrass you. I believe you
are already on the side of musicians and artists and you are just
grappling with how to do the right thing. I applaud your courage in
admitting you do not pay for music, and that you do not want to but you
are grappling with the moral implications. I just think that you have
been presented with some false choices by what sounds a lot like what we
hear from the “Free Culture” adherents.
I must disagree with the underlying premise of what you have written.
Fairly compensating musicians is not a problem that is up to
governments and large corporations to solve. It is not up to them to
make it “convenient” so you don’t behave unethically. (Besides–is it
really that inconvenient to download a song from iTunes into your
iPhone? Is it that hard to type in your password? I think millions would
disagree.)
Rather, fairness for musicians is a problem that requires each of us
to individually look at our own actions, values and choices and try to
anticipate the consequences of our choices. I would suggest to you that,
like so many other policies in our society, it is up to us individually
to put pressure on our governments and private corporations to act
ethically and fairly when it comes to artists rights. Not the other way
around. We cannot wait for these entities to act in the myriad little
transactions that make up an ethical life. I’d suggest to you that, as a
21-year old adult who wants to work in the music business, it is
especially important for you to come to grips with these very personal
ethical issues.
I’ve been teaching college students about the economics of the music
business at the University of Georgia for the last two years.
Unfortunately for artists, most of them share your attitude about
purchasing music. There is a disconnect between their personal behavior
and a greater social injustice that is occurring. You seem to have
internalized that ripping 11,000 tracks in your iPod compared to your
purchase of 15 CDs in your lifetime feels pretty disproportionate. You
also seem to recognize that you are not just ripping off the record
labels but you are directly ripping off the artist and songwriters whose
music you “don’t buy”. It doesn’t really matter that you didn’t take
these tracks from a file-sharing site. That may seem like a neat dodge,
but I’d suggest to you that from the artist’s point of view, it’s kind
of irrelevant.
Now, my students typically justify their own disproportionate choices
in one of two ways. I’m not trying to set up a “strawman”, but I do
have a lot of anecdotal experience with this.
“It’s OK not to pay for music because record companies rip off artists and do not pay artists anything.” In
the vast majority of cases, this is not true. There have been some
highly publicized abuses by record labels. But most record contracts
specify royalties and advances to artists. Advances are
important to understand–a prepayment of unearned royalties. Not a debt,
more like a bet. The artist only has to “repay” (or “recoup”) the
advance from record sales. If there are no or insufficient record sales,
the advance is written off by the record company. So it’s false to say
that record companies don’t pay artists. Most of the time they not only
pay artists, but they make bets on artists. And it should go without
saying that the bets will get smaller and fewer the more un-recouped
advances are paid by labels.
Secondly, by law the record label must pay songwriters (who
may also be artists) something called a “mechanical royalty” for sales
of CDs or downloads of the song. This is paid regardless of whether a
record is recouped or not. The rate is predetermined, and the license is
compulsory. Meaning that the file sharing sites could get the same
license if they wanted to, at least for the songs. They don’t. They
don’t wanna pay artists.
Also, you must consider the fact that the vast majority of artists
are releasing albums independently and there is not a “real” record
company. Usually just an imprint owned by the artist. In the vast
majority of cases you are taking money directly from the artist. How
does one know which labels are artist owned? It’s not always clear. But
even in the case of corporate record labels, shouldn’t they be rewarded
for the bets they make that provides you with recordings you enjoy? It’s
not like the money goes into a giant bonfire in the middle of the woods
while satanic priests conduct black masses and animal sacrifices.
Usually some of that money flows back to artists, engineers and people
like you who graduate from college and get jobs in the industry. And
record labels also give your college radio stations all those CDs you
play.
Artists can make money on the road (or its variant “Artists are rich”). The
average income of a musician that files taxes is something like 35k a
year w/o benefits. The vast majority of artists do not make significant
money on the road. Until recently, most touring activity was a money
losing operation. The idea was the artists would make up the loss
through recorded music sales. This has been reversed by the financial
logic of file-sharing and streaming. You now tour to support making
albums if you are very, very lucky. Otherwise, you pay for making albums
out of your own pocket. Only the very top tier of musicians make ANY
money on the road. And only the 1% of the 1% makes significant money on the road. (For now.)
Over the last 12 years I’ve watched revenue flowing to artists collapse.
Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.
Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!
The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.
Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000
copies.
Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies.
Without going into
details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists
begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing
and promotion.
On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many
critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists. In particular,
two dear friends: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chestnutt. Both of
these artists, despite growing global popularity, saw their incomes
collapse in the last decade. There is no other explanation except for
the fact that “fans” made the unethical choice to take their music
without compensating these artists.
Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor,
and I was there as they put him in the ambulance. On March 6th, 2010,
Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. Anybody who knew either of these
musicians will tell you that the pair suffered from addiction and
depression. They will also tell you their situation was worsened by
their financial situation. Vic was deeply in debt to hospitals and, at
the time, was publicly complaining about losing his home. Mark was
living in abject squalor in his remote studio in the Smokey Mountains
without adequate access to the mental health care he so desperately
needed.
I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers
or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that “small” personal
decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of
people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly
“love”. And it is up to us individually to examine the consequences of
our actions. It is not up to governments or corporations to make us
choose to behave ethically. We have to do that ourselves.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now, having said all that, I also deeply empathize with your
generation. You have grown up in a time when technological and
commercial interests are attempting to change our principles and
morality. Rather than using our morality and principles to guide us
through technological change, there are those asking us to change our morality and principles to fit the technological change–if
a machine can do something, it ought to be done. Although it is the
premise of every “machines gone wild” story since Jules Verne or Fritz
Lang, this is exactly backwards. Sadly, I see the effects of this
thinking with many of my students.
These technological and commercial interests have largely exerted
this pressure through the Free Culture movement, which is funded by a
handful of large tech corporations and their foundations in
the US, Canada, Europe and other countries.* Your letter clearly shows
that you sense that something is deeply wrong, but you don’t put your
finger on it. I want to commend you for doing this. I also want to
enlist you in the fight to correct this outrage. Let me try to to show
you exactly what is wrong. What it is you can’t put your finger on.
The fundamental shift in principals and morality is about who gets to
control and exploit the work of an artist. The accepted norm for
hundreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has
the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time.
(Since the works that are are almost invariably the subject of these
discussions are popular culture of one type or another, the duration of
the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion.)
By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the
artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has
worked very well for fans and artists. Now we are being asked to undo
this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate
artists but simply because it is technologically possible for
corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their
permission on a massive scale and globally. We are being asked to
continue to let these companies violate the law without being punished
or prosecuted. We are being asked to change our morality and principals
to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.
Who are these companies? They are sites like The Pirate Bay, or Kim
Dotcom and Megaupload. They are “legitimate” companies like Google that
serve ads to these sites through AdChoices and Doubleclick. They are companies like Grooveshark that operate streaming sites without permission from artists
and over the objections of the artist, much less payment of royalties
lawfully set by the artist. They are the venture capitalists that raise
money for these sites. They are the hardware makers that sell racks of
servers to these companies. And so on and so on.
What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is
analogous to changing our morality and principles to allow the
equivalent of looting. Say there is a neighborhood in your local big
city. Let’s call it The ‘Net. In this neighborhood there are record
stores. Because of some antiquated laws, The ‘Net was never assigned a
police force. So in this neighborhood people simply loot all the
products from the shelves of the record store. People know it’s wrong,
but they do it because they know they will rarely be punished for doing
so. What the commercial Free Culture movement (see the “hybrid economy”)
is saying is that instead of putting a police force in this
neighborhood we should simply change our values and morality to accept
this behavior. We should change our morality and ethics to accept
looting because it is simply possible to get away with it. And nothing
says freedom like getting away with it, right?
But it’s worse than that. It turns out that Verizon, AT&T,
Charter etc etc are charging a toll to get into this neighborhood to get
the free stuff. Further, companies like Google are selling maps (search
results) that tell you where the stuff is that you want to loot.
Companies like Megavideo are charging for a high speed looting service
(premium accounts for faster downloads). Google is also selling ads in
this neighborhood and sharing the revenue with everyone except the
people who make the stuff being looted. Further, in order to loot you
need to have a $1,000 dollar laptop, a $500 dollar iPhone or $400
Samsumg tablet. It turns out the supposedly “free” stuff really isn’t free. In fact it’s an expensive way to get “free” music. (Like most claimed “disruptive innovations”it turns out expensive subsidies exist elsewhere.)
Companies are actually making money from this looting activity. These
companies only make money if you change your principles and morality!
And none of that money goes to the artists!
And believe it or not this is where the problem with Spotify starts.
The internet is full of stories from artists detailing just how little
they receive from Spotify. I shan’t repeat them here. They are epic.
Spotify does not exist in a vacuum. The reason they can get away with
paying so little to artists is because the alternative is The ‘Net where
people have already purchased all the gear they need to loot those
songs for free. Now while something like Spotify may be a
solution for how to compensate artists fairly in the future, it is not a
fair system now. As long as the consumer makes the unethical choice to
support the looters, Spotify will not have to compensate artists fairly.
There is simply no market pressure. Yet Spotify’s CEO is the 10th
richest man in the UK music industry ahead of all but one artist on his
service.
++++++++++++++++++
So let’s go back and look at what it would have cost you to ethically and legally support the artists.
And I’m gonna give you a break. I’m not gonna even factor in the
record company share. Let’s just pretend for your sake the record
company isn't simply the artists imprint and all record labels are evil
and don’t deserve any money. Let’s just make the calculation based on
exactly what the artist should make. First, the mechanical royalty to
the songwriters. This is generally the artist. The royalty that is
supposed to be paid by law is 9.1 cents a song for every download or
copy. So that is $1,001 for all 11,000 of your songs. Now let’s suppose
the artist has an average 15% royalty rate. This is calculated at
wholesale value. Trust me, but this comes to 10.35 cents a song or
$1,138.50. So to ethically and morally “get right” with the artists you
would need to pay $2,139.50.
As a college student I’m sure this seems like a staggering sum of
money. And in a way, it is. At least until you consider that you
probably accumulated all these songs over a period of 10 years (5th
grade). Sot that’s $17.82 dollars a month. Considering you are in your
prime music buying years, you admit your life is “music centric” and you
are a DJ, that $18 dollars a month sounds like a bargain. Certainly
much much less than what I spent each month on music during the 4 years
I was a college radio DJ.
Let’s look at other things you (or your parents) might pay for each month and compare.
Smart phone with data plan: $40-100 a month.
High speed internet access: $30-60 dollars a month. Wait, but you use
the university network? Well, buried in your student fees or tuition
you are being charged a fee on the upper end of that scale. Tuition at American University, Washington DC (excluding fees, room and board and books): $2,086 a month.
Car insurance or Metro card? $100 a month?
Or simply look at the value of the web appliances you use to enjoy music:
$2,139.50 = 1 smart phone + 1 full size ipod + 1 macbook.
Why do you pay real money for this other stuff but not music?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:
Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?
Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data
plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?
Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest
corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who
create and sell music?
This is a bit of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But it’s as if:
Networks: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!
Hardware: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!
Artists: 99.9 % lower middle class. Screw you, you greedy bastards!
Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!
I am genuinely stunned by this. Since you appear to love first
generation Indie Rock, and as a founding member of a first generation
Indie Rock band I am now legally obligated to issue this order: kids, lawn, vacate.
You are doing it wrong.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Emily, I know you are not exactly saying what I’ve illustrated above.
You’ve unfortunately stumbled into the middle of a giant philosophical
fight between artists and powerful commercial interests. To your
benefit, it is clear you are trying to answer those existential
questions posed to your generation. And in your heart, you grasp the
contradiction. But I have to take issue with the following statement:
As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realize the gravity of what
file-sharing means to the musicians I love. I can’t support them with
concert tickets and t-shirts alone. But I honestly don’t think my peers
and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.
I’m sorry, but what is inconvenient about iTunes and, say, iTunes
match (that let’s you stream all your music to all your devices) aside
from having to pay? Same with Pandora premium, MOG and a host of other
legitimate services. I can’t imagine that any other legal music service
that is gonna be simpler than these to use. Isn’t convenience already
here!
Ultimately there are three “inconvenient” things that MUST happen for any legal service:
1.create an account and provide a payment method (once)
2.enter your password.
3. Pay for music.
So what you are really saying is that you won’t do these three
things. This is too inconvenient. And I would guess that the most
inconvenient part is….step 3.
That’s fine. But then you must live with the moral and ethical choice
that you are making to not pay artists. And artists won’t be paid. And
it won’t be the fault of some far away evil corporation. You “and your
peers” ultimately bear this responsibility.
You may also find that this ultimately hinders your hopes of finding a
job in the music industry. Unless you’re planning on working for
free. Or unless you think Google is in the music industry–which it is
not.
I also find this all this sort of sad. Many in your generation are
willing to pay a little extra to buy “fair trade” coffee that insures
the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly. Many in your
generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from
manufacturers that certify they don’t use sweatshops. Many in your
generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in
China. Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural
changes that has given more equality to same sex couples. On nearly
every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my
generation.
Except for one thing. Artist rights.
+++++++++++++++++++++
At the start of this I did say that I hoped to convert you to
actively helping musicians and artists. That ultimately someone like
you, someone so passionately involved in music is the best ally that
musicians could have. Let me humbly suggest a few things:
First, you could legally buy music from artists. The best way to
insure the money goes to artists? Buy it directly from their website or
at their live shows. But if you can’t do that, there is a wide range of
services and sites that will allow you to do this conveniently.
Encourage your “peers” to also do this.
Second, actively “call out” those that profit by exploiting artists
without compensation. File sharing sites are supported by corporate web
advertising. Call corporations out by giving specific examples. For
instance, say your favorite artist is Yo La Tengo. If you search at
Google “free mp3 download Yo La Tengo” you will come up with various
sites that offer illegal downloads of Yo La Tengo songs. I clicked on a
link to the site www.beemp3.com where I found You La Tengo’s entire
masterpiece album I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.
I also found an ad for Geico Insurance which appeared to have been
serviced to the site by “Ads by Google”. You won’t get any response by
writing a file sharing site. They already know what they are doing is
wrong. However Geico might be interested in this. And technically,
Google’s policy is to not support piracy sites, however it seems to be
rarely enforced. The best way to write any large corporation is to
search for the “investor’s relations” page. For some reason there is
always a human being on the other end of that contact form. You
could also write your Congressman and Senator and suggest they come up
with some way to divert the flow of advertising money back to the
artists.
And on that matter of the $2,139.50 you owe to artists? Why not
donate something to a charity that helps artists. Consider this your
penance. In fact I’ll make a deal with you. For every dollar you
personally donate I’ll match it up to the $500. Here are some
suggestions.
Sweet Relief. This organization helps musicians with
medical costs. Vic Chestnutt, who I mentioned earlier, was helped by
this organization. I contributed a track to the Album Sweet Relief II:Gravity of the situation. www.sweetrelief.org
I’m open to suggestions on this.
I sincerely wish you luck in your career in the music business and hope this has been enlightening in some small way.
David Lowery
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Need even more ammo about why you should help to support the bands you really dig, dive into this infographic...
