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| Author |
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| 25 new of 134 responses total. |
anderyn
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response 50 of 134:
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Feb 10 21:56 UTC 2001 |
Ah, David has hit on the reason I never tried Napster seriously. Even with
the T1 line I have at work, it was far too much trouble to find music I
wanted and it never downloaded when I wanted it to. I don't/can't leave my
computer on all the time, and it just was too much of a time/bandwidth hog
to ever seem practical to me. I, too, prefer buying the actual media rather
than having stuff on electronic ... nothings... For example, at work, I have
a couple of hundred songs stored on my work computer, which just sit there.
Because I can't access them directly without some less than convenient wiring
(being as at work I can't listen out loud) and some less than convenient
messing with files, etc. And I can't just take them home and listen here. It's
more trouble than it's worth.
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brighn
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response 51 of 134:
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Feb 11 00:14 UTC 2001 |
#43 notwithstanding, Courtney Love doesn't seem to be hurting for high fashion
gear herself. And as for directing me to essays written by musicians, may I
refer you back to the last paragraphs of my #42? Finally, KEN, please re-read
my #42 in re: the idea that major label contract = well-off. For instance,
my stipulation about serious airplay -- most musicians on major labels don't
get that.
If most musicians don't net anything at all from being musicians (since I've
read, repeatedly, that they net nothing from records and lose money from
concerts), why are there so many career musicians? (NB: The contention on the
table is "nothing at all"... if you want to tell me that, on an $18 CD, the
average artist will make 1c per unit, that's a different kettle of fish.)
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brighn
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response 52 of 134:
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Feb 11 00:49 UTC 2001 |
Having read the article to which polygon refers, I see the nit-pickery that
is being made. The implication -- that buying a CD doesn't profit the
performer -- is backed by this statement, for instance:
"Performers rarely see a penny of CD royalties." But other statements in that
article indicate that that's an exageration: Artists DO benefit from CD sales,
they DO make money, it's just that it's usually just the advance the initially
receive that's their payment for the album: "After paying performers an
advance against royalties, ... record labels, unlike publishers, routinely
deduct the costs of production, marketing, and promotion from the performers'
royalties." ... "Unheralded session musicians and orchestra members, who are
paid flat fees, often do better in the end."
But if an artist doesn't sell any CDs at all, then they don't get their
contract renewed. So to say, as Larry says, " The fact that most musicians
will never get a penny of that eighteen bucks
-- not one cent -- is a small but significant consideration" is a clear
exaggeration. They won't get any additional money from that particular sale
of that particular CD, because they've already gotten whatever they're getting
of that $18, in the form of the advance, and the sale of that album will
contribute to the likelihood that they'll get a future contract.
I'll readily accept that most musicians make very little of the total sales
of a CD. Most artists, in general, do. A portion of that is not entirely the
RIAA/Big Label's faults, though: More people want to be artists (of all sorts)
than the society (ergo the market) will bear... this is an accepted reality
in writing, where most authors realize the likelihood of getting rich -- or
even of eking out a decent wage -- on writing alone is very slim. Perhaps it's
because writers, in the main, tend to be older and more mature than musicians
that we hear fewer complaints coming from those quarters of unfair treatment
(for several reasons: There's less complaining going on, we care less because
the people are more likely to know the risks going on, careers tend to be
longer -- at least for pop writers -- so the odds that they'll break through
"eventually" persist longer, because the publishing houses are less capricious
in their inequities, because writing overall is less cutthroat as an industry
because it's not as sensitive to cultural whims). Ditto actors, although they
have strong unions that I don't believe other artists have.
And yes, as I've never denied, the Big Labels are bastards who want to make
a buck. Shocking that they care more about profits than quality or fairness...
stop the presses! Corporate America Worships the Dollar!
[Atlantic Monthly quotes from
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/mann3.htm]
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aaron
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response 53 of 134:
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Feb 11 16:31 UTC 2001 |
re #51: Most musicians realize, at some point, that they will never make
a living from their art. Even a "successfu" and "popular" local
band. You have to have the recording contract to really hit it big.
Very few artists who get a recording contract expect to be a "one
hit wonder" (even though most are either no-it or one-hit wonders.)
Again, if the choice is either having a chance (but making little
or no money from the first album), or turning down that chance
(knowing that it is exceptionally unlikely that another record offer
will ever be made), why does it surprise you that people sign on?
If an album sells a million copies, and the artist received a
$20,000 advance, is that fair compensation in your eyes?
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brighn
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response 54 of 134:
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Feb 11 18:44 UTC 2001 |
My thread is not based on "fair compensation." I have acknowledged several
times that, as far as the evidence that's presented to me indicates, record
companies don't compensate artists fairly. This thread is based on the
implication that record companies don't compensate most artists they sign AT
ALL. I don't understand why I need to acknowledge that yet again, Aaron.
I also don't feel that the record companies are as unfair as they're depicted
in this and other places. When asked, only one person was able to produce a
source by someone other than a musician about inequities. While it's not fair
that a group mght receive, say, $20K for a platinum album, record companies
also have to recoup losses from gambles that failed somehow. How about if the
Famous Ass-Mouths have to not only pay back every cent for production cost,
etc., when their album fails to sell, but they also have to compensate their
record company for every bit of lost revenue and potential revenue? That's
not fair, either... and they probably don't have that kind of money, anyway.
I'm not about to pretend that record execs are minimum-wage grunts scrounging
for money, and all these sales are being absorbed by losses elsewhere. But
I think that this item is, for the most part, presenting a one-sided view.
Major label record execs take a larger portion of the profits than they
probably should be, but enough musicians are still getting paid enough money
to attract more people to be musicians for the money.
... which brings us back to the independents, anyway. IF the major labels bilk
artists for so much that most musicians would be better off selling CDs out
of the trunk of their car (CDs which they don't have, because they didn't have
a major labels funding the CD in the process of"bilking" them, but that's
beside the point </sarcasm>), then how is it that the major labels are hurting
the independents by not signing them (a claim that's been made in this same
item). The Majors are bastards for signing people to contracts that, in part,
are designed to minimize the company's losses for long-shots, they're bastards
for not signing true, market-established long shots... they're bastards for
only signing people when the contracts are likely to go gold or platinum, but
they're bastards for signing people to contracts that protect the company when
the album doesn't sell... [contracts>albums, two lines up]
When did the Major Record Labels become a charity organization geared to the
preservation of aesthetically sound music? This is a consumer economy, and
we can blame the Big Bad BMG for the quality of the air waves all we want,
but when Biffy and Buffy are going out and buying Britney Spears and N*Sync,
and Lawrence Kestenbaum refuses to buy music because of the economic
inequities, well, who do you think is going to have more of an effect on what
BMG et alia produce? Non-consumers have significantly less of an effect on
the sort of product available in the marketplace.
Going back to another thread, whose fault is it, in the end, that Ann Arbor
doesn't have a classical radio station anymore? When did radio -- like the
major labels -- become a charity for the cultural elite?
And if you're all so unhappy about the status quo, go do something legal about
it... go start a radio station or a record company of your own, go support
your local arts (which I'm sure some of you already do), go write letters to
your politicians bemoaning the RIAA's influence on copyright and other
intellectual property law (which I wouldn't be surprised if some of you may
already have done). *shrug* Corporate AMerica is full of bastards. So is Grex.
I'm one of them. Life goes on. *shrug*
[And no, I'm not saying Corporations should be allowed to run roughshod over
anyone and everyone. I'm saying that I think I'm becoming more Libertarian
in my old age.]
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anderyn
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response 55 of 134:
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Feb 11 22:25 UTC 2001 |
Some of us do support the small artists -- I know that I buy far more music
from artists at concerts than I do at the store (since most of my favourite
artists are folk musicians, they tend to produce their own albums, or be on
small independent labels) -- the only problem for me being that I can't easily
tell people to go try, say, Garnet Rogers (who was at the Ark last night, and
so is in my thoughts), since his records are available only through his own
company and/or various obscure internet retailers -- they certainly are not
in the record stores.
As for your arguments about choosing to starve vs. being a musician, above,
um, well, most of the musicians I have met have day jobs (or spouses with day
jobs) to take care of the bills. Just as an aspiring author is advised to keep
that day job or have a wife/husband to pay the bills, so too with musicians.
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anderyn
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response 56 of 134:
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Feb 11 22:31 UTC 2001 |
Oh. I should clarify that the only musicians I have personally met have been
in the folk music field, so may not be of the same mindset and/or motivation
of any other types of musicians. Yes, some of them *are* full-time musicians,
but I don't think even the ones who are well-known are exactly making money
hand over fist -- a lot of the motivation for being folkies tends to be for
political/philosophical reasons, as well as the fact that they like being
musicians. It is often said that folk music is a community, and this is part
of why musicians stay in this field.
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raven
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response 57 of 134:
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Feb 11 23:18 UTC 2001 |
Now linked to the cyberpunk conf, your conf of social issues surrounding
the internet, j cyber at the next OK: prompt.
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brighn
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response 58 of 134:
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Feb 12 01:07 UTC 2001 |
#55, 56> Probably the only folkies who could qualify as making lots of money
are what the pop music folks cal folkies -- Tracy Chapman, Suzanne Vega,
Loreena McKinnett all seemed to do fairly well in their day, and there was
also that hippie era was folk was popular (Traffic's heydey).
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other
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response 59 of 134:
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Feb 12 06:06 UTC 2001 |
Most successful classical musicians are also music teachers, which
doesn't seem to correlate at all to trends in more populist forms.
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polygon
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response 60 of 134:
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Feb 12 08:55 UTC 2001 |
Re 52. It's NOT nit-pickery. If I pay $18 for a CD, and none of it goes
to the band or musician, then they didn't get a penny of it, did they?
The fact that the sale has some speculative vague effect on maybe some
future event is of extremely limited relevance. How long is the band
going to stay together, anyway?
"Unheralded session musicians" are obviously not what we're talking about
here. They get paid scale, just like the janitor who sweeps up after the
recording session is done.
And what's this crap about "Lawrence Kestenbaum refuses to buy music
because of the economic inequities"? Apparently, you completely missed
the point of my response #41, in which I identified the gigantically
inflated cost of a new CD as the major reason I don't buy them.
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other
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response 61 of 134:
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Feb 12 16:58 UTC 2001 |
That's an economic inequity, isn't it? ;)
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brighn
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response 62 of 134:
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Feb 12 17:07 UTC 2001 |
Wow, I got Larry to say "crap." I must have irked him.
Some of your $18 DOES go to the band, in the form of the advance they already
received. If you don't want to call your statement nit-pickery, then at least
admit it's oversimplifying. *shrug*
Of that $18, btw, much of it must be going to the record store, since I can
generally get new CDs for $13-16... which means wholesale must be around $12.
I'm not sure how a 33% mark-up by the record store goes back to the Big Bad
Major Labels.
Maybe we should start a thread on how record retailers are ripping BMG off,
and how that justifies BMG doing whatever it can to circumvent that?
*eg*
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gull
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response 63 of 134:
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Feb 12 18:59 UTC 2001 |
Is that $12 wholesale price fixed, or do the record stores have to pay
more for those new releases they sell for $18? I'd always gotten the
impression that the profit margin for record stores is very slim.
It was interesting to compare the prices of cassettes and CDs, when you
could still get cassettes. The production costs are the same, and the
manufacturing costs for CDs are *lower*...but CDs consistantly cost
about twice what cassettes did. We're seeing the same thing now with
DVD. A new release on videotape is often $5 or $10 cheaper than the
same movie on DVD.
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krj
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response 64 of 134:
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Feb 12 19:50 UTC 2001 |
The ruling on the preliminary injunction is in. It is reported as a win
for the record companies. The appeals court has ordered the trial
court judge Marilyn Patel to craft a slightly different injunction,
and I don't know the significance of that, but the essence of the
appeals court ruling seems to be that Napster cannot allow its users
to trade copyrighted material. More information will pour in through
the afternoon, I'm sure.
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polygon
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response 65 of 134:
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Feb 12 20:48 UTC 2001 |
Re 62. Let's say that you create a painting, and sell it to me, with all
rights, for $100. In one case, I attempt to resell it, find no market
for it, and toss it in the dumpster. In the other case, I make 100,000
reproductions and sell them for ten dollars each, giving me $1 million in
gross revenue. Which one I do is completely up to me.
Either way, you still have your $100. It doesn't change your $100 whether
I get nothing or whether I get a million dollars. To say that 1/10,000 of
that million dollars went to you is sophistry. If someone steps up and
buys a copy of the painting from me, none of that $10 is going to you.
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brighn
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response 66 of 134:
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Feb 12 21:07 UTC 2001 |
But you didn't pay me $100 for the painting. You gave me $100 to paint a
painting, on the condition that I would get 0.01% of the sales of copies of
that painting, but that you wouldn't give me a penny over that original $100
until after you'd made it back. If anything, that means that the recording
industry works like a vanity press.
think about it this way: The cut-off is supposedly 1M copies (roughly). Let's
say you bought the 1 millionth copy. None of your money goes directly to the
band. Now, the guy behind you buys a copy. 5c of that money goes to the band.
On what grounds do you say that the guy behind you has given money to the
band, and you haven't, when you just paid the same amount?
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polygon
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response 67 of 134:
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Feb 12 21:12 UTC 2001 |
Re 66. Because the likelihood that the line will be that long is
infinitesimal from the standpoint of the average musician.
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aaron
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response 68 of 134:
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Feb 12 21:56 UTC 2001 |
re #66: Again, that is not how it works. The contracts available to
most artists are carefully constructed so that the record company can
claim to lose money, no matter how many copies are sold. "'A band will
make more money by giving away 500,000 copies of an album - if that
helps them sell more forty-dollar concert tickets and twenty-five-dollar
T-shirts - than it would by not giving away a single album and selling
only 200,000 copies,' says an agent at a high-powered talent agency."
Rolling Stone, "World War MP3", June 17, 1999. Here's a bitter account
of how a $250,000 "advance" can translate into barely more than $4,000
per band member - http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic.html
.
For an examination of the same type of contract in a related industry
(motion pictures), see "Less Than Zero - Studio Accounting Practices in
Hollywood" - http://www.hollywoodnetwork.com/Law/Hart/columns/index.html
("The accounting provisions which are contained in the studios' SPDs
make it difficult, if not mathematically impossible in many cases, for
net profits ever to be achieved."), and "Where's The Profit" -
http://www.college.hmco.com/accounting/readings/12-bengei.html ("What do
Rain Man, Batman, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? have in common? At the
box office, all three are among the 40 most successful films of all
time, but each as remained in the red for those performers, writers, and
other filmmakers whose contracts provide a share in the film’s net
profits. And these three films are not unique in this respect. Fewer
than 5% of released films show a profit for net profit participation
purposes.") For the record, the movie industry based its accounting
model on the record industry's model. See T. Connors, "Beleaguered
Accounting", 70 S. Cal. L. Rev. 841, 847 (1997).
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scg
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response 69 of 134:
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Feb 13 00:55 UTC 2001 |
Quibbling over whether performers directly see any of the money paid for the
recording strikes me as somewhat pointless. The more important questions are
wehther they get paid, and to a lesser extent whether how well their recording
does determines their wealth.
If somebody buys services from my employer, and I then do the engineering work
required for whatever they've bought, you could argue that I never see a penny
of the money they're paying my employer. By the standards being used in this
argument, you'd be right. I'm not paid on commission. Even if I spend this
week bringing in more revenue than everybody else in the company combined,
what I get paid for this week will be no different than if I'd spent the time
sitting in my chair and staring at the wall. However, that's not to say that
I'm not being compensated for what I do, or that getting work done doesn't
benefit me personally. My employer pays my sallary on the assumption that
I will be doing work, rather than staring at the wall. If I weren't getting
work done, I probably wouldn't continue to receive that sallary for all that
long. If I do good work, in theory the sallary will go up, or at least it
will look good on a resume and cause me to get paid more by somebody else,
eventually.
Likewise, wheter recording artists are paid on commission provides a less than
full answer to whether they are being compensated. If a recording artist is
being paid only on commission, and the commission contract is rigged such that
the artist won't possibly be able to make a cent, then the artist probably
isn't making anything off that recording. If, on the other hand, the artist
is getting a million dollar advance on the recording, and then not earning
any royalties on it, the artist is still doing pretty well.
It should also be noted that there are other reasons for doing things, beyond
immediate payment and pure enjoyment. If an artist is getting a $100 advance
and almost no chance for commissions on their first CD, but will then be in
a position to do much better financially on their second CD if their first
one does well, then releasing a first CD for no money can still have great
benefits for the artists. How likely these benefits are to happen, and
whether it's worth it, are things the artist has to decide. As such the first
CD can be seen as a high risk investment -- something that will likely cause
the loss of whatever resources are put into it, but which has some small
chance of bringing extreme riches. There are also ways to make money off
publishing that don't involve getting money from the publisher at all. I
don't know how this works for the music industry, but there are certainly some
fields where the prestige of having published a book can increase peoples'
sallaries in their other jobs.
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krj
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response 70 of 134:
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Feb 13 02:07 UTC 2001 |
((response cloned from M-net:))
We seem to be into really subtle territory here in the difference between
the trial court judge Patel's original ruling, and what the appeals
court has directed. Based on the news reports I'm seeing, Judge Patel
ordered Napster to police itself to ensure that copyrighted material
is not traded using its system; the Court of Appeals directive is
(if I'm reading this right) that the policing of Napster is to be
done by the copyright holders; they are to send complaints to Napster,
and Napster is only responsible for copyright infringement after
they have been notified about it.
This sounds like the DCMA's "notice and take down" rules, which
is Napster's current policy!! I refer to it as the
"nudge, nudge, wink, wink" school of copyright enforcement.
On the other hand, the appeals court clearly said that Napster's
file trading does not fall under the protection of fair use.
So I really don't know what to make of it... and this is all over
a preliminary injunction anyway, the actualcopyright infringement trial
starts this spring, and Patel has made it clear she's about as hostile
to Napster as a judge can get towards a civil defendant.
(Maybe the appeals court is telling the music industry that if they
want genuine, effective relief, they'll have to start suing the
individual Napster users?)
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brighn
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response 71 of 134:
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Feb 13 02:31 UTC 2001 |
#67, 68> *shrug* We disagree. I'm moving on.
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bdh3
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response 72 of 134:
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Feb 13 08:17 UTC 2001 |
What is the purpose of Napster? Is it to allow general users to
download non-copyright material? No. Is it to allow me who buys a CD of
a 'band' to 'record' a specific song from that CD and personally use it
how I see fit? No. (plenty programs to do that on me own machine)
(I zap copies of Mary Wilson's Music and computer CDs so that when she
destroys them (she never has originals) I can give her another copy.
Wish I did the same for vhs cassettes (three copies of pocohontas and
counting....)).
The primary use of Napster is in fact to allow a user to download and
record 'songs' he/she hasn't 'paid for' no matter how you look at it and
no matter how Napster wants you to look at it. In the real world thats
the way Napster is used (or mis-used). I frankly don't see the
'business model' for Napster that generate profit for investors even
right now much less originally. If Napster's 'business model' was
instead to facilitate the distribution of child porno instead of
'bootleg' recordings I don't think there would be any question about
shutting it down. As for it only really hurting the 'big bad' record
companies instead of the 'original artists', well... I would suggest
that if it were not for the original 'record companies' -despite their
extremely predatory practices - you would likely as not have never even
'heard' of the 'original artists'. The 'record company' *did* get
the Beatles out there and last I heard with the exception of the dead
one they weren't exactly on welfare...
For every 'success' how many unbelievably stupid 'records' or 'films'
were released by a 'major studio' and perhaps the 'creative accounting'
on the part of the studios is in order to have the 'one' success
subsidize the 400 major abject and outright failures each year in order
for the studios to 'make money' for their investors so they can stay in
business. After all, nobody forces the 'author' to take a percentage of
the 'net' instead of the 'gross'. How many movie 'classics' now were
considered 'box office disasters' upon their release? _Its a Wonderful
Life_ I seem to recall was a 'box office disaster' comes to mind.
No, Napster is clearly in the business of 'bootleg'-ing and ought to be
shut down.
Oh, I am looking for the english version of _Shanghai Noon_. I will
gladly trade you a copy of the 'files' (two) on two CDs for the same in
english. I have the VCD set with Mandarin in one channel and Cantonese
in another with three other language 'subtitles' in the video...Mary
Wilson and Nai-Nai enjoy it, but I would like to have one in english...
(Is _Shanghai Noon_ even on DVD release yet? I bought the two cd (VCD)
set in very professional package for less than a dollar in Hu Fei, An
Wei province last year from a street vendor (I coulda probably got it
for less except on account I look like I have money - am 'epicanthaly
challenged')). Please to send me e-mail at bdh@bdh.nu.
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polygon
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response 73 of 134:
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Feb 13 14:12 UTC 2001 |
Re 69. The issue is not whether somebody is getting compensated at
all. The issue, for me, as I originally stated it, is that the cost
of a new CD in a store is so outlandishly high that I'm not really
interested in buying any at that price. The fact that none of that
large amount of money benefits the artist, except very indirectly and
speculatively, only reinforces this.
Buying a CD at a concert is slightly different. It's almost like a
donation toward the living expenses of someone who is doing music because
they love doing it, given that they could enjoy a higher income doing
almost anything else. In fact, at the kind of concerts I go to, usually
it's the performer himself/herself, or a band member, at the CD table
taking the money.
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ashke
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response 74 of 134:
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Feb 13 15:20 UTC 2001 |
So for those who are against napster, and I'll admit freely that some use it
for getting all they can, aren't we splitting hairs because the courts feel
that a computer does not constitute a home recording device (even though I
have a program like Adaptec's Disc Jockey where I can import my vinyl and
tapes into it) therefore it's not protected like your dual cassette recorder
is?
I'm more offended that Eminem and other artists feel that "If you can afford
a computer you can afford the $16 to buy my ...CD" I am COMPLETELY offended
by that. I DO buy thier overpriced CD's. What you see coming out of the
woodwork on this issue are hippocrites and money grubbing artists against this
system. Case in Point, Metallica, who advocated bootlegging not only the
albums, but the concerts they did, who now have been vocal about napster and
equally as tightfisted with their concert material. they saw $$$. They had
a big enough fan base. So they changed their mind. So that means that every
other artist has to as well, right? Big bad metallica has offically spoken
out of both sides of their face.
I'm especially angry that the shift after Frampton Comes Alive is for MONEY
to rule the recording industry. I am all for the little people who do what
they can and produce their own, like Ani Defranco. But now you have MBA's
dictating what the public will like, wanting cookie cutter bands, and warping
any idea of "music" as played by the musician. The RIAA has made the artist
a comodity of the Record Company, similiar to Slave Labor, and some of us
might actually LIKE to hear something GOOD.
If you go after napster, by all rights you should go after ever kid who gives
his friend or his sweetheart a tape of "their songs". But because of all the
BS that happened 20-30 years ago, you can't. It's just a matter of setting
precident with a computer as a recording device. I wonder if I should send
the appelate court judges a copy of one of the several computer programs that
COMPOSE music?
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