What happens if no-one pays for music?

[OldSausage]

Speaking of saving real music, there's an interesting discussion going on elsewhere about saving recorded music of any kind, with some great points on both sides. This article (which repays close reading) gives a pretty good summary:

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/20/stea...ays_for_music/

[catmandu2]

Thanks for that link OS. A complex issue.

The easy response: jerk these kids by the hair and change their sense of ethics! Why, when I was kid...

The solutions, of course, as always will come through education. I'm only hoping that kids--with their fancy technology and college degrees--will read (and heed) some literature containing moral principles, as well as have the wherewithal to look beyond their personal "needs"

[Fretbear]

Speaking of saving real music, there's an interesting discussion going on elsewhere about saving recorded music of any kind, with some great points on both sides.

It is not exactly about saving recorded music, it is about saving recorded music that pays you.....
It is what it is; a man can try to keep running his formerly successful photofinishing shop, and wondering why people aren't coming in to have their 35mm film developed anymore, but the fact is, he is done like dinner. Twenty-five years ago I spent a fortune on imported vinyl LP's, and if I wanted to see a movie I had to either go to the theater and pay the admission, or wait for it come on the late show on TV.
Neither of these paradigms exist in any way now.
"Stopping piracy?" Do you seriously believe that the genie can ever be put back in the bottle?
It is about facing the facts and adapting to the new reality.

[Bill Clements]

“Recorded music revenue is down 64 percent since 1999,” and that “The number of professional musicians has fallen 25 percent since 2000.”

Unfortunate statistic. He then goes on to bash Apple in the article-which I'm not sure is the root cause of all evil. Does this article refer to only sale of CD's or does it include the purchase of MP3's via Apple, Amazon, etc.? I see the good and bad side of this complex argument. As a kid, I could only afford to buy albums of artists I knew I would like. Now I can sample various artists and consequently listen to a far greater variety of music. It seems to me that the electronic age has ushered in a whole new way for artists to get their music heard, and offers the consumer far more choices both in what they listen to and how they enjoy it.

On the other hand, the sharing of music and downloadable music has also ushered in the demise of companies like Tower Records and most family owned music stores can no longer afford to dedicate floor space to CD sales. You'd be hard-pressed to find a music store dedicated to selling only CDs any longer. Those retailers that do sell CD's offer a limited selection, forcing the consumer to turn to Online sources.

The ultimate solution is for young consumers to understand that intellectual property is as tangible and valuable as the iPod they carry in their pockets.

[terzinator]

Maybe it gets us back to olden times, when Live Music was the thing.

[billkilpatrick]

Maybe it gets us back to olden times, when Live Music was the thing.

i'm sure that will be the case - itinerant musicians playing, literally, for their supper. providing they don't use amplification, i regularly give money to anyone playing in the street - don't care what instrument they're playing or type of music.

[catmandu2]

Chris, how are you going to surf the cafe on an "olden-times" musician's wages?

[otterly2k]

As a kid, I could only afford to buy albums of artists I knew I would like. Now I can sample various artists and consequently listen to a far greater variety of music. It seems to me that the electronic age has ushered in a whole new way for artists to get their music heard, and offers the consumer far more choices both in what they listen to and how they enjoy it.

Yes, and if musicians could pay their rent with the fact that they had 20,000 hits on YouTube, this debate would be moot.

Thanks, Sausage, for the link to the article. I went on to read the original two articles that it was summarizing. It is a complicated issue, but I have to say that I am landing on the side of artists' rights. These articles have made me more aware of how I listen to music and what I do / don't pay for.

Legitimate online vendors DO pay the musicians (albeit not very much). And I think there's a place for free listening sites to expose people to a variety of music...then providing links to purchase is both convenient and benefits the artist. I don't think we'll be able to totally contain piracy, but there are ways to curb it.

Education is a start -- the rocker/professor who wrote the manifesto about artists' rights makes a point of saying that this generation of downloaders are also the people who will spend a little extra to buy free trade coffee, clothes that are not made in a sweatshop, and other cruelty-free products and have led the charge in many positive social changes-- but somehow aren't alert to the issue of artists' rights. And he invites the NPR intern to join him in spreading that info.

But I don't think education alone will do it... until there is pressure on the businesses that profit from the piracy, and some regulation put in place, the artists will continue to be ripped off.

It's interesting to watch how the changes happen. In the 1990's a few artists -- in particular Ani DiFranco comes to mind -- decided that competing for contracts with major record labels was not worth it-- that the record label businesses were corrupt and exploitative at worst or tie them to contractual obligations and limit creativity at best. She took a courageous leap and self produced her own work, promoted herself using the new Internet as her forum. She decided she could do her work, her way, and keep the proceeds. It worked. And it opened the door for a huge surge in independent artists and labels. She used the technology to forge her own way.

Of course the technology has changed hugely. It will be interesting to see who finds a way around the current exploitative system, and what that way turns out to be.

[terzinator]

Chris, how are you going to surf the cafe on an "olden-times" musician's wages?

Well, music isn't my day job, and the only way I get my music out there is to play it live. Usually for free. (We're crappy buskers -- we never remember to open a case!)

So, I'll just keep on keepin' on.

[terzinator]

I should add, the one thing that still confounds me is when ASCAP/BMI licensing agencies come down on little coffeehouses, saying they can't even host folk or bluegrass jam circles unless the coffeehouse pays royalty fees -- just in case someone plays a Bob Dylan or Beatles tune.

[Dobe]

.... change their sense of ethics!
--will read (and heed) some literature containing moral principles, as well as have the wherewithal to look beyond their personal "needs"

Doubtful. I bet most of them think morals are big paintings on a wall, and scruples are currency in Russia. (borrowed from Sabrina)

[Bob Clark]

i regularly give money to anyone playing in the street - don't care what instrument they're playing or type of music.

I think this is a really good habit to get into. I will make it a point to do so from now on. Thanks for pointing this out.

Bob

[taylor410]

I should add, the one thing that still confounds me is when ASCAP/BMI licensing agencies come down on little coffeehouses, saying they can't even host folk or bluegrass jam circles unless the coffeehouse pays royalty fees -- just in case someone plays a Bob Dylan or Beatles tune.

Yep, it can be a slippery slope. We are not allowed to advertise the location of our House Concerts. They have to be 'invitation only' with a 'suggested donation', otherwise the two agencies mentioned above CAN get into play.

[OldSausage]

It is not exactly about saving recorded music, it is about saving recorded music that pays you.....
It is what it is; a man can try to keep running his formerly successful photofinishing shop, and wondering why people aren't coming in to have their 35mm film developed anymore, but the fact is, he is done like dinner. Twenty-five years ago I spent a fortune on imported vinyl LP's, and if I wanted to see a movie I had to either go to the theater and pay the admission, or wait for it come on the late show on TV.
Neither of these paradigms exist in any way now.
"Stopping piracy?" Do you seriously believe that the genie can ever be put back in the bottle?
It is about facing the facts and adapting to the new reality.

That's right, that's one side of the argument, the article outlines both your position and the opposing argument too. I can see both sides, and I can't see at all clearly where it goes from here.

[catmandu2]

I think this is a really good habit to get into. I will make it a point to do so from now on. Thanks for pointing this out.

Busking is something I'm always preparing for--an honest profession: the only way "things" will return to "olden times" is when economies, and/or other natural/"man-made" events render us disabled to pursue more lucrative means. In other words, not; "free enterprise" isn't built that way. I'm uncertain which will blow first--Yellowstone, or the economy more completely (I'm preparing for both)

[mandolirius]

I should add, the one thing that still confounds me is when ASCAP/BMI licensing agencies come down on little coffeehouses, saying they can't even host folk or bluegrass jam circles unless the coffeehouse pays royalty fees -- just in case someone plays a Bob Dylan or Beatles tune.

Curse these parasites! This is one of my most-hated things, these self-justifying beaurocracies that are all about sustaining themselves rather than ensuring there is fairness for the writers and composers of music. No one loses when a restaurant or bar decides to host a jam and someone sings a tune that has copywrite. And yet, those type of events are being shut down because owners are being harrassed by licensing agencies, including our provincial liquor board. We lost a good oldtime jam for running afoul of some ancient and arcane law that didn't allow people to play music in a bar if they were also a customer. In other words, if you didn't order anything to eat or drink, it was ok. Or something like that. It never became clear because the venue decided they didn't need the hassle. Been going for years, never a problem and now it's gone. Our licensing body in Canada is called SOCAN and they have luxiurious offices to work in while they draw their fat salaries, as they do their "very important work."

[Skunkwood]

My Favorite quote from Lowry's article:
‎"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!"

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/...gs-considered/

[taylor410]

Curse these parasites!

Agree

[TonyP]

I believe Chris is already right. The pro's I have contact with say it's the live performance that is doing the best monetarily.

While the article brought up a lot of points, there is some things that I think are conjecture based upon his own bias. We can probably only all rely on our own bias, but I wonder how many gigs he's actually played? I don't think the stats have ever really reflected what's going on, on the ground.

All my life it was understood by media etc that most folks wouldn't want their kids to be an artist, musician, dancer or actor. Pick something more for "sure". There were exceptions like "stage mom's", and now there's others like the Chris Thile's of the world. Where their parents saw early on this kid has place in life and it's their job to get them there.

This is a very complex situation, and it's not in any way I can see, going totally a new way. Except that somebody who's obscure could get more exposure through the net than they ever could before the net. But if you don't have the savy, capital and plain ol' hutzpa to market yourself to an ever widening audience, live, you can't expect to ever be able to support your art. Just the fact there are some really good non mainstream musicians, basically living on the road, and making some kind of living, isn't really taken into consideration IMHO. It's ALWAYS been tough. But now you can do it all yourself instead of relying on a label that absorbs 95% of the profit, or more.

I'm not saying is easy. We musicians, to our local market are seen as pet monkey's that will do anything for a drink and possibly a meal. But we still get people who stop and stare and drop tips and buy our cd's because they can't find music like ours on the radio or cable. Yeah, you have to hustle, and it's not easy or stable. But it beats leaving a chunk of your soul at a job you hate every day. What is mentioned in the article as seeming to be "culture" has been in trouble all of my 60yrs on this planet.

So all I can do is not worry about it and enjoy a little respite while I pick with my buddies even while it drains my pocketbook.

[Mark Robertson-Tessi]

All signs have pointed to the hobbyist becoming more and more the source of music production for some time now. Home studios, internet, decreasing quality standards have made it easy for more people to get in. You can listen to more bands than ever, but there is also more junk than ever to listen to. It's hard to see how this will all sort out. Clearly filesharing and the like is not going away anytime soon. But no one has proposed a good model to combat it.

With so much music out there, it's hard to imagine that pay-per-play sites like Spotify will ever be worth it to the musician. If you charge 10 bucks a month, and assume that people listen to 5 hours a day of music, you end up with 0.3 (one-third) of a cent per play. That's before overhead, so say you pay a tenth of a cent. Every time I listen to a 10-song album, the artist gets 1 cent total. I need to listen to an album 1000 times to generate 10 dollars to the artist. Extremely unlikely. Granted, more people might access your album this way than would have bought it outright. But the numbers are still grim. How many times have you listened to the average CD in your collection? 10? 20? 50 if it's a really good one? When we buy a CD, we are paying a lot more then 0.1 cents per play!

And now imagine that you have a huge catalog of music available with this pay-per-play service. You are probably less likely to play any album repeatedly. So the money gets spread pretty thin pretty quick.

Conundrum.

Cheers
MRT

[Laird]

Maybe it gets us back to olden times, when Live Music was the thing.

Yup, home-made music. I'll never forget, back in the 90s, talking with a hunger-striker camped out in front of the federal building in Eugene, Oregon.* He was this briliant, charismatic young man, a former EPA employee who was dwindling away to bones after more than a month of the hunger strike, and he was talking about how his musical tastes had changed in the process.

He said, to paraphrase, "Don't bring your boomboxes down here. I don't want to hear corporate music. Bring your drums, your guitars. Hell, pull your keys out of your pocket, if that's all you have. Let's make our own music!"

And then we jammed, one guy pounding on the bottom of a five-gallon bucket, a couple of people jangling their keys, the rest of us slapping our thighs and chanting. And you know what? It was great! Music by the people, for the people, just to express something deeply biological, emotional, powerful.

Don't get me wrong: right now our commercial society rewards a tiny minority of people for making really polished music, and that's okay. Run with it while you can. But people making music together, for no reward other than the experience itself--that's what music used to be, and what it probably will be again someday.

There's a whole rich world awaiting us once we get past this interpretive model based on commodifying every aspect of the human experience!

*(We were protesting a rider tacked onto a congressional bill to provide aid to Oklahoma City after the domestic terrorist attack; the rider allowed logging companies to go into protected forests to "salvage" timber, thereby encouraging corporate arson in public lands protected as endangered species habitat.)

[otterly2k]

My Favorite quote from Lowry's article:
‎"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!"

Yeah. loved that

[terzinator]

But people making music together, for no reward other than the experience itself--that's what music used to be, and what it probably will be again someday.

This is the thing. I've had way more enjoyment from this than anything else regarding music. I love going to see live music on a small stage. (I loved going to Grateful Dead shows back in the day, too.) I still love listening to great recordings on a great stereo. But the most fun of all is heading out to a festival or jam or pickin' party with a bunch of like-minded musicians, and jamming until our fingers are raw. Or bleeding.

That is the best.

[otterly2k]

Maybe (and I can't believe I'm saying this) there's a sports analogy here.

You can watch your favorite teams on tv and it's fun. You can go watch the games live at a stadium and it's a different experience (and I'd argue, a richer experience). But there's no substitute for playing yourself-- the benefits you get are far greater... and the same with music. A tiny minority of people are good enough and fortunate enough to play their game for their livelihood... but just about anyone can pick up a ball (or whatever) and find enjoyment at some level.

Of course, in this situation, there is no analog to the problem of recorded music. There's a very limited interest in recordings of games already played, since the results are already known.

nevermind

[terzinator]

I keep watching replays of Vikings Super Bowls on ESPN Classic, assuming that ONE OF THESE TIMES, the outcome will be different.