A devastating response to the "free music" generation.

[punkjazzben]

My suggestion: Release your music in a free/name your own price environment, as well as a paid one(like iTunes). If people like it, they will pay for it. And even the ones that won't will increase your exposure to other potential consumers.

I agree with the basic principle of letting the market decide. But...

Once upon a time, purchasing a CD was both beneficial to myself (I got to listen to music) and to the artist (they got paid). If the music sucked and no one wanted to buy it, too bad for the muso: that's just the way a free market works, yeah?

But, filesharing technology has transformed recordings into something like common or public goods, and you can longer exclude non-buyers from using the product. This allows the consumer - who is acting in self interest - to be better off (free music), but the artist is worse off (no pay). Without pay, there is little incentive for a musician to continue creating music on a full-time basis at the expense of other paid work; the quality and quantity declines, progress slows, and it is no longer in the artist's self-interest to perform lots and put out CDs. In short, there is a market failure.

The question is how to correct that failure.

Two simple solutions: either you put up with more government intervention in your online activities, or you pay for your music. I know what I'd prefer. Indeed, if government intervention of any sort meant that it is no longer in your self-interest to download music for free, then paying for it would only be the sensible thing to do. Market failure corrected!

 

[punkjazzben]

Further to the above, I should add that I agree that allowing some music into the realms of non-excludability (i.e. making it freely available for download) may actually increase Pareto efficiency.

The Internet people first thought that a 30 second streaming track would be enough to entice the listener, but others have shown that a whole track to listen to is an even better way to get people to buy your entire album, or at least the track they like. It makes sense really: people who hear a song on the radio are more likely to buy it if they hear the whole thing and not just a snippet. Anyway...

It seems that once too much music is given away free, you lose that optimum outcome and the artist starts suffering.

 

[beggar98]

I guessing that, even without patents or copyrights, you are very well compensated for your work. Unlike indie musicians who don't get a regular salary for their musical efforts.

This is what I think of when people bring up bands like Radiohead posting their record on a name-your-price basis. They already benefited from years of label support and income from recording and touring, to say what works for a group as massively popular as them should also work for bands no one has heard of is ridiculous.

 

[NateS]

I agree with the basic principle of letting the market decide. But...

Once upon a time, purchasing a CD was both beneficial to myself (I got to listen to music) and to the artist (they got paid). If the music sucked and no one wanted to buy it, too bad for the muso: that's just the way a free market works, yeah?

But, filesharing technology has transformed recordings into something like common or public goods, and you can longer exclude non-buyers from using the product. This allows the consumer - who is acting in self interest - to be better off (free music), but the artist is worse off (no pay). Without pay, there is little incentive for a musician to continue creating music on a full-time basis at the expense of other paid work; the quality and quantity declines, progress slows, and it is no longer in the artist's self-interest to perform lots and put out CDs. In short, there is a market failure.

The question is how to correct that failure.

Two simple solutions: either you put up with more government intervention in your online activities, or you pay for your music. I know what I'd prefer. Indeed, if government intervention of any sort meant that it is no longer in your self-interest to download music for free, then paying for it would only be the sensible thing to do. Market failure corrected!

Itsfunny how none of that is true. Are people playing less? Are people going to less shows? Cause I can tell you now, us young people are going to more shows than we can afford, and listening to more new music than we have time to play. Maybe you just haven't opened your eyes. Heard of EDM?

I'm just gonna say one name that shatters all of that. Skrillex. First album released for free made on a laptop in his apartment.

 

[FilterFunk]

I agree with the basic principle of letting the market decide. But...

Once upon a time, purchasing a CD was both beneficial to myself (I got to listen to music) and to the artist (they got paid). If the music sucked and no one wanted to buy it, too bad for the muso: that's just the way a free market works, yeah?

But, filesharing technology has transformed recordings into something like common or public goods, and you can longer exclude non-buyers from using the product. This allows the consumer - who is acting in self interest - to be better off (free music), but the artist is worse off (no pay). Without pay, there is little incentive for a musician to continue creating music on a full-time basis at the expense of other paid work; the quality and quantity declines, progress slows, and it is no longer in the artist's self-interest to perform lots and put out CDs. In short, there is a market failure.

The question is how to correct that failure.

Two simple solutions: either you put up with more government intervention in your online activities, or you pay for your music. I know what I'd prefer. Indeed, if government intervention of any sort meant that it is no longer in your self-interest to download music for free, then paying for it would only be the sensible thing to do. Market failure corrected!

I agree 100% with this post.

 

[FilterFunk]

This is what I think of when people bring up bands like Radiohead posting their record on a name-your-price basis. They already benefited from years of label support and income from recording and touring, to say what works for a group as massively popular as them should also work for bands no one has heard of is ridiculous.

Exactly.

 

[FilterFunk]

+1 ... and I'd go even further to say that to claim any ownership over any ideas, whether someone else's or your own is silly. What is an idea? Can you draw one for me? The idea of intellectual property is a silly concept, created in the interest of further protecting profiteering moguls who have no interest at all in collective innovation.

"Ideas" become songs, scripts, books, poems, etc. "Intellectual property" includes the initial "idea", and all the love, effort, time and money that goes into making it something that people want to listen to, read, watch, etc. When you listen to a song file, do you not think it's real? Do you think it just came out of thin air for your amusement?

People should always have the choice of whether to sell or give away the fruits of their labor.

 

[beggar98]

Itsfunny how none of that is true. Are people playing less? Are people going to less shows? Cause I can tell you now, us young people are going to more shows than we can afford, and listening to more new music than we have time to play. Maybe you just haven't opened your eyes. Heard of EDM?

I'm just gonna say one name that shatters all of that. Skrillex. First album released for free made on a laptop in his apartment.

Yes, people are playing less. There are 25% fewer people who consider themselves musicians today than there were in 2000.

 

[Jhengsman]

Yes, people are playing less. There are 25% fewer people who consider themselves musicians today than there were in 2000.

And in 18 years the USPS has dropped from 800,000 to almost 500,000 and other industries have also faced job destruction due to emerging technology.

The recording industry, which we are all talking about protecting, itself cut the jobs for musicians as a relatively few studio pros and their recordings replaced the house bands and touring acts playing for many venues

 

[Kwesi]

Yes, people are playing less. There are 25% fewer people who consider themselves musicians today than there were in 2000.

Why do I not believe this? I mean, I know it's statistics and all but that just sounds wrong to me.

 

[Gaius46]

Lots of thought provoking activity on this thread lately.

A couple of thoughts without benefit of quoting the poster that inspired it (sorry about that, the iPhone app is a bit clumsy):

To the gentleman that came up with the move-into-a-vacant-apartment analogy... that's a really good one, it's really given me pause. Any analogy that involves depriving the owner of their property (e.g.: bottle of scotch, jeans, car... I count wear and tear on a car as a cost), I don't buy it...the whole point is that digital files are copies, the owner was not deprived if I never planned to buy the item anyways.

Since you seem to put such a premium on the physicality of a CD how much of a CD's cost do you suppose raw materials and pressing make up? A fraction.

When you purchase music what you are effectively purchasing is a license to listen to that music whenever and wherever you want.

In the case of a CD a very small part of that goes for the cost of creating the CD. The majority goes to engineering, mastering, salaries, royalties. In short putting food on peoples' tables.

 

[pmchenry]

Sheesh... this argument is still raging on? Well all I can say is no matter how many arguments you wage on the interweb messageboards, it doesn't really matter. We've already won. There's no way to stop filesharing, and it's popularity is only going to increase with each young person who enters the market(and each old person who leaves the market).

Despite what you may have heard about getting ISP's into the fight, that won't matter. Technology is too adaptable, servers are too mobile, proxies too hard to track. Piratebay is already banned by all major ISP's in the UK, which simply gave rise to hundreds of tutorial sites telling Brits how to get around the block. Peerblock is lightyears ahead of tracking software to identify individual pirates, making it safer than ever to download whatever you want.

This argument will never be settled, but the war is already over. Time to take a fatalistic and cynical view of "these damn kids" and lament the passing of "the good old days".

 

[beggar98]

And in 18 years the USPS has dropped from 800,000 to almost 500,000 and other industries have also faced job destruction due to emerging technology.

The recording industry, which we are all talking about protecting, itself cut the jobs for musicians as a relatively few studio pros and their recordings replaced the house bands and touring acts playing for many venues

There are so many holes in this, I'm not sure where to begin...

1. The USPS is also being crushed by the tech revolution, as people no longer use the snail mail when they can send e-mail, pay bills online, etc. Luckily, the USPS doesn't really have any cultural value, as opposed to say, I don't know, recorded music?

2. I'm not sure your ideas of house bands vs. touring acts makes sense. A gig is a gig. If concert revenues are really fine, as NateS claims, then someone has to be playing all those shows.

3. The record industry started laying people off when their revenues got destroyed by people stealing form them.

 

[DeadGoonz]

Perhaps more government regulations are what's needed in this situation. We are all well aware how well the federal government controls and regulates. That will save the music!... sarcasm.

 

[beggar98]

Sheesh... this argument is still raging on? Well all I can say is no matter how many arguments you wage on the interweb messageboards, it doesn't really matter. We've already won. There's no way to stop filesharing, and it's popularity is only going to increase with each young person who enters the market(and each old person who leaves the market).

Despite what you may have heard about getting ISP's into the fight, that won't matter. Technology is too adaptable, servers are too mobile, proxies too hard to track. Piratebay is already banned by all major ISP's in the UK, which simply gave rise to hundreds of tutorial sites telling Brits how to get around the block. Peerblock is lightyears ahead of tracking software to identify individual pirates, making it safer than ever to download whatever you want.

This argument will never be settled, but the war is already over. Time to take a fatalistic and cynical view of "these damn kids" and lament the passing of "the good old days".

This is not true, but I'm glad you and your kind think it is.

 

[beggar98]

Perhaps more government regulations are what's needed in this situation. We are all well aware how well the federal government controls and regulates. That will save the music!... sarcasm.

We don't need more regulation. We just need a better way to enforce existing regulations.

 

[NateS]

So where was that musician signup list that was passed around? Cause I never saw it, I need to check my name....does that make it 24% now?

Do we need statistics on other "industries" who have less workers? Or can we look at facts? Everything has crunched in the last 10 years. nice to pick a nice round number of people who are no longer musicians. Sucks for them to have given up. I still have a show 3 nights out of a week to go to at the national, and any other night at the canal club, kingdom, the camel, the Jefferson theater, cous cous, strange matter, mojo's, balliceaux, the hat factory. Welcome to the city of Richmond, did I leave a bunch out? And all the festivals! Starscape, boneroo, campbisco, psychedelic dreamscape, the midsummer night's rave, that's just off the top of my head.

Surely you can do the same for your city, too. And music is dieing?

 

[beggar98]

So where was that musician signup list that was passed around? Cause I never saw it, I need to check my name....does that make it 24% now?

Do we need statistics on other "industries" who have less workers? Or can we look at facts? Everything has crunched in the last 10 years. nice to pick a nice round number of people who are no longer musicians. Sucks for them to have given up. I still have a show 3 nights out of a week to go to at the national, and any other night at the canal club, kingdom, the camel, the Jefferson theater, cous cous, strange matter, mojo's, balliceaux, the hat factory. Welcome to the city of Richmond, did I leave a bunch out? And all the festivals! Starscape, boneroo, campbisco, psychedelic dreamscape, the midsummer night's rave, that's just off the top of my head.

Surely you can do the same for your city, too. And music is dieing?

I thought it was clear the statistic referred to professional musicians. Music isn't dying, but the ability to make a living doing it is.

 

[CrewsControl]

I got many examples to rebut you, but let me just put this one out there: Linux.

OK, a second one: Apache.

Oh, what the hell, Perl too. And MySQL.

Together, they are the LAMP of the Internet. All free of charge, developed collaboratively, given to the world as a gift.

An internet that would be absolutely worthless without computers and networks built for profit, and without content created for profit.

The internet existed and grew long before there was a profit motive to promote its growth, and the software that runs it today was developed before there was any commercial application for it. The fact the Linux and Apache and Perl and MySQL and all the rest became commercially valuable was an accident that happened without deliberate planning, and even despite efforts on the part some of the developers to prevent it from happening. Many still feel the value of the internet has diminished since its widespread commercialization began in the 1990's.

Calling the internet before you got on it "absolutely worthless" is worthless hyperventilating. I might argue that the commercialization of the internet led directly to the massive copyright infringement regime that exists today. So you can thank the profit motive for that.

 

[MatticusMania]

I do think music is important, but access to music without having to buy it is everywhere. There's terrestrial radio, internet radio, streaming services, etc., all legal and all compensate musicians.

This is true. Ive been using Spotify to check out new artists and listen to their albums since Ive not had money to go out and buy them. I hope the artists are being compennsated. Ive also noticed that some artists music is not available on there.