Continuing the copyright discussion...

[teleharmonium]

The way I see it, musicians need to get back to the life of a troubador.

With everyone wanting to be "stars", be it American Idolatry, or TV Reality show-offs and the Internet, the idea that a band can take the world by storm ala the Beatles, et al are over.

With the ability to record and sell directly from the comfort of one's own living room and with such fierce competition from the entire planet, there simply lacks any real authenticity or originality any longer. Even original acts are now doing remakes (ahem...covers) and foregoing the trouble of trying to create anything new under the sun. The music business has become so much business, and so little music, that it's scarcely relevant.

As an artist, I no longer sign my paintings and simply put an Om symbol on them and let them go for a price. I make a living from the next painting sale, or as a musician, from the next gig. I no longer deal with the insanity or superficiality of trying to "make it big". I no longer feel the need to live up to unrealistic expectations, save for what my band can do for an audience on any given night.

Music has become more spiritual for me, where it infuses me with an energy I can both give and receive in a live setting. I get more from performing live without the worry about the "business" aspect of it. I'll leave that to those in search of stardom.

Copyright, shmoppyright. I don't even care anymore.

Without dissing your viewpoint, I would say that there is no inherent connection between the principle of sales of recordings, and lofty or unrealistic expectations. It is entirely possible to be a small independent businessman selling a few recordings, just like you sell a few paintings.

The worldwide audience is so large that even a relatively non commercial recording artist, if they do a good job, should be able to find an audience. With the middleman cut out, not that many would need to be sold in order to make a living.

 

[Sundogue]

Without dissing your viewpoint, I would say that there is no inherent connection between the principle of sales of recordings, and lofty or unrealistic expectations. It is entirely possible to be a small independent businessman selling a few recordings, just like you sell a few paintings.

The worldwide audience is so large that even a relatively non commercial recording artist, if they do a good job, should be able to find an audience. With the middleman cut out, not that many would need to be sold in order to make a living.

Oh, I'm not opposed to recordings at all. I was talking more about this relatively new (within the last ten years or so) search for the next big thing, or a musician or band's obsession with the climb to fame and wealth. Specifically how it relates to copyright and how closely we wish to keep our creative treasures locked in a vault that is only opened for a price.

As an artist, so many other artists are just taken aback and literally argue with me that I need to copyright and sign my work to protect me. My argument with them is that I no longer feel the need to protect myself from anything. Protect myself from what? Someone loves my work so much they want to steal it for themselves? Steal it so they can get rich off it?

Go right on ahead. I do not seek fame nor fortune. I only wish to make a living. My life's pursuits aren't about getting rich or obtaining notoriety.

As great as our society is, and as wonderful as capitalism works, we are getting sucked into a very possessive black hole of selfishness on so many levels it just disgusts me.

And maybe it's just the "hippie" in me, but when so many people around the world are suffering, how we get so caught up in "me and mine" and "you can't have it unless you pay for it" I find it spiritually and creatively debilitating.

Make no mistake though. I sell my paintings for a price and I charge for my band to play a gig and when we have our recordings we'll charge for them. But if someone wants to copy my work for any reason, go ahead. The thought or idea was never "mine" to begin with. Of course the whole idea of originality is a philosophical debate way beyond this discussion, relevant as it may be.

 

[Jason P Bass]

I'm not really seeing the down side of recorded music as a sellable commodity. What's wrong with that ? I can think of few more noble products. After the basic essentials, music is a pretty cool thing to spend money on, IMO. I enjoy it, in ways that are unique to recordings (rather than live where you hear it once) and it helps more music be created.

Oh it's a great idea, but it's like selling jokes. Once you tell a joke once, everybody who heard it can repeat it. The ONLY way you can sell jokes is to people with a big audience - i.e. writing jokes for Letterman, a big name comedian, or a TV show. Patronage, basically.

When you deal in a reality-based analysis of the music industry, the content is SOOOoooo easy to "pirate" that it's almost indistinguishable from selling jokes. Except they're trying to sell jokes to every person who wants to hear it. Good luck. I have money to invest, but I wouldn't go near a recording studio or record company. They're selling buggy whips in an automobile age.

 

[Jason P Bass]

Without dissing your viewpoint, I would say that there is no inherent connection between the principle of sales of recordings, and lofty or unrealistic expectations. It is entirely possible to be a small independent businessman selling a few recordings, just like you sell a few paintings.

The worldwide audience is so large that even a relatively non commercial recording artist, if they do a good job, should be able to find an audience. With the middleman cut out, not that many would need to be sold in order to make a living.

Here's where I have to respectfully disagree.

According to the existing copyright law, you are 100% correct.

But according to the realities of the market, and the reality of music piracy in the last 10 years, it will simply not happen. While the law says it SHOULD be possible, the reality is that it is just not possible to sell a small number of recordings as a means of supporting oneself.

I, for one, don't think that will change.

In a way this brings us to an observation I have that people rarely tolerate - Every market is part of the black market.

Somebody in near my town was recently robbed at knife point of his [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. See, no matter what it is, there's a line where everything becomes the black market.

With musical recordings, the difficulty in "stealing" them is SOOOooo LOoooow that hardly anybody bothers staying legit. Good luck changing that.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Oh it's a great idea, but it's like selling jokes. Once you tell a joke once, everybody who heard it can repeat it. The ONLY way you can sell jokes is to people with a big audience - i.e. writing jokes for Letterman, a big name comedian, or a TV show. Patronage, basically.

When you deal in a reality-based analysis of the music industry, the content is SOOOoooo easy to "pirate" that it's almost indistinguishable from selling jokes. Except they're trying to sell jokes to every person who wants to hear it. Good luck. I have money to invest, but I wouldn't go near a recording studio or record company. They're selling buggy whips in an automobile age.

Exactly. That's why if you want to 'make it big' in music you shouldn't be looking towards song sales through iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc... You should put much more focus on performances and putting on killer shows. That kind of stuff you have to pay for. You can't download the experience of going to a show. You have to look at the music business as if it's a service industry and not a commodities one.

 

[teleharmonium]

Oh it's a great idea, but it's like selling jokes. Once you tell a joke once, everybody who heard it can repeat it. The ONLY way you can sell jokes is to people with a big audience - i.e. writing jokes for Letterman, a big name comedian, or a TV show. Patronage, basically.

When you deal in a reality-based analysis of the music industry, the content is SOOOoooo easy to "pirate" that it's almost indistinguishable from selling jokes. Except they're trying to sell jokes to every person who wants to hear it. Good luck. I have money to invest, but I wouldn't go near a recording studio or record company. They're selling buggy whips in an automobile age.

I understand your argument, but I don't think it's so interchangeable with something like a joke which has disappearing value once you hear it. Good music rewards repeated listening, and it's value as an experience relates to many other things. It's somewhat like movies in that you can watch a movie on a phone or on a TV but there is a different experience actually watching in on film in a theater with a big sound system. The experience is tied to the quality of the playback environment.

 

[Jason P Bass]

Exactly. That's why if you want to 'make it big' in music you shouldn't be looking towards song sales through iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc... You should put much more focus on performances and putting on killer shows. That kind of stuff you have to pay for. You can't download the experience of going to a show. You have to look at the music business as if it's a service industry and not a commodities one.

I agree with this 1000% even though it's mathematically impossible.

 

[Jason P Bass]

I understand your argument, but I don't think it's so interchangeable with something like a joke which has disappearing value once you hear it. Good music rewards repeated listening, and it's value as an experience relates to many other things. It's somewhat like movies in that you can watch a movie on a phone or on a TV but there is a different experience actually watching in on film in a theater with a big sound system. The experience is tied to the quality of the playback environment.

But watching movies on your phone is an exploding industry, and watching movies in the theater is a dying industry.

 

[Sundogue]

But watching movies on your phone is an exploding industry, and watching movies in the theater is a dying industry.

Perhaps it has something to do with the pace of life these days. We live in a soundbite world, where someday all we will have for movies is the trailer.

Did you see that trailer? Who starred in that? Wasn't that awesome? Oh, you didn't see it? Here...look at my phone...

Music samples will be all we'll need. If you want the whole song you'll have to see it live. If you want a full length motion picture, you'll have to see the "motion" from the actors on the stage in front of you.

Not a bad trend IMO. Technology killed the _star.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

I agree with this 1000% even though it's mathematically impossible.

Haha! I dunno, man. Phish made it big just by playing shows that were constantly changing and unique from one another. I'm not sure if they even had the support of a big record label until after they had already became famous in the jam band scene and were already 'making it' as musicians.

I should note that with my previous post I wasn't trying to instigate the idea that you can get by without having any recordings. I just meant that you shouldn't expect your main source of income to come from those sales anymore.

 

[Jason P Bass]

Yeah, but the "copyright battle / getting RICH from selling recordings" controversy has never affected true-blue entertainers.

See, for example, Lady Gaga. Say what you will about her music, her stage show is a spectacle and when she comes through on tour, I'd be tempted to go see her. HATE her genre, HATE most of her music, but I would pay to see her performance.

Katy Perry is in the same boat, but IMO my impression of her stage show is a pale imitation of what Lady Gaga does. Not getting my dollars.

I can't wait to see The Flaming Lips live. Their live show is a mind blowing carnival. (I did buy 2 of their albums on old fashioned CD - including the song "Fight Test" for which 75% of the royalties go to Cat Stevens for ripping off his song, haha, how appropriate to the discussion.)

But selling a live concert experience is a whole different ballgame from selling recordings. I would pay to see GWAR (are they still around?) but don't know a single song and would never buy their music.

 

[fdeck]

This, from the US Constitution:

... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

If the rights of creative people are a historical anomaly, then I'd argue that the entire modern age is a historical anomaly. In Medieval times, it was considered immoral for someone to profit from an invention.

The words in the Constitution are no accident. Modern governments developed patent and copyright systems to promote economic progress.

Why do we need to decide on behalf of musicians, how they should earn a living? Let the musicians decide. If they don't want to own their works, they can release them to the public domain.

Why do we need to decide whether it's OK to get rich making music? Let the musicians decide if they want to try getting rich.

 

[Jason P Bass]

Why do we need to decide whether it's OK to get rich making music? Let the musicians decide if they want to try getting rich.

For the record, I'm not arguing whether it's RIGHT or OK to get rich from selling recordings.

I'm merely opining that, from a practical perspective, it's not going to happen. The market will not bear it.

 

[fdeck]

For the record, I'm not arguing whether it's RIGHT or OK to get rich from selling recordings.

I'm merely opining that, from a practical perspective, it's not going to happen. The market will not bear it.

I think that the market has changed, and "recordings" have a broader definition. Considering what music adds to televised sports, video games, and so forth, I think that music will remain a commercially viable enterprise for the foreseeable future.

 

[Jason P Bass]

I think that the market has changed, and "recordings" have a broader definition. Considering what music adds to televised sports, video games, and so forth, I think that music will remain a commercially viable enterprise for the foreseeable future.

I agree with this as well.

 

[teleharmonium]

But watching movies on your phone is an exploding industry, and watching movies in the theater is a dying industry.

I don't think movie theaters are in danger of dying anytime soon. On page 14 of [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] there is a chart showing the % of the population that goes to the movies weekly. It's been sticking right around 10% since 1964, which means it's kept up with population growth. There are about 300 million people in this country; 30 million customers a week, spending what, $10 each or so on average (just counting the regulars, not people like me that go occasionally), sounds pretty healthy to me.

In any case, everything changes. There's no basis for assuming that bad things will stick around any more than good things. Nor that something that is not valued highly today will remain so. Just look at water; when I was a kid everybody drank tap water, and now bottled water is a huge industry with many competitive offerings.

Markets change, and most people go with the herd. It wouldn't take all that much; visibly increased enforcement and some new anti piracy technology, and in 2 or 3 years most people are buying music again.

 

[seanm]

I don't think movie theaters are in danger of dying anytime soon. On page 14 of [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] there is a chart showing the % of the population that goes to the movies weekly. It's been sticking right around 10% since 1964, which means it's kept up with population growth. There are about 300 million people in this country; 30 million customers a week, spending what, $10 each or so on average (just counting the regulars, not people like me that go occasionally), sounds pretty healthy to me.

In any case, everything changes. There's no basis for assuming that bad things will stick around any more than good things. Nor that something that is not valued highly today will remain so. Just look at water; when I was a kid everybody drank tap water, and now bottled water is a huge industry with many competitive offerings.

Markets change, and most people go with the herd. It wouldn't take all that much; visibly increased enforcement and some new anti piracy technology, and in 2 or 3 years most people are buying music again.

I bet that graph would drop right off after 2000.

 

[Jason P Bass]

Markets change, and most people go with the herd. It wouldn't take all that much; visibly increased enforcement and some new anti piracy technology, and in 2 or 3 years most people are buying music again.

Here's a Invalid Link Removed from 2009 that suggests that 230 Million songs are illegally downloaded per Day. That's about 6.9 Billion illegal downloads per month, and about 80 Billion illegal downloads per year.

So when you suggest that it wouldn't take all that much to reverse this tsunami in 36 months, I remain skeptical.

 

[teleharmonium]

Here's a Invalid Link Removed from 2009 that suggests that 230 Million songs are illegally downloaded per Day. That's about 6.9 Billion illegal downloads per month, and about 80 Billion illegal downloads per year.

So when you suggest that it wouldn't take all that much to reverse this tsunami in 36 months, I remain skeptical.

I would say that skepticism is appropriate; after all, I'm only talking about a possibility. It's not a prediction and as I visualized it, it would require two different significant future events. One of those IMO is likely, the other, I'm guessing not; and it's hard to say how society would react, how long that reaction would take, and how it would ultimately settle.

On the other hand, I think the presumption that a recent development will never change, with really only "that's the way it is now" and (plausible) generalizations about human nature as the gist of the argument, also deserves skepticism.

The only constant about popular music in modern times is that it has been changing dramatically about every ten to twenty years since about the turn of the 20th century. I don't think it's radical to expect that to continue. The question is what form with the coming changes take.

Change doesn't need to be total to be very significant. If 25% of the estimated illegal downloads you mentioned get turned through a combination of a well executed PR campaign appealing to ethics and showing real world impact on actual musicians, and an increasing desire for higher quality recordings than what the trend is looking to be in another decade (given the recent and ongoing losses of studios and the many disappearing careers), that's 20 B a year or so flowing back into whomever is left making legitimate product. That's enough for quite a few people to use as a life raft.

 

[teleharmonium]

I bet that graph would drop right off after 2000.

That one only goes to 2002 if I'm reading it right, but according to this Link Removed, annual ticket sales are steady and are actually up from the mid 90s, though not quite as high as 2002 which was a big year. And revenue has actually about doubled since then - I'm assuming the chart is not adjusted to 2011 dollars, but even so, that's very strong.

You might want to rethink that bet.