text:
"The singer from Future of the Left, Falco, has taken a full page advert in The Guardian (p18), paid for by UK Music. "Some of us, in all honestly, just want to make the music we love and play it around the world without living in poverty." The advert's message is lifted from a MySpace post"
Very, very well put. Dunno how I missed this when it was originally posted.
I don't know why I bothered to buy the guardian today when I can just read that on his myspace.
But yeah, he's right, obviously. Did you know that I do not own a single piece of pirated music? Yes, I would like a medal.
Hats off to him
Very good piece, but he's missing something out. Records don't have to leak. It's up to the band and management to make sure they don't, if they want to maximise the return from their work. Yeah, it's quite sad that albums should be locked in a vault, that promos have to be watermarked and sent as close to release date as possible, that records should have to be streamed before release to kill demand for pirated material, but all of these approaches can work to minimize the effect of piracy.
On a personal note, the only records I download for free these days are ones that aren't commercially available any more. And even that's been on the wane since Spotify appeared.
getting a record released involves
a shitload more people than just band and management; it's a process involving dozens and dozens of people at many stages and so it's VERY hard to avoid leaks
i dunno
by the looks of things the FOTL album leaked somewhere that wasn't in-house - maybe mastering or production. at some point in the standard manufacturing process of an album these days, if you're going to be in with a hope of making it in a cost-effective way, at some point, there's going to be a place the album is sitting where one copy could be made - and one copy is all it takes.
it's all very well if you're radiohead and have unlimited funds, you can go to the production house and say "i demand 24/7 surveillance of the copy of our album", but if you're a small label trying to make money in a rapidly diminishing market, then that's going to cost way more than you could ever claw back from the album, leak or no leak.
but it can and has been be done, no?
When a record is finished, the band and management have got a hot potato in their hands. What they choose to do with it then, at that point, determines whether it'll be leaked or not. If it isn't physically available to anyone except them, in a vault or safe somewhere, it isn't going anywhere. There's a possibility it could leak in the manufacturing/warehousing process, but again, it's up to management to ensure that doesn't happen. Making it clear that if an album leaks it will lose that firm your business, perhaps even writing a contract including clauses that will make them liable for X amount should the album enter the public arena too early? Maybe taking on warehousing costs isn't something that a large label could consider, but depending on demand, couldn't small labels work around that by self storage and/or printing orders to foreseen demand after a certain date?
It could get messy when it comes to promotion. But it doesn't have to. Listening parties stop early distribution to journalists, right? It's not just good old schmoozing and free beer, it's making sure there's no physical copies in the hands of anyone for as long as possible. There's still word of mouth, it 'sounds like X', etc. After that, you have make sure that promo copies are strictly limited and trackable, and that they stay with who they go to up until the point of release. For that, people (internal and external) have to be aware that bad distribution will cost them dearly. They should be liable to being prosecuted under copyright law. A lot of promo packages are very serious looking these days, I've noticed. Numbered and named, watermarked. So much for Ebay.
I'd never go as far as saying it's simple to stop records from leaking, but if you set a protocol in place it should at least be likely to be avoided until the product is almost on the shelves. By which point demand for the could have been sated by pre-orders, single track giveaways, and streaming. If the model for distribution isn't working, and makes you likely to lose income, look at the model. How can a label streamline and secure the production process? Does the time between the studio and the shelves need to be shorter?
I know there are lots of people involved in the production and release of albums, but shouldn't it be possible to dissipate the level of piracy at source?
I think you're being unrealistic.
a) Printing orders to demand (assuming you're talking about albums) pushes up costs considerably. It's way more economically viable to get a load printed up in one go/
b) Even with a band like Future of the Left, they're not exactly huge and probably not the top of every music magazine/broadsheet's agenda. If they sent a CD for the Guardian or NME or whoever to review then it'll probably get listened to and reviewed eventually but if the journalist couldn't make that date, or couldn't be arsed to go along to the listening party, the album just wouldn't get reviewed. Listening parties in that manner only work for bands where there's a real demand for journalists to hear the album. I.e. huge major label bands but not mosdt indie bands.Jamie_Summers this'd this
However, I will say the processes can, and should still be looked into. It's easy to blame piracy, semantics beside, because it's the act of theft. But if you can find ways to improve security, why not make it harder for the pirates?
believe me
it is being looked into, daily, in a lot of detail. by people whose businesses and jobs depend on it.
the one thing they have, that isnt usually considered in these kinds of theoretical discussions, is hard facts and figures concerning costs and budgets.
Guess that's what keeps this kind of discussion theoretical, then
I'd be a little bemused to see a graph on a flip chart in my kitchen when I go to make a cup of tea ;)
Still, this topic does interest me, layman though I am.
It'd be interesting to hear those same people talk on the supposed benefits of piracy, the extra gig tickets/t-shirts bought. The potential benefit of having more people hear an album they haven't paid for in terms of getting a band exposure. Those wouldn't be points I'd advocate, mind; just ones that have popped up from time to time.
How do these people feel about Twitter things like It's Leaked? Do they take one biscuit or two with their coffee? Oh, the questions I'd ask.
in an ideal world, yes
if you try and legally bind production houses or other external companies without compensating them for the cost and inconvenience, they'll tell you to go take your business elsewhere - their margins are so small, to make a special exception for your record would cost far more than is worth it. i've seen it - the margins are small, the figures just don't balance.
all your points about promo securing are being done very succesfully these days. but in a business, everything costs money. if an album is only going to sell 1500 copies, there's literally no budget to spend on expensive watermarked promo packages.
how do you own something if it has no value or if you exchanged nothing but time to consume it?
"owns" any pirated music... that's the issue </pedant> :)
any chance of a c&p?
for the jobbers
How deliciously ironic
jim fork
It's difficult to express exactly what I felt when I found out, last
wednesday, that the album had made it's way onto the internet. 22nd
april - approximately eight and a half weeks before release and only
three since the fucking thing was mastered and whilst members of the
band don't have shiny little embossed copies there is a promotional cd
of the record on sale at ebay for twenty five quid.
I drank a bottle of Jamesons and began to lecture the cat on copyright
control. To her credit, she simply fell asleep as Law and Order went
about its business in the background.
Myself, Kelson and a couple of the guys at Beggars spent 72 hours or
so pissing around, sending angry emails to proud bloggers (and oh, the
fucking pride of the feckless thief) and, amongst others, a Russian
website that was already charging people for the songs. Motherfuckers.
I guess that since the bottom has fallen out of the arms trade, any
collection of notes, however obscure, is a legitimate income source.
So, anyway, the fucking thing has leaked despite our desperate
delaying tactics and you may have listened to it / be dowloading it
this second / have taken the position that you'd rather wait for the
actual release - regardless, it feels that getting annoyed about
downloading in this valueless modern age is like taking issue with
water for being wet or night for gradually turning into day because
ultimately the entitlement that most people feel for free music
completely overshadows any moral or legal issues and conflicts that
may arise in the hearts and minds of better people, people who
understand that actions, on both an individual and group level, have
consequences far beyond that moment of instant gratification.
There's so much to say with so little effect on this issue, so many
well-intentioned but wasted words devoted to it ... but anyway,
thankyou for downloading in barely a minute something that we poured a
year of our lives into, attempting (successfully, I believe) with a
great and furious pride to better our previous low-selling (and leaked
three months early) album, a record which flew under the radar for
many reasons but mostly because most of the goodwill poured on it
happened and had dwindled several months before it was available to
Yes, buy. Such a dirty fucking word. Currency exchanged for goods and
services. Food, Clothing, Butt-plugs and fucking H2O. How far, I
wonder does this entitlement for free music go? My guitars, should
they be free? Petrol to get us to shows? Perhaps I should come to an
arrangement with my landlord, through the musician-rent-waiver
Perhaps he should pay me, for his ninth-division indie-cred through association.
You will have to excuse me, people of the internet. It turns out that
I just wanted a big party with balloons and streamers to celebrate
everything we put into this thing, released into the physical world
with a fanfare and fuss befitting its status. I'm not angry (in fact I
don't blame you, unless you leaked it, in which case I WILL KILL YOU),
just a little worried that the record we made will get lost amongst
the debris and leave us playing shows like we just weathered at the
laughably bad Camden Crawl this last weekend - fifteen people and a
world of disillusion.*
Anyway - please be careful, or we'll get the world we all deserve.
Hobby bands who can tour once every few years if they're lucky, and
the superstars, freed from such inconvenient baggage as integrity and
conscience, running the corporate sponsored marathon of £80-a-ticket
arena tours and television adverts til their loveless hearts explode
in an orgy of oppressive branding and self-regard. Some of us, in all
honestly, just want to make the music we love and play it around the
world without living in poverty.
We'll be announcing some deal involving pre-orders of the cd/lp with
an immediate download in the next few days.
Do consult your surroundings before proceeding.
*Next time somebody tells me that i can't drink my rider in the
building I'm playing in I'm going to fuck them with their own shoes.
hero.dis-integration this'd this
Is it me, or is a proper pushback against illegal downloads finally starting to gain a bit of momentum?
Maybe I'm just imagining it. But it seems like the 'stigma' of being a musician and speaking out against it is disappearing somewhat.
It seems like it's taken a decade to get to grips with it all and where it'll end up if almost nobody pays for anything, ever - perhaps because there's an entire generation of bands who have known nothing but an environment where music is 'free'. Hearing Metallica or Radiohead talking about it, from either side of the equation, doesn't quite have the same impact when you know that they've made their millions already.
Anyway, it certainly carries a bit more weight when it comes from someone in FOTL than, say, Lily Allen
Old post though isn't it?
I can remember it being discussed a fair bit back in April.
It's in today's paper though.
I'm not sure whether the Guardian (a sanctuary for the £50 bloke that actually pays for stuff) is the best place for the advert, but if it means that websites end up talking about it, then I suppose it's done its job.
As much as I love Falco, and as much as he is a very clever and funny man
I'm afraid he's rather pissing into the wind on this one, bless him.
Firstly, as mentioned above, leaks, though lamentable, are incredibly difficult to prevent and more to the point the resources required to do so will almost always be disproportionate to the benefit gained.
Secondly, his line about downloading in seconds what he's worked on for years is nonsense - if I bought it from iTunes, it would also take seconds. I suspect Mr Falco isn't so comfortable with modern times.
Thirdly, his attempt to draw an analogy between digital files which may be copied infinitely for free therefore meaning his guitars, petrol and rent should be free represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the economic tenet of scarcity and why those examples are categorically different, though he remains entitled to a moral argument on that point.
Fourthly: "Some of us, in all honesty, just want to make the music we love and play it around the world without living in poverty". Well that sounds just splendid, and I bet most of us wish that we were able to pursue our hobbies and interests on an international scale without troubling ourselves with finances or jobs, but unfortunately for Falco and everyone else in the world (apart from perhaps lucky enough to be moneyed), if other people don't have much demand for the fruits of your leisure, then you'll have to get a job which might be less enjoyable but for which there is a demand to supplement your music-making.
Falco doesn't do this as an 'interest' or a 'hobby'. He devotes his life to it.
Furthermore, i'd imagine that if everyone who has actually heard Mclusky/Future Of The Left's records HAD paid for them, he'd be rather better off. The 'demand' of which you speak is a bogus one: PEOPLE DON'T PAY FOR RECORDS ANYMORE, therefore ARTIST SUFFERS. What part of that is unclear to you?bottom this'd this
'Secondly, his line about downloading in seconds what he's worked on for years is nonsense - if I bought it from iTunes, it would also take seconds. I suspect Mr Falco isn't so comfortable with modern times.'
How desperately condescending.
I think Falco is taking issue with the culture of ILLEGAL instant downloads.
You know, sometimes (MOST of the time) i find myself typing responses on here, wondering why the fuck people spout misguided toss like this. Do people just love being contradictory without actually thinking this shit through?
"Falco doesn't do this as an 'interest' or a 'hobby'. He devotes his life to it"
What a spurious distinction. So he's really keen on his hobby. I'd love to hear your definitional divide between the two and why it has any material impact on the issue in question.
Of course he'd be better off if everyone who'd ever heard of his bands bought his records, but not everyone wants his records, and plenty of people who wouldn't mind his records still aren't interested in them enough to want to pay for them.
"PEOPLE DON'T PAY FOR RECORDS ANYMORE, therefore ARTIST SUFFERS. What part of that is unclear to you?"
None of that is unclear to me. Technology has impacted upon the ability of people to earn money through a particular endeavour because it has made their output abundant. What part of that is unclear to you? I would like to point out that I'm expressing my understanding of the state of affairs, more than I'm expressing an opinion on the merits of that state of affairs.
I'd love to hear yours!
If you enjoy your work, does that make it a hobby? Where are you putting the distinction? And what knowledge of the time and energy Falco puts into being a musician do you have?
I have very little knowledge of the time and energy Falco puts in to his music
though I imagine it's plenty if he doesn't have another job. I think you're getting bogged down in this hobby/work distinction. The point is, it may be that what you choose to do in the interest of obtaining income, which in Falco's case is selling records etc, may not generate sufficient income to sustain your lifestyle. That will of course vary according to the person's living costs and all that, but many people will need to replace or supplement their income choice so that they may pursue their interest and be able to afford to live, because not many people can actually make their interest their source of income. Falco comes across as though he is entitled to his music to pay him a comfortable salary without the need for any other employment, and that just might not be the case.
*pinches bridge of nose*
You say nobody is entitled to earn a living through their 'hobby'. This statement is true, up to a point. But if people start actively taking the output of your 'hobby', without your consent, and without paying for it, then you ARE entitled to recompense.
That is morally and legally undeniable, even for someone being as obtuse as you.
Just to be clear that I'm not advocating for leaks
But after the record is released then there is consent for it to be listened to - by definition, given that the artist has placed the product 'on sale'.
I'm not sure by what mechanism you mean that they are entitled to recompense. I'd also be wary of throwing around moral and legal absolutes, as I'm not sure you've really gauged that very accurately.
"But after the record is released then there is consent for it to be listened to - by definition, given that the artist has placed the product 'on sale'."
wtf are you on?
Well, I do a lot of work in publishing
and there are certain limits to the amount of a published article you can quote online, just as there are limits to the number of pages you can legally photocopy out of a magazine or book.
This is really no different to the model with downloading music - these books are for sale, or the articles are online, and can be duplicated without damaging the original. And, by and large, the industry has abided by these rules for years.
if you got your paycheque at the end of the month and your boss hadn't bothered to pay you the full amount, most people wouldn't go "oh well, this kind of thing happens, i better stop expecting to get paid in full. i should go get another job", you'd actually be pretty upset about it. possibly even try and sue because it is illegal.
similar with music. rather than sitting by and going "well, getting music for free, this kind of thing happens, i better stop expecting to get paid for my music, and go and get a better job", falco's actually getting upset. not to the point of sueing people, despite it being illegal, but he's still upset.
yeah, in both cases you could accept it's the status quo, which is what you're saying, i think. but in both cases, society suffers - whether it be a corrupt working system where nobody gets fair wage cos it's the 'norm', or whether it be a culture where the opportunities to make music are strangled to death. the alternative is to take a stand and start fighting to make things a bit fairer before it's too late.
Jesus, what a load of old donkey cock
1. Leaks are hard to prevent, therefore he shouldn't be complaining about it?
2. You're either an extremely literal man or being deliberately stupid. When he talks about downloading in seconds what he's worked on for years, I don't think the actual download speed on iTunes is really at the crux of that statement.
3. The files that can be copied 'infinitely for free' are supposed to pay for the guitar and petrol.
4. Mental. So if you went to work, and your boss decided not to pay you for some of it, you'd be fine with that? By your reasoning in point 3, you've not lost anything tangible other than your time and effort
1. By all means complain about it, and as I stated, I find leaks lamentable too - it would be nice if the choice about when to unveil that work remained in the control of the author. But the point I make is that the resources required to maintain that control will frequently fail the cost/benefit analysis; that is it will cost more to employ extra security than they would benefit from a few extra days in the can.
2. I'm responding to Falco's rather literal interpretation of worth, and pointing out that the time required to download (which is what he mentions) is irrelevant.
3. I know they are, but the petrol can't be copied for free. Capiche?
4. Falco doesn't 'go to work'. I go to work and I have a contract that states what I will do, and how much I get paid for that. Falco has created a product that he then attempts to sell on the mass market. By nature there are no guarantees. Maybe his songs just aren't good enough?
But your argument basically boils down to the fact that files can be copied
therefore nobody loses out. It's a very peculiar argument to make, given that it is, legally and morally, still theft.
Why can't we just take, say, petrol for free? It comes from the earth, there's shitloads of it, we don't have to see if anyone loses out if we steal it? But you don't, because you can't steal it from the comfort of your home - and you would get caught. It's only the fact that no real deterrent exists that makes people think illegal downloading isn't 'really' stealing
I never said that nobody loses out
In fact, because files can be copied infinitely, the people who might have formerly been able to sell those at a certain price (record companies), are less able to. They are worse off than they were before. They lose out (unless perhaps they adapt). New technology which makes former employment roles obsolete (or at least reduced in worth) always causes someone to lose out, namely the people who held those roles.
We can't take petrol in the same manner because it is scarce and finite, it will run out, and to take it deprives someone else of that petrol (oil). This is clearly not the case with copies of MP3s, which are not a form of theft but of copyright infringement. Again, I'm not especially advocating the moral stance here but I think it's important to get the parameters of the discussion correct.
have you got a blog?
it would be funnier than falco's...
yo numb nuts...
..yeah he goes to work. you ever rehearsed in a band for 40 hours a week? sound like fun? it isn't. but full time bands - we'll the one i know (which is much, much more than you)-work harder than most people i know that work in offices.
i often will not speak about what i know little about- i listen to others, who know more about me - and you - know little about what it's really like to be a full time musician these days.
so ssssssshhhhh. don't think you have answers for something you know little about.
i gotta go practice now.
No I have not rehearsed for 40 hours a week in a band
If it isn't fun for you, I don't understand why you do it.
Again, I'm sure people in bands work hard, but not all effort is compensated equally - I work hard on things in my free time too on occasion, but I know that not everything I do will earn me income. Music is a crowded marketplace.
because it's a job...
...and jobs aren't always fun. but you stick with it - because you reap the benefits in the long run, or you should.
yes music is an overcrowded market place - but so is the industry i work in Television - but that's no reason for me not to be compensated....
it's not about these people these bands getting rich. no one is that naive, but just getting a small return for the hours of hard work put in. it's fair.
downloading music illegally is theft. plain and simple. the guy's pissed off, he has a right to be.
didn't i tell you to shush?
It's a job which uses a sales mechanism
with no guarantee of income. If a restaurant owner fails to get enough customers to pay the bills, they aren't entitled to income *just because*.
"downloading music illegally is theft. plain and simple."
The fact that you use weasel words like "Plain and simple" doesn't fake a falsehood a fact.
explain yourself....
....don't knock my writing skills.
i'm not a good writer - but i think you get my point...
"downloading music illegally is theft. plain and simple."
The fact that you use weasel words like "Plain and simple" doesn't fake a falsehood a fact.
tell me how downloading music illegally ISN'T a crime?
to compare the music business with the restaurant business is dull. (same way it does work for the jewelry business - remember that..)...but while where here, you've got that wrong..
you send the restaurant owner has loads of customers. more than ever. LOADS, it's just no one will pay for the food at the end of the night , so he can'r afford to pay his staff...and thus he's outta business, so it's off to mick dees for the rest of us....
anyhow - i think your smart. i think you see our point.....but you don't have an open mind, or it would seem that way.
Fair enough, I'm not interested in knocking anyone's wording, unless it materially changes the meaning. For instance, you've said that "downloading music illegally is theft". I suggest that this is incorrect, and that it is copyright infringement if it is any kind of infringement. You then ask how it isn't a "crime", which is a different word with a different meaning altogether.
"to compare the music business with the restaurant business is dull"
Well, perhaps I'll have to try harder with my examples, but that's rather beside the point. Firstly, my restaurant example was used to illustrate a different point than what you've raised, namely that income in particular industries is not guaranteed unless that person 'succeeds' in a particular way. You've created an example to illustrate a different point, which is that people are consuming the output of the restaurant without paying for it which is therefore unfair. Unfortunately your example is not properly analagous to downloading MP3s illegally - your hypothetical would have to be that some customers are paying for food from the restaurant, but then are making numerous 'copies' of that food product to give to their friends who therefore do not need to pay to be able to eat that food product, at least in the specific way the restauranteur intended. Obviously, and rather tragically, food cannot be infinitely and freely copied in the way that digital sound files can.
except that
there clearly is a demand for the "fruits of his leisure". he's not some self-indulgent wannabe here, he's a musician who releases records that people like.
I'm not saying no one likes his music
I like his music! But it's a far cry from that to complete economic self-sufficiency, and nor is there any entitlement to it.
Because Falco (and record company) has licensed the album to Spotify
which is a service designed so that I, and anybody else, can listen to it for free.
Again, we're not talking about Spotify
Where he and his band have CHOSEN to licence it, for (at least in theory) some financial return.
We're talking about leaks and illegal downloads where he and his band have NOT chosen to release it and will receive no recompense for their output. You may not like it, but a band - rather than yourself or the leaker - should get final say over what happens with their music.
I agree
leaks are unfortunate.
"4. Falco doesn't 'go to work'. I go to work and I have a contract that states what I will do, and how much I get paid for that. Falco has created a product that he then attempts to sell on the mass market. By nature there are no guarantees. Maybe his songs just aren't good enough?"
How does he not 'go to work'? Have you ever been in a profesional band full time? It's a job and a fucking half, i can tell you. It's not a matter of strumming a fucking guitar and waiting for the millions to roll in - there's rather a lot to consider. To flippantly disregard the effort that one has to go to create/record/release a single song is just being a bit naive, and a lot annoying.
Certainly, he IS trying to sell a product that isn't gonna be hugely popular. Clearly the man is very intelligent - he's well aware of the limitations of his 'product's commercial viability.
The point he's trying to make, which you have no sympathy for is that no-one is paying for the music they are hearing/enjoying.
When I say he doesn't go to work I mean in the conventional sense, which is to say he doesn't have a specified contract and salary. He is not contractually guaranteed to a certain level of income - his income is dependent on selling product.
I have not stated at any point that being in a band is easy, or not requiring much effort. I am in genuine admiration of the effort that they have put into their records. But there are many many things in life that are really hard work, and I think very few people in this discussion understand the connection between effort and remuneration - they are not directly related at all, but work through a peculiar negotiation between an individual selling their labour/services and an employer or market that wants to pay for the labour/services on offer. If you could step aside from the emotion of the situation you might see that I am merely trying to describe and explain the situation and why it occurs.
I'm sure they do have a contract of sorts
but not an employment contract which guarantees them income equivalent to their labour. Which is what I stated.
Again, I never said he doesn't work, I bet he works very solidly. I'm saying (for the umpteenth time) that his remuneration mechanism is not a salary. This means that he doesn't have an employer who is going to pay him for his labour time, but rather he will attempt to make music and sell that product, in which he will have the assistance of a record company.
Mr White'Obtuseness Personified'City
If I may get a word in between the niggling, you keep complaining that nobody but you understands Falco's 'remuneration mechanism' as you so quaintly put it. We know how buying stuff works. It is, in fact, even simpler than you were able to describe it. It is not that 'an employer or market that wants to pay for the labour/services on offer', but simply that they want the services or goods. They are compelled to pay for them by law, should they wish to recieve them. Desire to actually hand over cash is a peculiar fetish which you may or may not wish to enlight us about, but is hardly relevant to the discussion, which as about the unique and new difficulty in compelling customers to pay for stuff they can steal with increasing ease. Wasn't that hard to say, was it?
I'm not referring to how "buying stuff works", I'm referring to the fact that someone selling a product whose income is dependent upon sales will by definition not have a guaranteed level of income (unless for instance they have a mixed salary base and commission package from an employer).
You state that it's not about wanting to pay for goods and services, but merely wanting goods and services. These two things are critically different: I may want a mansion with a swimming pool, but since I have no money no one with a mansion will sell it to me. Since I lack the necessary composite of both desire for the product and ability to purchase the product, I am excluded and must settle for an alternative substitute to satisfy any housing requirements I might have (e.g. a cheap flat in suburban squalor). Therefore me wanting to pay in this scenario is imperative to my hypothetical mansion owner actually selling said mansion.
Naturally law is compelling, but individuals laws vary in quite how compelling they are, for practical and moral reasons.
But the poiint he's not unreasonably making is that until recently indepedent musicians could sell just enough albums to scrape a living together
and now that source of income has dried up, it does have an impact on independent artists and their ability to afford guitars, petrol, rent etc.
I completely agree that if there's not enough demand for something there's not enough demand and you just have to accept you can't give up the day job just yet but it still must be a bit of a pisser if you see from the response to the leak there clearly is a demand for your music but still no-one'll actually give you any financial recompense for the time/money it takes recording it.
I think one of the caveats of your last point is what concerns me. i.e. "unless you happen to be moneyed...". I can see indepedent music, or at least touring as an independent band, to increasingly be the preserve of those who can afford to do it for pleasure with those who can't afford to make a loss on music will have to either
a) sign up to a major (and get the increasing shit-storm of selling-out accusations)
b) become more corporate (take sponsorship, endorse products, have music on ads etc. - and get the increasing shit-storm of selling-out accusations.
c) Become "local bands" who never play outside their hometowns and thus can't get new fans through live gigging.
Whilst I agree nobody "owes" a band anything, and that if bands can't afford to earn a living they do have to get jobs, I do think indepedent acts are being increasingly pushed towards a situation that can only be damaging for the music scene as a whole.
Does anyone actually accuse bands of selling out anymore?
I mean, anyone that should matter. It seems to me like people generally accept that having a song pop up in an advert or during a movie is a necessary evil these days to keep bands they like from going under...
I don't know. I still hate the idea of having music on adverts and have turned it down in the past.
I hate the idea I have to let my music endorse whatever product it is in order to make any money out of doing music personally but I've no idea how people who knew my band/music would have reacted if I'd said yes. I still wouldn't really want to though in any case.
Signing to a major isn't the solution
they are struggling as much as anyone else. There's no way of getting a good deal, and not one that you'll make any money off. You'll just see yourself slide further into debt whilst you film your second £20,000 music video, destined to be watched by a few people on YouTube.
The only solution (as I see it with my limited knowledge) is to finance a record yourself, and then license that. Then you have a greater degree of control over what happens with it and less debt (to a record label at least) to recoup.
But why would ou finance and license a record you know everyone's gonna download for free anyway?
At least with the major label then - even though you'll probably see no money - you won't be liable personally liable for the debt after you leave the label.
If you finance the record yourself you've got less debt but you're still gonna struggle to recoup if everyone downloads it for free.
If you promote it to no-one, no-ones gunna download it
i have a specific band in mind for all of this, so there's stuff that's thought out that might be irrelevant for anyone else, but.
they've got a decent following in london, and can fill out (for example) union chapel heading a bill of four unsigned acts. obviously friends and family play to that. but headlining a gig outside of london and it's sparsely attended at best. they can put out records themselves (and have done two singles this year) and pay for a bit promo, even a 'big budget' music video. the songs get played on 6music and some student radio, video gets lots of hits on youtube and on some classical music cable channel (oddly), and there's favourable reviews from various blogs and music sites. but it's not translated into audiences out of london yet. with a label, and i suppose i'm talking anything bigger than the one they run (which has released other artists) there' a lot more weight with PR, and with the places where reviews matter etc. Even if that means people are more aware of them to go and download the record, short term that's good. At the moment there's not even enough people who are gunna try and get the bugger for free!
there's talk about giving it away for free from the off, or at least nudging it out into the open, but then you set up audience expectations and they want all the stuff for free.
at the moment it's working out a fine balance between wanting people to get into the band and feeling like the best way to do that is give people an incentive to listen (ie, free music) and wanting to make back the money spent on the record over the last two years and maybe even make enough money to get 9 people (just the band, not including 'crew' (rarely more than one person)) to gigs.
They sound like they're in a reasonably similar position to my band.
So I'm happy to reiterate if they finance it themselves they're gonna struggle to recoup.
they already have
the album is finished, as of about two weeks ago. it's taken four recording studios, three drummers, and two years all told!
I don't think anyone is expecting to recoup on it though, same with the music video(s) and all the other little things that have gone on around them. if i could sound like a pretentious twat for a moment, it's all about the art man.
What would be nice was if people heard the record, and even nicer if they liked it and came to some shows! obviously they aren't looking to lose money, anything made is more than gratefully received, but it'd be nice if it wasn't a wasted endeavour.
But this is kind of my point though.
You can only worry about not expecting to recoup if you can take the financial strain if you don't recoup, which isn't an advantage all bands have.
I mean it's all well and good if you can afford the release, PR etc. yourself but my point was that this is a luxury position and not something all bands can afford to do (certainly not with enough of a PR/radio plugging/touring spend in order to reach a wider audience if they don't already have one outside their home town).
i'm not trying to argue one thing as the 'best solution' btw.
just commenting with the little experience i have.
and i don't wanna make it look like they've all got oodles of spare cash, 'cos it's very much not the case. there's a lot of loans to various people, a lot of donations by fans, and by people who want to get involved, and nine people trying to work full time jobs, and just about managing. there's also been a hell of a lot of favours, and people other than the band working for nothing in their spare time because they think it's worth it, myself included. it's not a case of not wanting to recoup all the outlay, it's just not really expecting to realistically after paying back what's owed. maybe i've been to flippant about the fact they've self-funded, it wasn't easy to find the cash.
the radio plugging amounts to time spent sending out promos and people e-mailing radio shows, the 6music plays came off the back of a fan (me in fact) e-mailing tom robinson. i don't wanna make it look like they've had it easy because i'm sure my post history betrays who they are quite quickly and it very much isn't the case.
i can't even remember the point i started making now! something about signing to major labels not being a solution, for reasons more than being accused of being a sell out. you'd be liable for that debt 'cos it'd be rare to find a major label that will willing to sign a deal where they have a chance of losing a lot of money.
in my example what i should have made clear was that them licensing to a label (and that's not a sure thing, there'll be a release of it on their own label and backs first) would be an 'indie' label, just someone with more weight and influence behind it. not a hard task.
i find the idea of Future of the being sponsored very funny. But who would sponsor them???
I personally disagree that it is damaging for music as an artform
Unless by music scene you literally mean all the people who want to be involved, in which case, of course, but it's not as if we don't have enough music.ham_and_cheese and biro this'd this
i accidently this'd this.
i would like to point out i didn't mean to this this, it's a moronic comment.
Please stop talking.dirdyboy this'd this
oh god
are you the same person that was debating with him on the guardian website?
the whole "no demand" thing is bullshit of the highest order
as is the "not like stealing a loaf of bread" argument. Just because not everyone who downloaded it would buy it for x dollar doesn't mean that sales haven't been lost. The 1 download =/= 1 sale thing runs the other way as well, sometimes a download DOES equal a sale. And to say that if people liked it enough they'd buy it is pretty fuckin naive. The demand is there, they're a popular band with a lot of people who enjoy their music. If they enjoy it the maybe they should support the band? Maybe they should make it possible for said band to continue making music?
The more artists come out and say this, the better. For a 1-level-below-mainstream band to say "we're making no money" should be a wake up call to illegal downloaders that maybe things aren't rosy for seemingly big bands. It won't be, but you've got to try eh
A for presentation, D- for comprehension
Dude. I could respond to your pissing about pissing by niggling over how your first three points make no sense, but let us avoid a piss-fest. Point four, big dada. The problem is not that there is a lack of demand for Falco's music, else it would not leak. The problem is you f*ckers ain't paying for it. The solution may well be complicated, but the problem is damn simple, but probably hard to concentrate in between rushing to the O.E.D. to check the meaning of 'tenet'.
Piss away my friend
as my first three points do make sense. Unless you'd care to explain how they don't?
"The problem is you f*ckers ain't paying for it" - I'm going to have to presume that your use of the word "you" in that sentence was intended in the universal sense, because I personally have purchased Falco's records and paid to go to his gigs.
Of course the problem is simple to describe - who's arguing that? The causes are complex, the solutions more so, and that's the discussion that I'm interested in. The disagreement between us is really that we disagree on the solutions I think (I apologise if you're finding it difficult to concentrate in between referring to your dictionary, but I'm sure it'll benefit you in the long run).
There's always
It's not to do with emotion, frilly diction, or what is/is not a hobby. It's to do with not paying for music, and how it is affect the artist in question.
There's not much philosophical shit you can smear over it, try as you might.
I know it's an old argument, but a painter doesn't paint a picture expecting the canvas and oil paint cost to be reimbursed, he paints it because he is driven to do so. In that same way Falco is driven to write and record music. The sheer fact that someone would even think an album I had made was worth leaking/bootlegging/whatever would fill me with glee. Surely the personal satisfaction gained from that should be enough? Enough people are so desperate to hear something you've created that they're pretty much grabbing it out your hands. People have been making music for thousands of years for the joy of it. Anything else is a bonus. A gig = actual work. T-shirts = Product. I'd like to think music itself was something more than that.
The old model is changing, for the better, and it will change despite any backlash from Falco or Lily Allen. Quite simply this generation have grown up with free music. I dont think it's a coincidence that people are also listening to much and a wider variety of music these days. Find another way to make money. No one is owed a living for a vocation they've chosen. People in bands need to be a bit more enterprising if they want an income from their choice of artform (and hopefully it is that, and not career) Bandstocks, flog tshirts, weird merch, limited editions to devotees, I dunno maybe even get a normal job like the rest of us and fund it that way.
It's not even a recent thing, Mclusky were/are one of my favourite bands of all time and ever since getting Do Dallas I have raved about them to anyone who would listen and a few who didn't, but they were hardly a huge commercial prospect at the best of times. The Fall, Shellac, Big Black, Jesus Lizard, all their main influences weren't exactly raking the dough in and playing to packed houses throughout their careers were they? I'm not saying they should be proud to be a cult/muso's band, obscurity is not a fucking badge and all that, they should want everyone in the world to hear them and be converted, but today the best way of doing that is to let it get out there.
Sorry, I have bought every Mclusky/FOTL (even Shooting at Unarmed Men) release, gig tickets, tshirts, posters, badges and obviously it hasn't helped much but moaning about a leak/the general state of the "industry" is missing the point that there's a chance to get your music to places, if you feel you're owed a living for making a record then be a bit more inventive.
excuse the odd missing word
*much more and a wider...
*places you'd never have dreamed of (or less cringey words to this effect)
Of course you're right. I just find it so depressing. Nothing fills me with glee quite like getting a new release / going album shopping. It's fustrating that others don't share this mindset.
interesting you bring up some 80s acts there
i reread Our Band Could Be Your Life recently and was staggered to see it mention that Mission of Burma's first single sold 10,000 copies, mostly in/around Boston.
i think the problem these days is that album sales aren't proportional to live followings anymore, so while the likes of big black may have played to a similar number of people to future of the left, they certainly sold a lot more records. how do you make up for that loss in income?
I dunno
I guess that is the heart of the matter though. I don't think it's easy to compare different eras. Falco's rant has a bit of a luddite feel to it. Would he have been happier if he'd been born into a different era? I'm not sure really. I thought the live music scene was bigger than it's ever been? I definitely feel that people are a lot more switched on and keen to discover new bands than even 5 years ago. And it's also the case that FOTL have way more chance for worldwide exposure than, say Mission Of Burma would have had 20 years ago. So maybe as I said, they just aren't commercial enough.
"to make any music, your music essentially has to be the sideline that promotes your sodding t-shirt company." is a fair assessment I guess. I'm not saying I wouldn't like bands to be able to make a decent living from their music, I give loads of money to bands, but the fact is that these days its probably harder to do so in a conventional "make record. sell record way" so if you fancy making money out of it, which is perfectly fair, but not a given, then get yr Jay-Z shoes on. If you don't, then you can't really moan about the way the passage of time and new technologies have rendered a system which only worked for 70-odd years and was rife with vacuous middlemen, corruption, greedy non music loving-cunts to begin with, obsolete.
the big difference is
the "make record. sell record" way of doing things gave bands advances so that all they did for the next 4 years or so was be a band and tour to promote the record. with less advances (essentially we think you can see x, here's a cheque for that but for our risk, as we lose money on most of your rotters, we'll be taking the lion's share) there are less acts with the ability to be in bands.
i remember being quite surprised when we tried to book archie bronson outfit that they couldn't play gigs on weekdays because of work, yet they were on jools holland (obvs worth taking a day off for) and had full page ads on the back of the nme.
whereas, jeniferever, i believe (and I might be wrong) work about 2/3rds of the year, practising and recording around their work and tour in the remaining third.
15 years ago it was pretty much impossible to actually make a record unless you had a label to pay for it and put it out
nowadays anyone can make a record, put it on the internet and people all around the globe can hear it
how do jobbing bands convert that technology to cash? Well, the 'make record, sell record' approach doesn't work anymore
there is a massive amount of music availible LEGALLY for free - let's not forget that the increase in media that the digital revolution has brought forward has taken a huge slice of the revenue pie too
the idea that pirates are the pariah for the music industry just doesn't ring true
and the biggest difference isn't so much the loss of income per se, it's the loss of investment in acts from the loss of income on the mainstream commodities at the top of the food chain. even on a smaller scale, for each record less arctic monkeys sell, that's less money that can be risked on wild beasts. for every less record bloc party sell, that's less money to be spent on sky larkin.
bands can take years and years to break-even, let alone make ends meet.
arguments above that acts should make their own records and license them are all well and good (and having done this with Redjetson and some others) it's certainly something that helped us but this means that only those with trustfunds - or in Redjetson's case, well-paid jobs in the city - will be making music. not to say that those with money are any less able to make exciting and/or innovative music (however, it's worth history shows most music has quite often been made by both extremes of the poverty divide, from differing cultures) but that music becomes something you need a certain means to do properly, even in an age when things have become democratized.
personally, i think this is just a final kick in the balls for albums and that records will return to being collections of songs (like a Best of) and that acts will take much longer to fight their way through the crowd to find an audience and establish themselves. all the while, they're going to need to find part-time mcjobs or, maybe like St Vincent, play in other people's bands for a while to make ends meet.
determination and patronage (from promoters paying a bit extra, managers investing their own money or brands as sponsors) are the only ways i can see a music business existing in the future that helps break new and interesting music. the odd thing is, that's not too different to how the independent sector already exists.
my biggest issue in this whole 'debate' is that people are arguing based on what works for them, whilst neglecting a compromise that benefits everyone. the irony being that those affected the most (the mainstream, commodities, music-as-product) are the ones that feed the food chain.theguywithnousername, Moitessier, and silverpop this'd this
hit post before reading that back. hope you catch my drift. (no, we will not add a edit post option, for various obvious reasons of people adjusting what they said, etc)
i agree
i think the general consensus that "all record companies are money-wasting evil dinosaurs who it's ok to steal off" has persisted far too long. with the rise of the indies, they're generally not self-indulgent behemoths, but a bunch of people who do care about music trying to make the sums work, so smaller bands, who don't want to take the DIY route, can have the chance to grow.
i think some of the larger labels dont do enough to reinforce this - that spending £8 on a pixies album does genuinely go to help FOTL write a new record, and not to a coke-fuelled orgy on a yacht.
You make good points and I'm sure you're right
but at the same time it's a bit depressing that, to make any music, your music essentially has to be the sideline that promotes your sodding t-shirt company.
On a very related note, I went to pick up the new Health album in HMV (boo, sorry Brightonb) at the weekend. They didnt have hard copies, only t-shirts with album download included, like having the music is the perk. Depressing.
But it's not sustainable
People make an album, everyone decides to take it for free, people can't afford to make any more albums.
You seem to be saying just because everyone's decided to stop paying for music, it's ok. And it means that potentially great musicians won't bother making music because they can't afford to live off it.
"potentially great musicians won't bother making music because they can't afford to live off it"
potentially "great" musicians will be making music until the human race dies out. What about the pre-recording age? Or that there's plenty or writers, artists etc who lived for years in obscurity, often died in it, depressingly, but were still driven to create and were hugely prolific. Technology is at a point now where anyone with a pc can create and distribute their music to the masses. It'll be a sad day if Falco stopped making music because he's had 10 years of struggle with the business side of the recording industry, which is only a recent invention, but quite honestly I don't think he will, and I'll still be listening to it however I can.
People have this misguided argument that artists in the old days lived in total poverty
and that is the lesson that these 'selfish' modern musicians should take on board.
For hundreds of years, most artists - whether painters, writers or musicians - had patrons that funded their 'hobbies'. The reason why so much of the great art of Europe is in, or belongs to, the church is that they were the only ones who had the money to pay for it. But the bottom line is, they did pay for it.
I dont think it's misguided
obviously a lot of great art has been funded by rich powerful wankers for thousands of years, but it's not to say that system was great. it is a basic human fact that we like to create, so yes, a lot of great art always had commercial interests or whatever behind it, but poor people without access to this still made music, art, wrote if they could since they had spare time...
I'm not gonna begin to deny that the sistine chapel isnt one of the most amazing things ever, but it's also a ludicrous display of wealth and power of which, and I know Im stretching it a fair bit here so bear with me, could quite easily at the time have levelled arguments against which would hold up in modern times to say, Damien Hirst's $$$ comissions, U2's ridiculous tours, megabucks all encompassing record/tour deals with Madonna, Jay-Z. The main point is, I fucking hate U2. Maybe they just had better taste back then.
'No one is owed a living for a vocation they've chosen'
maybe so, but if people can't afford to live by pursuing a vocation, then is it not likely that they would choose not to. In that case, with regards music, then it will limit things somewhat.
There is talk around of making money through touring, merchandising, licensing etc - this is also a big risk for a person to undertake.
I think in the case of FOTL, what really seems to get his goat is that there clearly a demand for his work, but why should people expect to get it for free? If people wish to continue hearing his music, then he needs to be able to pay to live. It is probable that he, and many others with a creative urge would struggle to produce songs while holding down a fulltime job.
'What about the pre-recording age?' - may be a sort of reasonable point BUT, we no longer live in the pre-recording age and society and economics have moved on.
It maybe that artists can sustain things as a hobby on a local level, that local scenes may prosper, but I think these people would struggle for wider recognition if they can't afford to dedicate more time. We would be left with only those who can afford to take the financial burden and so any form of meritocracy (for wont of a better word) would be lost.
I'm not sure it's really a sense of entitlement either really. Just fair remuneration for the time spent - I'm Falco would be willing to scale back his ambition and except the loss of income it there was not a demand for his work.
"we no longer live in the pre-recording age and society and economics have moved on."
so I could then say "well society and economics have now moved on again, and no one wants to pay for anything like before"
I'm not agreeing with everything I say here, I pay for records I like, I, as with I assume most music loving people on here, spend a fair whack of my money on these bands at gigs and whatnot, but it's beyond the point of arguing, it is a fact that a lot of people aren't used to buying albums any more. I think the good points outweigh the bad. 50 years ago without huge luck in getting a great distribution deal no one in Japan/Russia/Papaya New Guinea/whatever would ever have heard of a little band from Wales but now it's almost a given that there's been at least one guy at one point in the last 7 years, sat at a laptop in Beijing rocking out to Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues, which is absolutely fucking brilliant and if it was my work I wouldnt give a shit if he'd downloaded it.Moitessier, Anschul, and burymebukowski this'd this
The only thing I have learned from this thread
is the pure depth of WhiteLightWhiteCity's stupidity.
"Falco comes across as though he is entitled to his music to pay him a comfortable salary without the need for any other employment, and that just might not be the case."
"maybe his songs just aren't good enough"
Seriously how is he supposed to gauge if he is "good enough". Because although some of the people who downloaded his album may not have bought had they been forced to pay for it, many many others would probably have bought it had it not been readily available to steal.
Don't get me started on the whole "it's not a job" thing. Fucks sake.
Nobody has been able to disavow the statements that I have made
without resorting to personal attacks, much like what you're doing now. Almost without exception responses have been emotional, moralistic, poorly-written, inarticulate and incompetently argued. Abuse me if you like but that will not change the technology nor the economic imperatives that follow it.
I think that actually it is your points that have been entirely incompetently argued. I fail to see how you have justified/can justify the thought that it is OK to take for free what is put out to be paid for. Sure, there is no guarantee of income by putting an album out, but that doesn't justify it being taken for free.
What if, instead of a musician, it was a jeweler who was complaining that everyone was stealing necklaces from her stall? I don't think you'd be making the same arguments, even though essentially it's the same thing – if an artist makes an artifact and offers it for sale, there is no way in which anyone is entitled to it for free. I don't understand where this sense of entitlement to free music comes from, because it simply can't be justified.Moitessier this'd this
what if the thief was merely an avid fan of jewellery?
then it'd be totally justifiable.
If my point is not argued adequately then please point out its logical inconsistencies or factual errors
rather than calling me names. It's not that I mind, I'd just prefer a real debate because this issues fascinates me.
Necklaces and MP3s are different by nature, nobody removes the MP3s, they copy them, bla bla bla - this is technology 101. The example used in your analogy is demonstrably different.
not that I advocate physical violence
it's just that your head is so far up your own arse you're eating your own mouth in some baffling scenario
firstly, i haven't resorted to name-calling, there's a real difference between calling you an ass (which i haven't done) and saying that you are arguing like one (which you are doing)…your argument is not illogical or invalid, it just rests on an assumption that an mp3 is just digital and copyable and therefore is essentially worthless…but what you're forgetting is that even a shitty 56k mp3 contains music that has had not only blood, sweat, tears and time poured into it but considerable financial outlay as well…the music on an mp3 is never worthless…essentially the format doesn't matter. it's still music and it's still not something that you have a right to have without paying for it.
Maybe when his company works out how to get a computer to do his job for nothing and make him redundant he'll begin to see your point.
I see the point
If I worked at a company that replaced my job with something computerised I'd clearly be put out, and I would have to find another source of income. I understand that there is emotion around this issue, and I'm not setting out to aggravate people that do lose out there. But we're not sitting around lamenting the demise of blacksmith as a viable profession, are we? Things change.
The problem is there aren't any analogies are there?
The blacksmith as a sole profession may have gone (in the mainstream - people still shoe horses) but what they did is still being done somewhere in some way and someone is still paying for it.
If that's not the case then their product is no longer used.
The thing is that if the current state continues we will lose music as we know it too. It will become the domain only of those with the time and money to produce it outside of a normal job. Maybe it can survive that transition but maybe it can't.
But it's clear that Falco's music is something we wouldn't have without the 'old' set up around.
Apologies if you have not, many have resorted to name-calling (and comic threats of violence)
If my argument is not illogical or invalid, then how am I arguing like an ass?
"it just rests on an assumption that an mp3 is just digital and copyable and therefore is essentially worthless"
Well, an MP3 itself is just digital and copyable. I didn't say it was worthless, just that its economic worth must logically be lower because marginal costs of production are much lower (and non-rival). Music definitely has emotional worth, and in many ways to many people it has a significant economic worth. But the worth isn't only expressed through the price paid at HMV. If someone gives you an album as a gift, do you value that less because you didn't pay anything for it? Of course not, and I know that's a special case, but it does illustrate that the price mechanism isn't everything.
I'm kinda surprised at the commoditisation fetish of music over and above its artistic value in this thread, though perhaps that reflects that many people in this thread work in the industry.
'I'm kinda surprised at the commoditisation fetish of music over and above its artistic value'
Surely the people arguing that it should be paid for are the ones valuing it the highest?
Otherwise, what you're saying is that not only do you not want to pay for your music, but that it illustrates how much you value it that you don't wish to do so
I haven't said anything about what I personally want to do
Maybe people who think it should be paid for do value it most, especially when they've made it. I'm just saying, that if you create something and you want to make money from it, you have to convince other people to buy it from you.
fine, its economic worth may have ot be lower because production costs are lower, i don't think anyone would argue that. but lower =/= free.
and of course the emotional worth of music isn't valued through its price at HMV, but that doesn't mean that just because you can attach to it emotionally it's justifiable not to pay for it! the price mechanism ISN'T everything, you're right, but music is and essentially always has been a luxury rather than a right, and there's no way you can justify stealing it
i disagree
morals are what will change what you see as an imperative.
as i said above, if we decide to stop employment law, yes, contracts will become meaningless, and we'll descend into a culture of corruption due to economic imperative. making a living from working will become hard. plenty of countries where that is the case now.
similarly if we decide that we stop considering that artists create something that is worth money, then the economic imperative means we will descend into a culture where making music will become hard.
so, yes - your scenario of economic imperative can make both realities come true. and my emotions and morals make me believe that i don't want to live in a world where either are the case.
You say "If we decide to stop employment law..."
and then draw conclusions from that. Which is fine, except what I'm trying to illustrate (and not necessarily support), is that nobody has expressly decided that we shall stop paying for music out of the blue, but rather technological advances have altered the incentives of the consumer such that paying for recorded music on CD is less desirable than it was at times in the past. This is a significant difference.
Secondly, to reiterate what was said elsewhere, the recorded music industry is a very modern invention, and those with a more historical perspective might have a better grasp on whether their status quo should be considered so divinely ordained.
'technological advances have altered the incentives of the consumer such that paying for recorded music on CD is less desirable than it was at times in the past'
but the point is, why should artists/labels accept this, when it renders making music unsustainable? just because consumers have decided that they don't want to pay for music any more doesn't mean that it should be acceptable that it should be taken for free.
"why should artists/labels accept this"
Why should they accept it? I'm not saying accept it, but they don't have a choice about whether it occurs - technology/culture advances despite the wishes of individuals that it wouldn't. They should absolutely find alternative ways to continue generating enough income to continue making music if that's what they want to do. Again, I'm more interested in the discussion about where to from here than the lament for times past.
but why should whatever new business model would come out of this be based around acceptance (tacit or not) of what we could essentially call theft? i for one would rather eradicate thieves than 'work around' them
By all means eradicate rather than work around
But that's going to be extraordinarily difficult, isn't it (based on current evidence)?
your argument is that music shouldn't be subsidised or fought for, if the natural 'balance' of things means people cant make enough money.
similarly, there's an argument that the earth's resources really can't support our population, so culling half the population would be a pretty good move right now.
you can't accuse a site of musicians of being emotionally biased to fight for the sovereignty of music, in the same way that you cant ask a family to be a bit shifty about killing off half of it's members. there are very much emotions and morals underpinning the whole thing in both cases.
You really are a complete cliché of someone who sits smugly
on the internet trying to construct sentences that sound clever, but have absolutely no substance.
Loads of people have ripped apart your statements, so I'm really not going to waste my time doing so.
You see, I have a job. Then I have rehearsals. Then I go on tour and try and sell some physical copies of my album. An album which was leaked on the internet prior to being released. Which sits on people's computers for free, not paying back the thousands of pounds it cost to record and release. An album I self funded... but you know what? I actually paid the artist that did my artwork. I paid the people who made my videos....I didn't steal their work.
Even as I type this I'm losing the will to try and explain to ignorant people like you the reality of the situation.
I have first hand experience of all this shit while you are probably sitting in an office somewhere spouting "truths" about something you seemingly know nothing about.
Emotional response? No fucking shit.theguywithnousername, Moitessier, and keveddy this'd this
- unfamiliar this'd this
Perhaps you'd care to point it out then, as I would appreciate the chance to consider the point.
I appreciate that you are trying to turn your interest into an income generator, and I applaud you for making the effort. I'm a bit sick of the collective refusal to engage with the discussion rather than assuming that I wish ill upon anyone who is a musician. First and foremost I'm interested in a theoretical discussion from an economic and/or historical perspective about the developments in the music industry. I'm sorry you feel that you've been cheated of something you were entitled to, but I just want to discuss whether that assertion is really correct with necessarily copping abuse for desiring those discussions in the abstract. Everyone here is incredibly defensive about any questions over whether musicians are entitled to the status quo (which is hardly fabulous as it is).
you are simply sitting on a website trying to look intellectual.
"whether musicians are entitled to the status quo"
What the hell does that even mean? What ARE you on about?
Am I entitled to be paid for something I have created? Something I have paid to produce with the intention of selling so that I might produce more of it in thefuture?
Are you insane? Can you really not see the BASIC principal at work here? You are taking the approach that everyone is "just having a go" at making music as a hobby and expect to get paid for perusing an "interest". It's not the same as me putting a fucking train set in my attic and then expecting the world to want to come and buy it off me.
I created a product. Much like anything else - much like the pens and pencils my father sold from his stationary company. I created it professionally and invested my time and money to make it as good as possible. So that people might want to buy it. If they don't want to buy it, then I have to accept my losses like ANY OTHER BUSINESS. However, most business don't have to accept that 10% or 30% or %50 of their stock is STOLEN BY PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR IT.
Does that make sense yet? Can you get your head around that? Because it is really, really, really fucking simple.
What on earth is this "status quo" you are talking about?
"I appreciate that you are trying to turn your interest into an income generator, and I applaud you for making the effort."
PATRONISING MUCH?theguywithnousername this'd this
By status quo I refer to the record company model of the last few decades
Sorry for the confusion.
I think you've struck on something there - what is the difference between writing some songs and expecting someone to pay you to listen to them, versus making a model train set and expecting people to pay you to watch it/buy it? You're saying they're fundamentally different, I think they're very similar. Music tends to be more popular of course, but the main point is that if you do a rubbish job of either, you can't expect anyone to pay you. Which you've mentioned yourself.
The fact that 10% or 50% of whatever of your 'stock' is "stolen" is the part that naturally grates most - but music has always involved a mixture of given away and paid-for content to try and generate income. Songs on the radio, MP3 lead tracks, free shows etc. I think that this fact remains intact, but that the balance will shift towards more digital content being made free to entice consumers to purchase more gig tickets, fancy box sets, T-shirts, sync deals etc. I'm not saying that that's positive, I'm not saying it will place the average indie muso in a better or worse position than previously, I'm just saying that I think that in reality it is what will be required to generate income from music now that its transmission is so free and unhindered.
I'm sorry you thought that was patronising, I didn't mean to come across like that.
If a band gets their songs on the radio they get paid. I don't really understand why you think they wouldn't.
And actually it's not necessarily true free shows don't pay - often it just means the fan isn't paying for entry but the gig can still often make money and the band gets paid. So to assume these are necessarily deals where bands lose money isn't really true.
It's also a myth that gig tickets/touring funds bands to a point that will compensate for lost album sales. A lot of (even quite well-known) bands either lose money or don't make much from touring as the costs often outweight the income possible to make for it. Especially if we're talking bands with lots of memebrs or who hire extra musicians to fill out sound etc.
You claim other people aren't engaging with you but, at the same time, you're not quite engaging with other people's points. I completely get that you're saying "this is the reality and we have to live with it" but that doesn't equal making things morally okay. Throughout history there've been various unjust laws etc. where people have said "this is wrong" only to be told "but that's the reality and there's nothing you can do" but in many cases people have shown they can change things and you don't have to tolerate a situation just because that's what that situation is. That argument leads to stagnation and a lack of progress.
And there is a difference between not being paid because you're rubbish and not being paid because people want the product but believe they shouldn't have to pay for it.
The point with the model train set is you're doing that in your room in private and nobody's benefitting so why should they pay? If people are downloading your music and listening to it they are benefitting from what you're doing so why is it is it so unreasonable to expect them to renumerate you for your efforts and expenses?
I know that touring isn't generally a replacement for album sales, I'm not saying the new equilibrium is equal to the old one.
I don't think that the technology has an implicit moral value, as seems to be suggested by many posters in this thread. I'm not saying it's a positive, and I don't begrudge people for wanting to resist it, but I genuinely believe that this era is a sea change that will/has significantly changed the music market. Nothing has been said of the benefit of the change, the unprecedented access to information and culture. Also, this is hardly one of the great social injustices (or is it?).
There isn't a relationship between the musician's effort and expenses, and payment for it by the customer (otherwise if a song was easy to write, it'd have to be cheaper, wouldn't it?) The relationship is between the product and the willingness of a customer to pay for that product. In an age where it is very cheap to make copies of music (and a range of ways to stream/download/etc it), making its supply vastly more significant; and where the reduced price of recording equipment has exponentially increased the number of musicians and recordings available to purchase, it should hardly be surprising that the price falls significantly. People still want music, but their entertainment dollar has to spread over so many more bands than in the past.
The thing I learned most today was the level of bitterness and vitriol of people supposedly involved in bands (not Falco, but the posters in this thread). Seething and misguided missives about how much blood, sweat and tears (good grief) they'd put into these dime-a-dozen albums/songs/whatever, making it clear that there was no enjoyment to be had from the act or process of making the music itself. I think they might as well work in a bank.
I am
So I don't know what to do with your pointless response.
I just wish people would think up a new system rather than moan about the way the old one has collapsed leaving them unable to do what previous bands of their size maybe have been able to do.
I would, record album by self, stick it on net for free, play shit load of gigs, throw copies at DJ's, bands I liked, promoters. On my band site have a "fancy giving us some money?" paypal box. We have so far spent £4,837 on recording and promoting this album, if you like it and fancy flinging us some cash go ahead. My 9-5 job makes me want to kill strangers, but I guess at least I won't run out of material this way, spending years living off a big advance and becoming detached from reality. Don't feel guilty if not, Im glad you like it. Also, our mate designed some cool tshirts and socks, buy them if you can be arsed, but really, it's touching something I made brings you joy or whatever it brings. End message.
but in reality it's really not like that.
You are painting a romantic image of being in a band, and all that romance quickly fades when you are totally exhausted, skint and wondering how on earth you will pay for the next record to be made.
Come on man, if people aren't going to buy your music legitimately then are they really going to donate through a widget on your website?
To be honest, I'm torn on how I feel about downloading. I used to think that it was positive/inevitable/a change for the good. I still think it could be and I'm constantly trying to figure out how to make it so.
But doing things like being creative with merch and other stuff like that requires money. So if a band sink all their money into making the music as good as possible (after all that's the idea, right? That's why we do this, for the music not the merch gimmicks) then there isn't money to pay the merchandisers to make the stuff...I suppose we could always nick stuff from their warehouses.
I don't around and moan about this stuff all the time, but some attitudes on here are at best naive and at worst totally ignorant and arrogant.theguywithnousername this'd this
Im bringing back the romance
I know what you mean Darcy, I've had mates in similar situations, but the struggle isn't particularly worse than it ever was. Keep going. Say 50 years ago if you couldnt do well enough on the live circuit and/or didn't have the right contacts you wouldn't get gigs, wouldn't be recorded, no one would hear you. No time to "develop" There's a great deal of luck involved in the industry and a great deal being taken for granted in how it's advanced to what it is now. I've had mates get signed to indies who then ignored them when another act on their label got massive because they just didn't have enough resources, despite their intentions, so it wasnt some great breeding ground for creativity to be given an advance, they just had a few months off work and an album which got no promotion, ended up produced by people they didnt want, and failed.
The old system wasn't perfect, neither is this, but for sheer ease alone (get laptop, record some tunes, put on internet) I think we're a hell of a lot better off. Also, there doesn't seem to be any points made on how to change it. I doubt Falco is suggesting people who nick his albums should be punished. Maybe there will be a cultural change, the bands who people respect and enjoy will be rewarded, but they're gonna have to work at it. they might not have much instant success but hopefully they can wangle a living out of it if they're talented enough.
I'm not going to lie
I like the romance. Let's go out for a candle lit dinner :-)
You speak a lot of sense, especially what you said about being able to get your music out there. Reaching a few thousand people was near on impossible in the past without a record label infrastructure. And that is clearly a positive thing about the current state of play.
I've actually had a really good idea about how to approach the downloading thing. Not sure if it's been done yet so I'm going to look into it....hmmm *strokes chin* More on this later.
all this talk of illegal Future of the Left downloads is getting me hungry
I'mma go make a sandwich, then download Travels illegally, then eat to the beat.
I typed out a response, but it's already been adequately covered by others above.
If you think that using flowery language makes one 'articulate', then i should point out it's only really effective when one isn't using such linguistic tools to enforce a point that is as weak as piss.
Please, fuck off.unfamiliar this'd this
They're actually referring casually to him as Falco now?
I know they're on European tour at the moment, but I so want to see/hear him on the wider media even if it's just on the piracy-is-bad tip rather than what he should be doing on prime time, which is of course screaming his veins out while Kelson looks deeply disturbing next to him.
Also, lol at Grauniad blogger calling him Fork: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/20/artists-albums-leaked
this is what i was thinking of...
are you (whitelightwhitecity) the same person that was going off on one with falco in comments link above?
Not me
I haven't looked at the Guardian at all, I just saw the original post on here.
IF WLWC has a dayjob
I hope his bosses get to see how much time he spends writing in this thread. He's not as commitmed to whatever he does for a living as Falco is to Future Of The Left.
The thing that has always irked me about this tired subject, whether it be mp3s, episodes of Heroes, CD's or tapes
is that I would like to personally see these people do well from their hard work. If you go out and buy something, whatever it is, it's because you think it's worth the cash and something you approve of.
Whether it be some slightly more mature cheddar that someones stored for 6 months longer at greater expense or a Nintendo game that the team have spent 2 years working on. This whole issue merely comes down to morals at the end of the day for me, as there will always be a way of getting free(ish) stuff.
But piracy is undoubtedly damaging creatively. You can argue people who are creative will always be so, but surely they've ALWAYS been doing it for some kind of reward, whether it be a few nice comments on a DiS feature, an Arts Council commission or a sell out stadium tour.
And as a consumer, I'm continually pissed off that things I believe are good and worthwhile spending money on are repeatedly closed down / disbanded / ignored because of people not rewarding them for their hard endeavours.
The part of this whole blog of Falco's I most agree with is:
"please be careful, or we'll get the world we all deserve. "
It's started already...sean, artbaretta, guntrip, marckee, johnnyforeigner, wewerewerewolvesonce, and splitterwill this'd this
I disagree
"please be careful, or we'll get the world we all deserve. " we don't have a situation where it is hobby bands that can only afford tour rarely, that just doesnt seem to be the case at all, seems to be more live music going on now than in the past, especially for independent bands. There will always be the'superstars' but I think the promotional power of downloading has helped many bands become established, in the past it was a winner takes all situation with relatively few bands dominating the market depending on getting signed, where as now I think the market is more shared between more bands and smaller bands, but it is harder for bands to reach the superstar level just because there is so much more choice than in the past, I think this situation is preferable.
Piracy damaging creativity I also disagree with, any band worth anything aren't careerists, most bands best work is the album they write before they find success, and I think the current crop of bands are very likely to be downloaders themselves, having access to so much music and having all those influences is bound to encourage new ideas
Is there more illegal downloading going on now
than there was 2 years ago?
As if anyone could know such a thing...
There must be estimates though?
But the RIAA dismiss study's findings!
How exciting.
are you swapping armchairs
for each of these?
in a vain attempt to compensate for a lack of any actual debate.
what amuses me about the Guardian commentary
is the smarmy comment about the distance from McLusky's 'big number' and Lily Allen; does one of her most popular songs not directly reference post-cocksucking blues?
Feel my confusion
I'm just not up with the times.Schadenfreude and JGJug this'd this
Home taping is killing music
But does it fuck like a man?
i meant
its odd how noone in this thread has commented much on, whatever the opinion on whether you deserve music for free, its still illegal thus shouldnt be done. not saying i believe that, but it seems weird how much these debates have moved on in the last couple of years. well not exactly weird. tbh id have probly abandonedreply but i didn't want to look like i was agreeing with anything the heartless pseudoclever guy above me is saying.
my 2 cents: humans are greedy; we're all doomed. i heard it was nice while it lasted.
I reckon illegal downloading allows bands to play 'around the world'
more than if it didnt exist
if only there was some way to monetize
youtube views into plane tickets...
expanded fanbase
bigger turnout at gigs, money for plane tickets
Bands of the size of FotL will be lucky if they can cover the cost
of transport, accommodation, kit hire, food and the time off work with a tour in their country of origin. To go overseas takes a huge amount of money, and one that can only really be justified if there is a label behind the band and a physical product (CDs, vinyl, t-shirts) that hasn't been 'cracked' and is able to be sold to fans at the shows.
You'll end up with the paradoxical situation of bands having a disparate fan base across the globe because of the internet, but only a local presence as a live act. Unless you want to pay upwards of £30 to see any american bands in this country.
totally this
tho, we (bands) do get royalties offa youtube now. but, yeh, hardly plane fare cost. what yr talking about, thingsthatfly, is a total ideal world situation but it doesnt work in practice. i doubt it can till record labels are over forever and everythings super organised at grass roots levels. it sort of seems appealing, but it'd mean that you'd hear loads of bands that were good at networking and organising (ie, replacing the label/agent/promotor aspect) and not much by bands who say, write amazing songs but dont/cant organise a tour off their own back.
also, attendance figures to gigs are down all over. i do this band and i work parttime for arena level bands, whether the promotors are putting on shows for 100 or >9000, they're all worried by falling ticket sales. there was this weird guilt rhetoric a year or two ago, like - its morally ok for me to dl stuff cos then i put all the money i've saved into gigs and merch - but it turns out we were (mostly) lieing..
"but it turns out we were (mostly) lieing.."
^^^ this.
We've all been caught with our pants down and our hands in the cookie jar.
Next stop, hell in a handcart!
*downloads Telegraphs album*
To be fair I have downloaded between 5 and 10 albums in my life. And half of those I have then bought.
But still. D'oh.
I think attitudes towards downloading are changing though.
I used to think the way many people do. Fuck the major labels. They have been selling sub-standard albums at £15 for too long. They have been peddling albums laden with shit off the strength of 1 single having the crap marketed out of it. They killed the charts by getting songs to radio MONTHS before they are released. So all you get is songs flying in at an entry position and then dropping out.... no longer do you have the excitement of songs rising and falling week by week - the chart show is a massive bore.
So fuck them, right? We are taking the law into our own hands. We are taking music back and freeing it from the slimey, corporate, bean-counting fucks that are only interested in the bottom line.
I thought artists would find new ways of making money and the whole business model would shift. Maybe it will...I think it HAS to. But in the interim smaller bands are running out of money/steam and struggling to keep going.
While downloading doesn't necessarily effect bands like Coldplay and U2 quite so much, it does hit smaller acts. And there's the rub. I think people are starting to realise that and the collective consciousness is changing again. Hopefully it will become taboo to just take music and let musicians suffer the consequences.this'd this
attendence figures maybe down this year
but there is a recession on and everything, i'd be very very surprised if the general trend over the last decade hasnt been a huge increase, live music seems such a bigger industry than it used to be.DarknessDoubled this'd this
not "this year" tho, tis a steady decrease since britpop
or, since internet. since xbox. since home cinema. since being able to gorge yrself for free on something and devalue th whole process. i dunno, obviously we move in different circles but i dont know any promotor who'd agree with you.
fucking hell this is depressing.
lets all move to videogames.
I really think that cant be true
I remember during britpop, reading festival wouldnt sell out, the astoria was considered a big venue brixton academy huge. Now festivals pop up all over the place, acts i'd still consider fairly small playing venues that used to be for established mainstream acts, gigs sell out in moments
i can only speak for who i know, i wish i agreed with you.
Like anything, I think it's more noticible at the top and bottom of the ladder.
Madonna signed to Live Nation didn't she? I think that was symptomatic of concert ticket sales being more valuable than records.
So yeah, you get tons of big bands selling out 02 arena shows. But people blow all their money on "big" tickets and then the middle and smaller sized shows suffer as a result...this is just a suggestion, I have no stats to back this up!
I got the impression that gig attendances have been higher
since the turn of the century than in the late 90's.
I put it down to stuff like the NME's 'new rock revolution' rebranding of guitar music as 'cool' for the kids (remember c.1998 and their headline asking if guitar music was 'dead'? Then look what happened with Strokes/Stripes etc!). Basically, it felt like gig-going was fashionable again...
And I also think that the internet has allowed greater access to smaller bands, encouraging gig-going.
This is all too vague, I know. stats for gig attendance would be nice... and I don't have any, but neither do any of those saying attendance is down.
I was just surprised that anti-downloaders were using falling gig attendance as an argument against, as my perception was that attendance has been higher in the 'download decade'. If attendance really IS down because of downloading, it certainly takes one of the major props from under the 'pro' argument.
It doesn't really
You can't draw any connection between falling gig attendances and the prominence of illegal downloading. You just can't. There's absolutely no reason why the two should be linked. And if gig attendances are falling for unrelated reasons, so could record sales, as suggested in the article I posted up there ^^^^^^
I agree with the first part.
Whilst if it's true gig attendances are falling it damages the argument that "illegal downloading's fine 'cos artists are making the money back from increased live sales" it'd not make sense to argue that falling gig attendances are due to downloading.
On the other hand, whilst I agree that it's possible record sales could be falling for reasons unrelated to illegal downloading it's not a huge leap of logic to argue it's probable, even if not proven, that the fact people can now access music for free is at least a contributory factor.
I think it is because CD's are such an undesirable format now
the only thing they had going for them was convinience and mp3s have out convinienced them, they now have the sad aura about them normally reserved for computer games consoles that have become obsolete, i'd never buy a cd, vinyl is still pretty niche though. I think record companies should really push the vinyl/download combo even to those that dont have record players, really emphasise the artwork and make people want to own it, and make people feel they dont own it without the object
It's not a huge leap of logic, no
but there's nonetheless evidence to suggest that it's not actually what's going on. At the very least, it's something which requires more research. What effect is illegal downloading having on record sales? Do the arguments that illegal downloading increase bands' exposure in a way which is ultimately beneficial to them have any merit? If illegal downloading *is* proven to have a significant negative impact on record sales, will the music industry and independent bands nonetheless be able to remain self-sustaining? At the moment, the vast majority of answers are based on conjecture, irrespective of how plausible some of that conjecture might be.WhiteLightWhiteCity and Anschul this'd this
I guess that was my point...
I was surprised that people were using the 'falling attendance' argument, when I didn't think it was true at all.
The man jagged The Guardian.
This actually really annoys me!
1st of all i love FotL but anyone could say :
"Some of us, in all honestly, just want to [play the sport/make the things/talk about the things] we love and [do] it around the world without living in poverty."
...but if doesn't make us enough money we don't do it anymore we do something that does make a bit of money or make us happy or whatever. plenty of people make ALOT of money playing the music they love but if you decide to make music that doesn't appeal to the mass market your not. So either fac up to it or get a new job!!
I dont think he is complaining that his band doesnt have mass market appeal
he is complaining he isnt getting money for his work which is a fair enough thing to be annoyed about.
I think the issue is does the increased fanbase (more potential album buyers and (debatable) larger audiences) created by the illegal downloading climate offset the loses caused by people being less likely to buy music
for me the annoying thing
is the assumption that some artists have that if their wasnt downloading they would have the same amount of fans and they would all have bought the album (like that ridiculous dis article calculation) and would have earnt x amount of money, like when wavves was complaining about it even though he had only released tapes up until then that had sold out making it not even possible to buy and was touring all around the world (to rooms full of downloaders)
I disagree...
I could work and work at creating a piece of art, writing a book, attempting to become a professional sportsperson but why should I just automatically get paid the amount of money I expect to?
I dont buy the whole illegal downloading is making bands go poor. Its up to them to ensure that making music is going to make them money if they plan to rely on it as their source of income. People can slag off Greenday/muse/coldplay/chart acts etc etc but the fact is that they are still selling millions of records and concert tickets so if they can do it in spite of illegal downloaders theres no excuse for any other musician.
they are expected to be paid for products that they create within the framework of the law, any other producer of things wouldnt expect their products to just be stolen, a farmer would be rightfully cheesed off is someone stole his crops (not an exact analogy I know as music can be infinitely reproduced with very little cost), im kind of arguing against what I believe here, I dont think that downloading is as damaging as somepeople, I do find your view a little strange
I don't
Someone really clever once said: 'This isn't like Volvo closing a factory down. This isn't a case of people just wanting to do what's best for their families being forced out of the holes society's spent 20 years moulding them to fit. This is a case of people saying "Okay, I know it's going to be hard, I know that this is a long, long way from being my best chance of making a steady income, but nonetheless, I want to make a career out of my music, so I'm going to take my chances and give it a go" and maybe suffering for it. So be it. We can admire them for trying to do what they really want with their lives rather than just settling for the easy option, and I think we should, but that doesn't mean we should sympathise with them when they fail. No one out there, apart from maybe an incredibly small minority not worth considering, is thinking "Music is my best possible bet of making a decent living" and failing at that.'
Plus, after 8 years or so in mclusky, I'm sure Falco knew exactly what the state of play was when he started Future of the Left. That doesn't mean he's not justified in being pissed off that some people are getting his music for free, but it doesn't mean he has a right to complain either.
I totally agree.
I'm not really as anti-downloading as I tend to come across in these threads but I feel I'm constantly forced into a really defensive position on it because of people like this who seem to find it absurd and unreasonable for a musician to want be paid what they're worth.
Nobody wants it to be all about the money (although ironically the logical conclusion of Shelington's argument is that bands should focus on mass appeal in order to get it) but the bottom line is that most bands or labels are gonna spend a minimum of £3000 to £5000 grand on an album and they have to make that money back somehow.
I think what pisses me off about downloading isn't really a belief that it's gonna kill the music industry as I think bands'll find a way to cope. It's this attitude certain people seem to have that they're entitlement to free music outweighs everything else and that it's alright as someone somewhere (be it the band losing money or other record buyers buying albums so you don't have to) will subsidise your right to free music so it's not your problem. I just find it a depressingly selfish attitude.
I suppose it just depends on how you look at it
I dont think it is selfish or a sense of entitlement, I just think culture should be shared, it is important and if peoples access depended on how much disposable income they have I dont think that is a good situation. I also think it is the case that those that download the most also spend the most so the way they are depicted in these debates is inaccurate, theyre just music lovers.
But there's a danger of perversely creating a situation where people's ability to release music comes down to how much disposable income they have.
And at least with people buying music it splits the cost rather than one band/indepedent label standing to lose thousands so others don't have to fork out a tenner.
IAs to whether those who download the most spend the most, all we really have to go on is speculation and anecdotal research. My belief is that there will be some people who download loads and spend loads but there will equally be people who download loads and spend nothing at all so I think it'd be inaccurate to draw any conclusions about downloaders' tendency to buy music.
I don't necessarily think all people that download are selfish and have a sense of entitlement but I do think there's one implied when people wax lyrical about how unreasonable it is for bands to expect to make a living out of music but don't consider the flipside of whether it's unreasonable of them to expect to get all their music for free. And there is also an element of exceptionalism when people argue that bands sell enough records that it doesn't matter if they download it for free (i.e. it's sort of saying "I'm special and other people should spend money on this so I don't have to).
I suppose in a way I view it in pretty much the same way as I view paying taxes. i.e. I don't really want to do it but I do want the thing the money goes towards providing (be it education/healthcare or be it a particular band or label having the ability to go on releasing music) and I accept making a small contribution towards the cost is the best way to achieve that.
I dont think it is unreasonable for bands to expect to earn money
I just am sceptical that downloading does have such a drastic impact on it, I think it would be wrong for someone to only download I also think it is probably rare and that most people do buy music, and think that the increased fanbase and potential customers and gig-goers must make up for some of the losses. It must be easy for bands to say they are losing out, after all anybody would like to be paid more, but they have no way of knowing how much they are losing and dont consider have also benefited from downloading, how many of their paying fans got into them through it. Once a band is established it is in their interests to crackdown on downloading but it doesn't reflect how it helped them become established. Of course somebands would have made it without the internet but we will never know which, but think it has probably been invaluable to most.
As for music only being made by those with disposable income, I think that will always be the case to an extent, people with the means and free time are in a easier position to make music, buying instruments is always gonna be expensive, but I think it is probably easier for people to make and release music than it ever has been again thanks to the internet
Doesn't this put pressure on people to be commercial and try to widen their appeal though?
I mean ultimately I suspect the people illegal downloading really hurts are people like Falco for the precise reason that their way of ensuring it works for them as a source of income in the past is to do something that appeals to a passionate but niche audience where just enough people buy it to break even on costs and perhaps make a living out of it. The problem these musicians then have is that if a % of these people don't buy the album it becomes impossible to break even on costs, let alone make a living.
Of course ThingsThatFly is right that not all the people who download will have bought the album but if the ones that would have bought it in the past now download it that's gonna be damaging enough. I suspect ultimately, for all the arguments that illegal downloading widens fanbases, bands like FOTL won't widen their fanbases through it because of the niche appeal of what they're doing - the wider audiences they reach might not be fans of it.
The point that worries me with the situation being created is that is one where the successful bands stay successful but the niche bands are the ones that struggle and I think this is ultimately damaging as such bands are gonna have to make a decision to be more commercial or accept they can't really afford to tour and make a living, whereas before record sales allowed them to do these things. I don't know about anyone else but I don't really want it only to be bands like Green Day/Muse/Coldplay etc. who can afford to be free enough from work to tour regularly or whose labels can afford enough promo to get them radio play or press articles. I think the music scene would be much poorer if these cult/niche bands began to struggle.silverpop this'd this
I really think it is the niche bands that benefit from it
id have thought a significant percentage of fotl fans would have been introduced to them through downloading, trouble is we cant know how well they would have done in the absences of downloading as that world doesn't exist.
I also think falco
should consider the success of other bands that have formed from the ashes of more popular bands before blaming downloading, it could just be the case people dont like his new band
But they seem to be downloading it.
And it doesn't seem to be the case that people don't like Future of the Left. That's certainly not the general impression I get.
Falco doesn't seem to feel he's benefitting from it.
And he's been in a niche band before the (significant) downloading age so I'd have thought he'd know whether or not niche bands are benefitting. He doesn't seem to think so.
But even without downloading there'd been Myspace/Youtube as ways for people to check bands they didn't know out on the internet so I don't entirely agree he argument that "without illegal downloading people couldn't discover new bands in the way the internet has allowed them to" because it's the internet, not the downloading, that's allowed them to do that. The internet and downloading seem to be used interchangeably but they aren't quite the same thing.
Can you get the internet we have without illegal downloading though?
As in the fast, reliable, widely-used internet we've gained during the latter half of the decade? The internet whose advent roughly coincides with Pitchfork becoming the indie bible that it has done, but also with the birth of illegal downloading. This internet, after all, is simply the exchange of large amounts of data between lots of people. So to say that visiting Pitchfork and illegally downloading an album are two completely different things is all well and good, but to say we could have ever had one without the other is less so.
remember when pitchfork accidentally leaked Ys
they were the same thing that day
I think illegal downloading is a natural byproduct of the internet we have, yes.
The technology is there so of course it's going to happen.
What I'm saying is that it's the internet, rather than the ability to download illegally, that's allowed people to check out bands they couldn't check out without buying albums by before. You could listen to said bands on Myspace, Youtube or Last FM without illegally downloading them and you'd still hear the bands and they'd still reach an audIence. Inevitably the fact you can do all this and then download the tracks means people do download the tracks but it's the capability of the internet, not the fact people can download music illegally, that means bands can get wider exposure. So the internet and illegal downloading are linked but they're not the same thing.
but is the overall effect of the internet not the issue that people should be concentrating on? The argument that illegal downloading has its benefits may at times consist of erroneous use "illegal downloading" as synonymous with "the internet", but in terms of bemoaning the advent of illegal downloading, surely you can't rightly do that without bemoaning the advent of super-fast internet as a whole.
And I say "at times" the exchange of terms is erroneous because there are times where it genuinely is the ability to illegally download which creates - not exposure - but a benefit nonetheless. Are a few tracks on MySpace, for example, going to compel you to go to a gig or buy a t-shirt or buy a poster - in the same way that the whole album on your iPod is going to? Or even to start a thread on Drowned in Sound and say "Hey, check out this band, they're really good!"
I dont see it as too comparable bands
one very good seminal band and one that aren't that great
i hope i'm not the only one whose first thoughts were:
you aren't even the only one to post it.
but bless you for trying.
yeah, the thread was too long, i only had a quick scroll.
i do try.
I see alot of people saying that illegal downloading has made them go out and see people live and buy merch... well thats just fine like go see people its ace! But what about those people that don't play live or have merch? Electronic music is full of people like that, a big name example being Burial who doesn't play out live or DJ or make any merch. The I dont pay for his music but will suport him in other ways argument just doesn't work there isn't any other options. And this is just one dude there are loads of artists that dont do anything live and even if their music gets played out by other DJ's I doubt they get any cash for that. Just a thought...this'd this
The other thing about that argument thats pisses me off
Is that how much money is there to be made from shows / merch anyhow? The overheads of these things have always been high, hence why to a certain extent CD prices were over-inflated to balance things out.
A T-shirt costs you £10-15 to buy. If it's decent, then it was likely to have been a decent one in the first place or well printed too, meaning not a huge profit (maybe £9?).
And having been involved with putting on a few sell-out shows in the past, it's nearly always the venue management that take the biggest cut. Then there's rent, equipment hire, roadie costs, van hire, not working for 6 weeks, ticket agency cuts...
It's hardly a goldmine.
i did a music business module at uni at the start of the year
i don't remember any exact numbers but our lecturer certainly said at more than one point 'are you making cds to sell cds or are you making cds to sell t-shirts?'
the profit margins on merch can definately be really high.
In the grim darkness of the not all that far off future, there is only U2
and the occasional Los Campesinos tour.
Any chance we could just have the U2 bit?
i'd like to say
i think WhiteLightWhiteCity has made some really good points here for those that can be bothered to read them properly. I'm very interested in how this works out, and I love FOTL, but the emotive "angry mob" responses his comments have received in this thread are unsettling to say the least.
the thing is that with downloading we are talking (mainly) about music (at least in this thread)
but what worries me is that if the law tightens then the internet is going to suffer - it is just not possible to have a free and open internet whilst simultaneously cracking down on digital copyright infringements. The two are mutually exclusive.
The recent FAC meeting in which they decided on an agreement to squeeze peoples' bandwith if they repeatedly downloaded illegally was a HUGE disappointment. It may seem like a compromise in terms of punishment but it fails to recognise that EXACTLY THE SAME method of enforcement would be required to elicit the lesser punishment than the stricter punishment and it is the method of enforcement that is the problem.
Permanent 24 hour internet policing by state-run or private corporations is not good news for anyone full stop. Let alone trying to police various technologies that are hard to understand even for those that use them daily. How will the policing mechanism be able to tell a legal download from an illegal one? Are all torrents to be outlawed? Are the major labels or RIAA or IFPI going to randomly send out threatening letters and make up for their CD sales shortfalls in out-of-court settlements? Youbetcha they will
On the flipside, I am a massive fan of all sorts of music and have spent, like most people on the site I'd imagine, my entire adult life parting with as much money as I could afford (and sometimes more) on music and music related goods - which I am convinced would NEVER have happened without tape-to-tape. Would anyone have sanctioned an IFPI-backed bedroom stop-and-search policy in the 80s? Good lord I hope not
The other thing that troubles me in this 'debate' is how any weight given to a strengthening of law over copyrights, patents etc might have an impact in other arenas. If I were to grow a variety of wheat for example that I had modified in some way that I owned patent for would people be happy if I were to enforce that farmer Bread could in no way re-sow that seed or clone any part of it but had to always renew their crop license with my company ???
It may seem rather tangential but in everyone struggling to come up with analogies for digital copying it occurred to me that there was another industry in which perfect copies or 'clones' are part of the daily exchange and sure enough there have been cases of multinational food manufacturers attempting to shutdown collective farming projects on precisely these grounds.
I am VERY VERY wary of artists being pushed forward into the limelight to be the mouthpieces of moral indignation in this debate - the internet is a wonderful thing, let's not corporatise or shut it down over this issue please.
Ready for another round?
"'Polymers are forever' - a postmodern take on 'Eye of the Tiger'. With swearing. Yes, we're in the studio."
G'wan big man.
Will buy.
'With swearing?'
The Millennium Centre won't be asking them to return then...