I would discourage worrying of any kind as a general principle. Worrying is a fear that something bad might happen — a negative emotional state with no external cause in reality. So on that basis, no — I wouldn’t worry about piracy.
I’d also suggest that piracy is not something that tends to happen on the scale that the mainstream media seems to suggest. Unauthorised duplication goes on, but not piracy. The idea that these two things are the same is one that major record labels tend to be quite fond of, but it bears no resemblance to either external reality, or what words actually mean.
Let me outline what I see as the differences between those two things.
Unauthorised copying is the practice of making duplicates of recorded music, usually for personal and social advantage — and most typically for reasons of convenience.
If my friend has a CD copy of a U2 record that I don’t own (for instance) and I put it in my computer and instruct my iTunes software to import that music, then that’s an unauthorised copy.
If I email a track from that album to a friend of mine, that’s another unauthorised copy. If I burn a CD from my iTunes playlist so I can listen to that album in my car, there’s another unauthorised copy.
If I then put that U2 record into my shared folder in Limewire so that my fellow peers online can download it, that’s unauthorised copying (but only if they actually download it — at present, ‘making available’ is not considered ‘distribution’).
If I scan the artwork, set up a mass CD replication production process, manufacture cheap copies of the CD and then distribute and sell the album for financial gain, then that’s piracy. Which is bad and wrong.
Now, simple economics would suggest that if I was going to invest capital in a mass replication process, then it would be U2 and their like that I would want to be mass replicating. The value of the hit, to the actual pirate, is much greater than the value of the non-hit.
So the short answer to the question about whether you should even give piracy a second thought is: Are you U2?
But that’s a flippant response and the question deserves more serious consideration. When asking ‘Should I be worried about piracy?’ the real underlying question is about whether there is a significant potential loss of income as a result of unauthorised copying. And here we’re talking about what’s generally referred to as the ‘Lost Sale’.
The Lost Sale is the idea that because someone came into possession of a track of yours as an mp3, then that is one less copy that will now be sold, thereby depriving you of your rightful income. From the artist and label perspective, it’s the sense of indignation that “all of these people now have my music – and they didn’t give me any money for it. I worked hard and invested all this money, and they’re just stealing it from me…”
It’s an understandable emotion. But it’s not a helpful approach – for three reasons:
1) Copying, as I’ve mentioned before, just happens online. You can’t legislate against it, prevent it by technical means nor force people to behave in ways that you would like them to. If you’re going to make recorded music, you have to be aware that you live in a world where this is what goes on. Refusing to accept that on principled grounds will only lead to stress and illness, and the unhelpful belief that every music consumer is a criminal.
2) The fluidity with which your music can pass from hand to hand is not an impediment to your success, but a technological advantage that you can leverage to your own ends. The overwhelming cry from the independent musician twenty years ago was ‘How can I just get my music out there?’ Problem solved. Now what are you going to do?
3) There are several phases to music that I characterise as Composition, Production, Distribution, Promotion and Consumption. All of those links in the chain are very important. I would suggest that if a technology is not cutting it for you in one part of the chain, it’s sensible to move it to another part of that same chain. That is to say, if you want mp3s to be the way that you profitably distribute music but the results are unsatisfying because of unauthorised copying, then redeploy mp3s to be the way that you profitably promote your music instead.
Now, of course, this raises more questions than it answers — and of course, things are far more complicated than I’ve laid out here — but as a general principle, it’s worth considering that rather than fret about unauthorised copying and expend time and energy in the fruitless task of preventing people from engaging in it, that time and energy can be better spent elsewhere.
And here are three more things to consider:
1) People who share your music are recommending you to people who respect their taste and opinion;
2) The vast majority of people who have unauthorised copies of your music would not have ordinarily paid for it anyway;
3) Do you really want for people who cannot afford your music to be prevented from ever hearing it?
The single most effective way to stop people from copying your music is to stop making music. If that’s not an option (and why would it be?) then accepting that this is the world in which we live is a good start towards successfully negotiating the new media environment.
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87 Comments
Worry is no help. In no case. Worry gets you exactly there where you don’t want to be.
And I agree that file sharing is a reality. It was even in 1969, when we copied vinyl on our reel to reel tape machines.
The process can’t be reversed.
It looks right now, that at the same time a track is available for free or for a fee. Even at different prices if you look at the various download services.
Out of curiosity checked if our music was on mp3gle. Couldn`t find it. But of course the big names. So it doesn’t hurt me anyway.
Your definition of piracy is absolutely correct.
But what do you think of this: I have a few teenage guitar students who tell me what’s going on in their scene. They told me that there are some kids in their class that have a huge collection of tracks on their pc. They burn and sell cds and compilations.
No big financial damage. But would you call this piracy?
Cheers Dubber. That is probably one of the best articulated arguments against DRM I have read. Of course, if no-one wants to download it for free either you don’t have product, just a lot of 0′s and 1′s.
Great article, Andrew. I agree with you (and quote you) in a post at my site :
http://www.danielholter.com/2008/04/pirates-schmirates/
Beginning artists and bands should be so fortunate to grow to a scale where piracy actually affects their bottom line…. they’d be well advised to embrace all forms of getting their music heard when they’re just starting out, building their brand. Spot on, mate. Spot on.
>>>QUOTE>>>>>>>>
RE: Peter Blue
I have a few teenage guitar students who tell me what’s going on in their scene. They told me that there are some kids in their class that have a huge collection of tracks on their pc. They burn and sell cds and compilations.
No big financial damage. But would you call this piracy?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well yeah, if these kids are selling the stuff, then yes it is piracy.
I used to be one of those types that WORRIED about people stealing the music that I posted online for streaming….Then I discovered that if I posted it for free that no one would steal it LOL.
Seriously though, the comment: The overwhelming cry from the independent musician twenty years ago was ‘How can I just get my music out there?’ Problem solved. Now what are you going to do?
Pretty much sums it up.
The answer for me, is turn people into fans who WANT to buy your music.
I don’t really worry about unauthorized copying anymore, but that does not mean that I endorse it.
I believe that if you like the music that you have in your player, computer etc, that you should pay for it if you haven’t already.
I have never bought into the “Well I wasn’t going to pay for this anyway” line of reasoning.
“I was never going to pay for this car, so I should be allowed to take it”.
This is a perception problem though, that people have regarding music and the artists that record it.
I know that I cannot change societys perception as a whole (That is a massive effort that is beyond my means) but I can (and have) changed the perceptions of individuals.
One thing that doesn’t get mentioned in these conversations, is songwriters who are not performers, or the recording artist. They get hurt the most from unauthorized copying.
Excellent post. Sums up perfectly why I’ve decided that the music on my website should now be free – downloads as promotion, not lost sales.
Given the level that the majority of musicians out there (including myself) are at, we shouldn’t be worried about piracy, we should be worried about obscurity.
A. Dubber: “The fluidity with which your music can pass from hand to hand is not an impediment to your success, but a technological advantage that you can leverage to your own ends. The overwhelming cry from the independent musician twenty years ago was ‘How can I just get my music out there?’ Problem solved. Now what are you going to do?”
B R I L L I A N T !!!
I wrote an extended comment, but decided not to bother – my arguments would probably have been misunderstood anyway.
I will ask a question however, Andrew: How am I supposed to make money making music if I cannot sell it?
…it is almost like the only reason some folks come around here is to disagree…From what I can tell it could be from a severe case of “tunnel vision” that this is happening.
I think a healthy debate can really bring about positive changes but I do not think knit picking selective details and harping on their contradictions to your own vision is helpful at all.
If selling audio recordings is the solitary goal (it can’t be, right?), then I can understand the perceived problem. Otherwise, I would try reading the entire posts from time to time.
Each year I’m invited to give a University lecture on Music and New Technologies. It’s amazing how you’ve put together almost everything that I talk about, in short form!
In fact, it’s a bit scary: the “three more things to consider” actually have the same words that I use! (except my lecture is in Spanish ;-) )
Andrew, this is such a great article. My favorite part is the underlying message of ‘why worry?’ since it doesn’t do anything positive, and everything is going to follow it’s course anyway.
Surrendering to that is an empowering thing. Thank you for the article.
-Steven
http://www.stevencravis.com
http://ageless.myzrii.com
Let’s tackle this one issue at a time, shall we, and make it blatantly clear why this is one man’s opinion, and not a well thought-out diatribe:
” 1) Copying, as I’ve mentioned before, just happens online. You can’t legislate against it, prevent it by technical means nor force people to behave in ways that you would like them to. If you’re going to make recorded music, you have to be aware that you live in a world where this is what goes on. Refusing to accept that on principled grounds will only lead to stress and illness, and the unhelpful belief that every music consumer is a criminal.”
Rubbish. Not every music consumer is an unprincipled menace. Not every music consumer gives a crap about other people. Treating consumers like they’re special people is ludicrous. They’re the same people that make up big corporations, small companies and universities.
They gravitate towards free and easy. Remove free, and they will go towards easy.
” 2) The fluidity with which your music can pass from hand to hand is not an impediment to your success, but a technological advantage that you can leverage to your own ends. The overwhelming cry from the independent musician twenty years ago was ‘How can I just get my music out there?’ Problem solved. Now what are you going to do?”
That’s not a critical approach. The abilities that technology give us DO NOT necessarily go hand-in-hand with the ability to rob musicians of their livelihood. However, making it “free” to download U2 means that your band, who’s giving away their stuff for cheap or free, doesn’t have a hope in hell.
” 3) There are several phases to music that I characterise as Composition, Production, Distribution, Promotion and Consumption. All of those links in the chain are very important. I would suggest that if a technology is not cutting it for you in one part of the chain, it’s sensible to move it to another part of that same chain. That is to say, if you want mp3s to be the way that you profitably distribute music but the results are unsatisfying because of unauthorised copying, then redeploy mp3s to be the way that you profitably promote your music instead.”
All very well unless you happen to be in a form of music which doesn’t lend itself to anything but playback in one form – which, by the way, is most forms of music.
“Now, of course, this raises more questions than it answers  and of course, things are far more complicated than I’ve laid out here  but as a general principle, it’s worth considering that rather than fret about unauthorised copying and expend time and energy in the fruitless task of preventing people from engaging in it, that time and energy can be better spent elsewhere.”
Your ‘everything is positive and fighting against it is futile because I don’t know how to prevent it’ is a bit like saying ‘the world is crap, but, you know, just whistle. You shouldn’t try to change it’.
There’s nothing more pathetic than cowardice.
And embracing change does not equate to supporting piracy.
The facts are:
Piracy is preventable, at an ISP level, and has in fact been implemented that way in many countries, with success.
There are certain levels of piracy that are never preventable, such as sneaker-nets, however none of these are as pervasive or devastating as P2P, which combines ease-of-use with a social acceptability of ‘sticking it to the man’, whoever that is.
Piracy of any media, or software, is wrong, comes down to the individual’s code of ethics, and is preventable on a large scale. The willingness to fight against something is not idiocy, or an inability to change. It’s an inability to support what is obviously and poignantly bad.
” 1) People who share your music are recommending you to people who respect their taste and opinion;”
Why should they share your music when they can download U2?
Why should they pay you if they already have your music?
” 2) The vast majority of people who have unauthorised copies of your music would not have ordinarily paid for it anyway;”
Untrue. Of the people I know, most would’ve paid for it if downloading it had not been so much easier and free.
” 3) Do you really want for people who cannot afford your music to be prevented from ever hearing it?”
Does it matter?
Do you want people to value your music and your effort so little that they will never pay for it? Consumers are already media-spoilt and childishly fickle and unappreciative of the effort that goes into making music. Do you really care what they think?
Music appreciation is one thing. But if someone pays for something, they do appreciate it more – for one, they have an incentive to do so – they paid for it. Also, we live in a society where money is equated largely with value – when music becomes free – as it has – it becomes valueless in the majority of people’s minds.
And people who recommend and support piracy, do not work with music as a living. They work with something else to support themselves. And even if it’s related to music – it ain’t music.
Matt
“Treating consumers like they’re special people is ludicrous.”
Thanks, Matthew. That’s one of the funniest lines I’ve read in ages.
I want most to make the music, then I want most for people to enjoy the music, next I want most to expose my music to as many people as I can.
I think after that I would gladly take peoples money for the music I make (hell, even before that point I would still accept money…who am I kidding?)
My point is that “selling” my music is important to me but I do not bet my livelyhood on it. Most important is enjoying making the music and everything must fall into place after that.
http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/whats-really-keeping-you-from-where-you-need-to-be-its-not-p.html#comments
That is a link to another article and comments concerning “piracy”.
Good stuff.
“Krzysztof Wiszniewski
I wrote an extended comment, but decided not to bother – my arguments would probably have been misunderstood anyway.
I will ask a question however, Andrew: How am I supposed to make money making music if I cannot sell it?”
To answer this question: write good songs, record them well and find someone to license them.. be it film, tv, ad or videogame.. This IS the one surefire way that music will always be sold.. Licensing!
I loved this article and will be quoting it at blakegriffith.blogspot.com
..my blog about DIY music and my publishing/record co.
Very well explained and reflecting my views and the views of many Professional artists I have met.
Downloads are a way to promote you and your music. It might not be suitable for everyone, but it works for most of us independent musicians/composers.
:)
Thank you! This is one of the clearest explainations of the current situation I have read.
Piracy is indeed the wrong word – and theft is the wrong word. Infringement is not the same as physical theft, but this is not to say that it is no less a crime. The exclusive Right to Copy owned by the creative artist is one of the few rights enumerated in the US Constitution, and the US Congress has the duty to write law to support this.
Matt – your comments are obviously based on something other than an understanding of the law, technology, and human nature. I would like to know what successful anti-piracy methods have been implemented in which countries – this would be big news if it was true.
I happen to earn my living from music. I know that the creation of music won’t stop, and the consumption of music won’t stop. Our nature hasn’t changed, but our method of distribution has, and our music industry hasn’t caught, in fact has defied, the current method of distribution. Labeling kids as pirates and theives will only divert us from building new, appropriate revenue streams to creative artists.
Great article. I’m allowing people to hear my music for free on my site with the option of buying the CD or downloads. I do want to embrace not worrying about copying etc, but I’d like to think my music is good enough that people will buy it at some stage after they hear it. (We’ll see over the next year I suppose)
This is not a point about piracy but imortant to think about.
Re: “There are several phases to music that I characterise as Composition, Production, Distribution, Promotion and Consumption”.
From my reading of George Howard’s books and his online stuff at artistshousemusic.com he seems to strongly believe that marketing and promotion come before Distribution in the above chain of phases and although it seems counter-intuitive I think he’s right.
@Enda – I think George is right, but I’d go a step further. The way I usually describe it, promotion goes over the whole chain – before, during and after every other part of the process. You don’t wait till you’ve distributed before you start marketing – but you don’t stop marketing as soon as your records hit the shops (or wherever) either.
Every part of the transaction is marketing. :)
We should now all rely on this new French Super-Hero !
“Anti-téléchargement Man”, killer of illegal downloaders.
HTTP://WWW.MYSPACE.COM/VESTEBBR
This is an interesting perspective and worth considering for me, since I’ve been so upset by finding complete strangers in far away places who have posted my entire album for free download. And by the time I track it down, it shows that my record has been downloaded TENS OF THOUSANDS OF TIMES. Seriously.
I gotta say, I have some issues with your perspective and I truly wonder if YOU have ever released a record. Have you? Have YOU ever spent your own money producing a record in the evenings after you’ve worked all day on the paying gigs, and finally got the kid to bed and you’re really tired? Have YOU spent 4 years staying on task, and investing thousands of your hard earned dollars producing your own record, in hopes to make some money with it and get yourself ahead in your career? Because I think if YOU ever did that, and then encountered dozens of instances where people have taken it upon themselves to give your entire record away for free to thousands and thousands and thousands of people, you might feel a little bit differently.
That’s not to say I completely disagree with your points. I think mp3s can be a splendid way of PROMOTING your music, however it should be at the discretion and control of the ARTIST. NOT complete strangers who have no intellectual stake in the work. I have made songs available for free on Last.fm etc. But it’s at MY choosing, which songs. I know you say that they need to hear/like/buy your music in that order, but once it’s downloaded, who needs to pay for it? That’s why people can hear my entire record for free through my STREAMING PLAYER on my website. They can even embed that player on their blog or whatever, and that’s great. They can listen to in an infinite number of times, but they will not be able to download it to their drive or iPod. This distinction is essential because they still might buy it then.
It does me absolutely NO good to have a million fans who have not paid one cent for my record. I have bills to pay and expenses in creating that music. How the hell are we supposed to make a living??
It’s the message you’re perpetuating that makes things way worse for us. Have YOU ever tried to make a living as a musician/artist? Because if you haven’t then you’re really stepping over the line in justifying free downloading, unless it’s at the artists discretion.
I must respond to the following points:
1) People who share your music are recommending you to people who respect their taste and opinion;”
Yeah… so THEY can download it for free. That does me NO GOOD. I need to pay my bills. It cost me huge amounts of time and my hard earned money to create this music. This is a business. For profit.
” 2) The vast majority of people who have unauthorised copies of your music would not have ordinarily paid for it anyway;”
Really? Is that a scientific fact? Have you asked them, or been looking over their shoulder? I think this is a gross assumption, based on a commonly held opinion, and it’s entirely irrelevant!!! It’s irrelevant. If they don’t want to pay, then they don’t need to have it. What other industry is expected to just hand it over without a fight? NONE! You are completely devaluing our work. If it’s worth nothing to you, then you don’t need to have it.
” 3) Do you really want for people who cannot afford your music to be prevented from ever hearing it?”
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!? This is music, not life saving medicine. Anyone who owns a computer and has the technology to download music for free surely has the $.99 to pay for a measly download. “Can’t afford it” my ass.
I appreciate many of the things you have said, but your spreading this opinion to the public makes me as angry as finding my album posted for free download.
It should be at MY discretion and no one else’s.
I agree with U..anyway thanks for all info mp3..
by izoel
I have been a pro-musician all of my adult life. It is getting harder to make money, no doubt. After 4 years of constant declines, I am choosing to give my career one more year while I wildly try every new thing, or I decide to hang it up. Whether I am in the business or not, one thing is certain: if a revenue model for recorded music does not emerge, the only music left will be music that can be translated to live performances, which will continue to increase in cost. I am not saying that is a bad thing, I’m just saying.
This is a tough one. Dubber, you make some great points, but so does Ellen. Currently as an unknown artist I’m looking at taking the “high school drug dealer” approach. You know, the first one’s free, then hopefully you get ‘em hooked and you have a customer for life : )
Seriously I think there has to be some middle ground. You can’t stop file sharing, whether it’s streaming or not, if people want to “steal” your music, they will find a way. Seems like all this effort and energy spent trying to legislate a solution is just a waste of time. And Dubber is right that unknown artists for the first time have this awesome opportunity to spread their music worldwide without spending too much time and money to do it. We’d be crazy not to take advantage of that. So then the question remains, how do you make money? You may want to take a look at this article about cultivating 1000 true fans and changing expectations on what it means to “make it” in this business. I’m not saying this is the be all and end all solution, but I believe that kind of thinking is at least headed in the right direction.
Oops forgot the article URL:
1000 True Fans:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php
I couldn’t agree more!!! Take things AS THEY ARE as point of departure… wishful thinking, and the ensuing let-downs, are not part of building success.
So what is the solution? Better information about distribution channels as they are, resourcefulness, and creativity. Selling copies of your CD (or whatever) is NOT the only way to make money from music.
just my 2 cents
“If I scan the artwork, set up a mass CD replication production process, manufacture cheap copies of the CD and then distribute and sell the album for financial gain, then that’s piracy. Which is bad and wrong.”
Ah, that makes it all clearer now.
Naturally the topic that invites the most comments is the one about piracy.
Off to the next one.
This is such an immense opportunity to redefine music, both creating and appreciating. Who will come along and create a profitable channel for musicians to make money and their audience to have access? There are so many ways to redefine music consumption, and so many people who are extremely willing to pay for the music listening experience, just look at the money spent on portable music players. Music appreciation is greater than it has ever been. So while musicians and the music industry indignantly complain about their lost profits, the chance to create a new model just sits waiting for someone to come and create something. All it takes is a creative entrepenuer to put their energies towards this, so if you’re a talented musician, put some of your creativity towards creating something new. Or, if you think that is beyond your scope of ability, let some businessman/woman do it for you, and watch all the money and control be held by someone other than the actual artist.
I certainly agree. I can honestly say that most of the CD’s I own are from bands that I never would’ve even heard of had it not been for music “piracy.” Piracy gives music lovers the freedom to risk exploring musical territories they would usually not venture into without risking losing $10 each time.
Jazz fusion artist “___” might not seem like your thing, but now you got no reason to not give him a chance.
A couple of weeks ago I posted on my blog about piracy in the world of literature (with the advent of e-books). Sadly I’m worried that in this case, piracy really might hurt the artist. The only money authors make is from sales (book tours *cost* money), and that number is extremely low as it is. Most authors, even relatively successful ones, still have day jobs. People would be surprised at what a well-selling book makes its author (often, not much). — The thing is, nobody buys a book they’ve already read. For the most part, you don’t “grow into” liking a book and then go buy it. Once you read it, you read it.
But who knows, maybe things will sort themselves out and the world of publishing will see the dawn of a new era like the world of music has.
http://noamgr.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/will-e-books-ruin-the-book-industry/
@TJR: “I was never going to pay for this car, so I should be allowed to take it”.
we “pirates” don’t go in a store and steal cd’s, we just replicate…
so if you’re not going to pay for that car, just go find junk/old parts and replicate one. music has the benefit of being available in digital information, cars not.
further i just want to point out that in recent years music genres have been developing arround the idea of free distribution. artist in, let’s say the breakcore genre have been distributing their music through free netlabel releases. the bigger ones release their albums on vinyl so that they are available for dj’s to spin on parties. sometimes a limited supply is burned to cd-r for sale purposes on parties along t-shirts etc…
effect: lots of artist who would never get a chance to release any of their music on major labels get known by the public and are asked to play their music live at parties. if they get “famous” they might start a recordlabel raising funds by releasing vinyl and/or throwing parties…
in my opinion, being a bedroom producer myself, i think a true artist just likes to create what he loves. He simply gets joy if others listen to his music. if he is good enough to make some money with it, great, enjoy it. but if you start to create music with the sole purpose of making money, you’re definitly creaing for the wrong reasons.
@Ellen Tift:
I completely agree with Ellen’s frustrations…I made a film, total cost 50k+, and trying to get it seen is a nightmare…it’s not a 3 minute song that just cost me time and energy, this was hiring actors, crew, post productions, etc. this was a huge deal…and now trying to find a distributor, they want to know if it’s one festivals…which is backwards since festivals don’t show films that don’t have A-list actors in them (Fargo), or at least B – list actors (Juno) because they know named actors brings in an audience…so my chances of being screened are slim since the studios are using festivals to showcase new talent and new stories…not just using, but flooding…
It’s not about making a good film…it’s about bums on seats…period….
So everyone says “oh, just bittorrent it, get people to watch it and recommend it…get it out there….for free….”
Like music, few people will pay to see a film they’ve already seen…and like music, once they have a copy on DVD, why buy a legit one? So once this movie is in the wild…that’s it….there’s nothing more to offer, there is little more added value that people will pay for outside of the movie (extras, trailers, blah blah blah are useless)…this is proven by the number of “movie title only” DVDs sold thoughout Asia (as an example)….
And anything digital can be copied….some harder than others but they can alll be copied….where is the added value for the consumers that gravitate to “free and easy”…..?
I can’t afford to make another movie like this on my own…and the way things are, the people that need to see it won’t get a chance to because of the skewed love affair the studios have with the festivals…
If you like it, pay for it….that’s the only way….it allows the person creating to keep creating…
I’ve been making music for a long time now. I’ve always approached it as a love project, jamming with friends, that sort of thing. Now I put all my music up on my website. I am still in a quandary about charging or allowing free download. At this stage I attach a small fee to my work, and people can stream for free. It makes me feel better to know that something i put time and effort into can potentially bring me some reward, (other than the emotional rewards that music brings).
Perhaps the answer to @Ellen’s dilemma (and god how I wish I had your dilemma) is if you are getting thousands and thousands of downloads, is there any way to find out where these downloads are coming from? You could do I tour in this area and sell Cds at the gigs. If I was lucky enough to be in your position (i.e. getting thousands of people interested in my music) that’s what I would be doing.
Eventually i think I will go the way of free downloads. It’s just the time we live in. It can’t be changed unless we move into a big brother society where everyone’s ‘internet’ moves are watched and scrutinised. The idea now is to build a fanbase and then give them reasons to spend money on you – artwork, tours, merchandise, creative guerrilla warfare! This is discussed in the 1000 true fans article mentioned above. Also Brian Eno has some interesting things to say on this topic: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/05/10784-drpangloss/. Dangermouse also rose to the challenge releasing a book with photos by David Lynch and a blank CD that people could use to download their music for free: http://www.dnots.com/.
As for us unknowns, as has been said, at least we have the chance to put our sounds out there and possibly be discovered by people who really dig what we are doing (I had some hits from Russia the other day, which when you think about it is pretty amazing for an unknown artist in Melbourne). I do believe with creativity and lateral thinking it is possible to make money. A band I am in has teamed up with some filmmakers and artists. We are creating video clips to enter into competitions and selling Cd’s at gigs with some awesome artwork. We aren’t making much money yet, but this is the way forward in our opinion.
Having said all this I am not yet confident to release my music for free on the net (yes Dubber, I am one of those worriers!). I know it’s only a matter of time though. It’s the way of the future. Anyway once a piece of music is created it belongs to the public. They are the ones who bring it to life and possibly make it an icon. Artists have just got to work around it (somehow).
I must say, I’m feeling much better now that I’ve read your interesting, thought provoking piece. It is important to break away from the old ways of thought and for that you need new ways of saying things.
I can now proceed to continue downloading all the latest TV series and movies, safe in the knowledge that it is not piracy, which makes it ok. I also know that it is not my place to worry about whether it is right or wrong to do this, it is just easy. It is up to the studios to figure out how to make money out of this new medium, even though I will never pay to go and see this movie, buy the t-shirt or the boxed dvd set, they must figure out how to monetize my viewing experience.
In any case, as many have already pointed out here, they should really just blow 50 million on their masterpiece and enjoy the fact that people want to watch it, I don’t understand why, if they are true artists, they worry so much about making money. People will always continue to make these big budget movies, regardless of whether they make any money.
In any case, I don’t know why anyone expects to make a living these days from movies. They should give it away for free and go on the road, acting it all out live in theatres. That is, if they are true actors at all.
I’m guessing that the responders who take offense to this article are from the “old school,” by which I mean old. Now I’m over 30 myself, have been making music for close to ten years, and have never made a cent from my recorded music. That’s not because I don’t want to, but, at this point, its a fact of life. Trying to prevent people from sharing your music is exhausting, and probably doesn’t make much of a difference in the end- if someone wants to share it, they will. Complaining and trying to change society so that they will again value you’re art monetarily is futile. Any artist attempting to work in the digital domain should be prepared to have their art shared- those of you that think otherwise are ignorant. So why not treat something that is already going to happen (your music being shared) as a promotional tool?
Back in the days of Sinatra, recorded music and radio was seen as a promotional tool for the artists’ live show. Profit margins were low because 12″ vinyl was so expensive to make, ship, etc. Then CD technology came along, and the cost associated with manufacturing and shipment shrunk, but somehow, the cost to buy a CD was more than a vinyl LP! Were the artists seeing more money- of course not! The record companies have been making money hand-over-fist for the past 50 years- much more than any artist. Those who bitch and moan about their “lost sales” should position themselves in the 80′s music market- to be able to live off of your music meant you needed to be “signed” to a major label, which was hard to do in the first place, and most of these artists got screwed by the record companies and often ended up being in debt! Now, an independent musician can make, distribute, promote, and license his or her music from their home PC without ever having to deal (i.e.- get screwed) with a major. I willing to bet that these independent musicians currently make more money than they would have during the major label days- instead of not getting signed and living in obscurity, they have the option to promote and SELL their music, making at least 1/2 of the profits, and having complete control over their music.
And on the subject of sharing as promotion, I recently joined a music “sharing” group where I have not heard of over 1/2 of the artists. I have found many new favorites, and have, in turn, purchased music by these artists who I otherwise would not be familiar with. If artists can get over the idea that they should be able to support themselves by selling recorded music (which was probably much harder to do 10 years ago), they will then realize the potential the digital age has afforded them.
Excellent article, Mr Dubber. I was at the Wide Days event that you were a panelist on and was very impressed by your attitude to the music industry actually. I certainly plan to take a more forward approach to getting my music out there onto people’s hard drives and into their ears!
Lol @ the people getting upset about this article. As long as your music is audible in some way, it can be copied and shared. There is no protection. Not on the internet or anywhere else. You should make your music and spend your energy with this in mind, so you don’t go feeling too sorry for yourself later. There will be no end to it, period.
The reason for that is only natural. You can’t can up your sound waves and spoon feed it to people only after they pay. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Remember, nobody owes you anything just because you make music. Many people don’t even like your music. If they actually share it, or help spread it out there, you should be glad. The idea that music should be making anyone a bunch of money is silly. The ones crying the most should probably go home to their kids. Get off the road. Sell your expensive junk. Most importantly, stop whining about people sharing your work.
LOL@Danny = frustrated bitter wannabe musician.
Interesting train of thought there, well put too. I suppose this also applies to all software progammers? “Go home Microsoft, nobody is ever going to pay you and you should be glad they use your software at all.”
Deep!
ps Can some bright spark pls stop patronising musicians for a minute and explain how we actually monetize our efforts in this brave new world? Facebook, Youtube and the world await your conclusions with bated breath.
@ “barely breaking even”, are you really asking for someone else to write your business plan for you? Why not think of your own innovative ways to monetise your music? If it works for you, then it works for you, that’s freemarket economics.
Since you’re comparing musicians to other types of business, what other business would you be running where you could sit back and say “tell me how to monetise my work, go on, i’m waiting”?
Hopefully you are breaking even, which is a lot better than i’m doing. I’m all in favour of monetising your work, but i also think that every industry (and situation) changes over time, and the harsh truth is that we must all adapt or die.
What does that really mean? You decide.
?? @ Calum
Seriously? You’re asking me to do what the entire music/film/software/game/publishing industries are incapable of doing?
Let’s just step back a little, shall we? Artists are in the situation they find themselves currently because technology evolved and as a little bonus to themselves people decided they would rather download music for free than pay for it (go figure).
I’m a musician, not a businessman, but I consider myself to be not bad at business. I’m also pretty forward thinking, open-minded and willing to adapt to new circumstances. So, I read blogs such as these which discuss new music strategies and tell me that if I worry about things like so-called piracy, I’m a dinosaur.
I agree, and I think, embrace the new, it’s the only way forward. I press on, excited by the possibilities this brave new world surely offers. Then I read the conclusions in every single one of these discussions and realise that NOBODY has a clue what to do next. This is where the vague, modern sounding words start to appear (ratios, revenue streams and, of course, monetisation). The implication is always that if we musos would just get on board things would work themselves out, it is all our fault for moaning about so-called piracy and clinging to outdated notions of copyright. Imagine my disappointment then, when I realise that it is all bullshit, because we’re all fucked.
So this is where things will be pretty soon – very big commercial artists will continue to thrive with their 360 mega-deals. Amateurs will continue to populate Myspace in their millions, with 15 fans apiece (to paraphrase Warhol). Independent artists with sufficient clout and talent will sell exclusivity. As Dubber says in this very blog “The single most effective way to stop people from copying your music is to stop making music.” Well, not exactly stop, but it does mean that the music will be walled off from the freeloading plebs, either through expensive, limited edition formats or through patronage (exclusive, private concerts etc). It will resemble the art world and you won’t have access to the good stuff. So much for the democratisation of the web.
@barely breaking even
Frustrated, bitter? Hehe, I suppose the internet hides the fact that I was kinda chuckling through my post. So what makes a musician that I am not? Someone struggling against music sharing?
Regardless if you think music/art are in the same category as Microsoft, it’s not going to change. If you still think it’s worth fighting against, well that’s pretty funny!
It all results from trying to squeeze art into the business world’s pants. Which has always been a really silly idea. Selling your work, nothing wrong with that. But being stingy about it, as if others needed it at all… nah. It’s like, if you’re going to be that way about it, forget it. I’ll go listen to beautiful work by more reasonable musicians.
Good luck!
Good answer, Barely,
i don’t think i can agree that walling off music is the best way to make money from it, but as you say, like everybody else, i haven’t really got the answer for how to make money.
Don’t get me wrong, my main reason for making music is to make music, not to make money, it’d be pretty stupid of me to do music with the idea that it will lead to money, there are a million better and more reliable ways to make money than music!
It seems like the best way to make money from music is to run a music venue and sell expensive drinks to audiences actually! (and yes, i am chuckling slightly too)
Things are so upside down. If you are a musician in these times you do have a lot of natural enemies – many of which you must coexist with. But people who chose to listen to your music are not your enemies, ever.
I know people who put the time in and make enough to live on with music and in each successful case it’s really brand marketing instead of music marketing. Brand marketing that builds relationships based on loyalty. They could give their music away all day long and people would force money back at them for it.
That said, I also know musicians that make money from licensing, and it seems to be quite accessible to independent musicians. And much lower barriers to success. But it’s a cold and impersonal channel and gives almost no sense of accomplishment back. But those checks are nice, right?
The whole “free” argument seems bizarre to me. Free works and when it does, there is money to be made, we’ve seen it digitally in software – shareware, freeware, linux. on and on. In the “free” world, merit and quality generally win. And when they win, prices drop in the commercial counterparts (which certainly hurts you if you are selling through them).
So the choice is either plug into the channels (industry record labels, iTunes, etc) and take a huge cut for the easy marketing they give you, or build your own loyal customer base. There are plenty of easy to use inexpensive tools available on the net for doing it. You could probably flip the label model and get together with a couple bands to pay a person or two to do the work of maintaining and marketing to your fan base. It’s not like it’s hard to find people with *great* contacts in the industry that are out of work as labels go under.
I do think worry is justified sometimes – it makes sense to worry about (and hence be wary of) ticketmaster, or iTunes as an emerging channel that is potentially as bad as ones that are now dying, or if you are signed to a major label then worry about them not paying you or not distributing or promoting you.
But if I had my songs in the mp3 players of a million people that liked it even if they “stole” it, I could easily turn that into a business machine that could fund a band and staff of people. It would take some campaigning, but it could build into direct channel-free relationships – the most personal and the most lucrative.
This article simply leaps the is/ought gap without justification. We are just to accept the way of the world? Surely the same argument was used to rationalize every other crime and wrong. This is just another form of the “everybody else is doing it” argument, hardly a compelling moral or ethical justification.
Of course this “way of the world” can be changed: Simply make the penalties for illegal duplication severe enough – and widely enforce said penalties.
Piffle! prohibition never works. It’s totally untenable to simply say that legislation can force an entire world market to consume in a certain predetermined manner.
Customers will shop where, when, and as they want. It’s the job of the suppliers and retailers to meet that demand.
The real confusion here is that as artists, we are not primarily thinking of ourselves as retailers or suppliers, and nor should we, from a creative perspective. Still, as soon as you expect monetary compensation for your artistic work, like it or not your art becomes product and the musician then becomes a freelance (or contracted) producer of items, musical widgets if you like.
And that’s why you can’t logistically (or justifiably) force the market to buy on your terms.
You ever hear the story about the oak and the willow? The oak was the strongest of the two by far, but it was destroyed by a hurricane while the willow survived by bending along with the wind.
There is most certainly merit in what was initially published in 2008 however this is my take on this. Let’s go back before the internet. Anyone willing to look back that far? Ok, FM radio, friends, parties….etc. Before the internet and MP3, a bootleg copy of an album sucked bad (audio quality). So we primarily grew up listening to a new Bruce Springsteen song (only 1 or 2), over and over again on FM radio until we just could no longer contain ourselves from all the pot we smoked and went out and bought….key word is bought the album. So unless a friend had already bought (paid-for) the album, we never got to hear the other ten tracks of the album…unless the local Sam Goodie was playing the album when you walked in. Long story short. I think a good comprimse is 3 full length songs available to every one in the world then 30 second sound clips. If I like an artist after only hearing one or two songs, I will buy…key again..buy their music. Anything else is nonsense. The techies have pulled one over on us and have actually changed our way of thinking. Thought only the military was capable of that?
Jimmy
I just read this and had to comment on it. I completely agree that there are some advantages to allowing free downloads, but there needs to be some middle ground– giving away EVERYTHING for free is not exactly what I would call a solution.
Here’s my problem, and let me preface this by saying I am in my early twenties and I am not a dinosaur: Recorded music has completely lost its value. I’ll be the first to admit that, as an artist myself, who lives and breathes music 24/7, even I myself seem to have devalued it (I remember a time when I would happily shell out $20 for a CD, while today I might look in the store and be like “$5 for this CD?? Man I dunno…”). But actually, I think it’s even worse today. Piracy helped devalue music, but then myspace came out, and all of a sudden everyone and their mom thought they were artists, and began shamelessly and aggressively promoting their products. Over the years this only got worse, and so today, with the consistent and incredibly easy-to-access channels of piracy, combined with the current prevalence of social media, I might even go as far as to suggest that not only is the perceived value of music free, but it is practically SPAM!! It makes me sad to think that when commentors such as Ellen, who clearly worked her ass off and, perhaps with a little bit of luck, built up a following, get significantly burned from piracy, all we can respond with is “well damn, you should be happy tens of thousands of people even WANTED to hear your album so stfu.” So now all of a sudden we are supposed to be THANKFUL that people download our music for free?? If it were applied to any other industry in existence, this mentality would obviously be ridiculous, unless of course there were some filter controls by the artists.
The other issue is there are no solutions, as barely breaking even suggested. Ok sure, you’re right that it may be a good way to get people to try your stuff when you have absolutely zero followers and no one knows who the hell you are, but once you start to build something and you are no longer obscure, well this is where we need solutions. There is a big gap between the rock star U2 status, and the more mid-level, indie artists that many people know and love but are still relatively underground (aka broke). U2 can afford to have their music pirated because they will still sell a million copies. It’s the indie artists, who HAVE worked their asses off and HAVE built something from nothing and want to cross that gap, but get completely fucked in the ass when their album gets leaked somewhere. I know of artists that literally have seen ALL sales of their album stop once the leak got out.
I know at one time it was completely awesome and rock and roll to download off of napster, but this is 10 years old now and things haven’t exactly gotten better. Considering
no one is really offering solutions, my guess is that live performance is the future of music, and tracks will be 100% made in home studios as promotional material only. Perhaps channels such as kickstarter.com where people invest in your product before it is put together, along with grants and money from filthy rich people, will also help keep it afloat. Perhaps it will just return to a time before the recording industry even existed, where even the most beastly of musician/composers had to supplement their art with teaching lessons and performing in the royal courts. Ughhhh.
Hello!
What kind of business model is useful for selling (the right to listen to) music? If this is the question, then here is the answer: THERE IS NO BUSINESS MODEL, and there will never be one – those of you who tell us “find your own business model, be clever about how to sell” simply forget (or want to forget) that any kind of ‘business model’ needs two sides: one side wanting to sell something, and another side willing to pay for it. Nowadays, if stealing is so easy, why would you want to pay for something you have already stolen?
Noone can find a business model because noone is willing to pay – or even more cynical: noone can find a business model because noone is willing to pay respect to you.
Hooo-wee! It’s been ages since I’ve seen this one.
Two years have passed and – guess what! – people are still worried about piracy.
Oh, and it’s not just us musicians now. Everyone’s getting worked up over the issue.
So, Andrew, how come two years on – ten years since the problem was noticed – nobody’s come up with a solution? I’m not talking about just the majors, mind. There’s a whole, ahem, collective braintrust that’s been touting the “new business model” mantra – your TechDirts, Hypebots, MTTs and whatnot – a lot of bright folks and dedicated followers. Surely, we should be seeing some significant results by now?
Of course, chances are that the reason we aren’t seeing them is that where there’s no money spent, there’s no money to be made – as a number of prior commenters have pointed out. If people have no incentive to buy music – different from demand as desire for the songs – then no amount of backwards-bending will make the artist’s position any better.
Funnily enough, it’s finally beginning to look like a solution is forthcoming: some serious governmental commitment to enforcing IP laws at last (witness the recent action by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement). If it becomes difficult – or downright dangerous – to operate an infringement hub, the marketplace for pirated content might shrink drastically. When it does, it will become more convenient to buy rather than infringe. Will we see the industry pick up? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.
On a different note, my message to everyone who makes music is that copyright is your asset and gives you choice. You don’t have to enforce your rights if you don’t want to – if you care only about getting your stuff out there and want people to be able to share it freely, you can do so. Copyright is your friend, my fellow creators.
However, do be aware that copyright is also the only reason why anyone would want to do business with you. Publishers and content distributors – not to mention people who’d like to synch your music to their ads or whatever – would be more than happy to cut you out of the deal. If they can have it without paying you, you can bet they will – YouTube made their whole business out of that. Nobody wants to pay the creators if you cannot force them to do it. Copyright gives you that power – in theory and hopefully increasingly in practice.
@Krzysztof Wiszniewski
“I will ask a question however, Andrew: How am I supposed to make money making music if I cannot sell it?”
He doesn’t say don’t sell it. No-one who ‘gets’ downloads for free or P2P isn’t actually killing music says that. It’s about promotion through free stuff to engage people with your music then after they have engaged with you there is a greater liklihood they will buy a physical product.
And IT IS ABOUT A PHYSICAL PRODUCT.
True connection between fan and artist WILL lead to the consumption of a physical product. If that wasn’t the case NO CDs or DVDs or BoxSets etc would be sold as you have Radio, Blockbuster, Spotify, blah blah blah.
Yes, music consumption has altered, but what NEVER gets mentioned when all these figures about P2P and piracy get fabricated and thrown about is that what should be of more concern is that ANYONE can hear an album in full, for free, legally and realise IT IS A PILE OF SHIT and not waste £10-15 on it. Wonder why CD sales are down… that’s right, the smoke and mirrors are gone and we now know it’s not worth buying that CD.
Put your hands up if you DON’T OWN A SINGLE CD you wished you’d never bought.
Now, put your hands up if you DON’T OWN LOTS OF CDs which severely disappointed.
Not many.
Hi,
Thanks for the article, and for the positive tone that’s a nice addition to the too often seen rambling over these issues.
I agree that worrying over piracy is, for the most part, useless, especially if you’re one of the thousands of artists making music on the time available from your day job. You might not get rich but you get the chance to have your music heard, unlike never before (and you pay the rent with something else anyway). I do, however, think that being a musician/artist/sound artist should also be a full time possibility. Obviously there isn’t money to be made for everyone but I’d really like to see others than major label stars making it financially. I’d really like to hear examples about independent breakthroughs, since this is what I feel our new technology should make possible:
Artist/band A makes music so good that it attracts a following and they monetize it through their website/some other service and make a living out of the music this way. Screw the big labels, the audience has spoken (and donated directly to the musicians)! Can you come up with such examples?
This is how conversations like these could get further past “there’s other ways of making money than the dinosaur market” or “these bastards just want everything for free, you thieves!”. Actual ideas and real life examples for artists/new market theorists to peruse :).
Best wishes,
Kaaris
A lot of folks seem to be intent on convincing me that 99% of my potential earnings are being stolen by thousands of people all over the world. Was it really better 20 years ago when 99% of my potential earnings were being stolen by 6 men in suits?
Spread the wealth, that’s what I say :-)
The modern music world has a lot of problems, piracy being one of them but definitely not the only one. And to be honest I wouldn’t consider it the most worrying, nor the main cause for artists like Ellen not turning the profit they rightly deserve after years of hard work.
I think the poster called “crazy” is not crazy at all, in that they referenced the real main problem that music has nowadays. This problem, which may also contribute to the causes of “unauthorised copying”, is that today music supply is over-abundant. It just is.
Producing music is easy.
I write electronic music with a few friends. The total cost for our equipment specifically bought to make music (since we already have computers for other stuff as well) was… bah… let’s exaggerate: 3000 euros? Split amongst 4 people is 750 each. Plus, you know what? I live in Bristol (UK), two of my friends are in Milan (Italy), and our lead singer is in Amsterdam (Holland). And we manage to do stuff anyway, thanks to software and the internet: technology really empowers people.
Making GOOD music, now, that’s hard. You have to be really talented.
However, producing any kind of music has become much easier thanks to technology, so more and more people have the power to do so. The only hard thing that’s left is getting out there, to the distribution channels. Record labels only have a limited number of talent scouts, and anyway they don’t have the capacity to produce every single act out there. So people start publishing independently, on the net. Most of these people do it for free, initially, or sell mp3s at an extremely low price.
Now, consider the hundreds of thousands of people who do this. What you get is a massive source of music that is released for peanuts. Some of this music is bound to be good. One band in a hundred? One in a thousand? You still get good stuff out there, and sooner or later word of mouth makes these bands known to the general public. Record labels may find some people and get them in, but they wouldn’t be interested in ALL those bands anyway, because they don’t have the resources to produce all of them. The choices made by record labels are motivated by possible return on investment, but with so many good acts it becomes largely arbitrary.
So the public has a choice: obscure artists who are very good and really cheap or free, or commercial artists who are also good but charge money. At the beginning of this phenomenon, people still paid for the latter, and gladly listened to the former for a change.
But what’s the next step? People are starting to think “Why should I pay for you, ? That guy over there sounds as good, if not better, and gives me free stuff on the internet”.
What has happened to music, I think, is similar to what happens when you have large unemployment in a country or an area. People are desperate for work, so they start accepting lower wages; and they get lower, and lower.
In the music industry, there are too many good acts. Good music is over-abundant.
This has caused an alternative market to rise, where music has become cheaper and cheaper, even free at times. And it gets into people’s mind, that there is free music out there. So why pay?
As “crazy” said, music has been devalued.
I don’t know if there is a solution to piracy, or indeed to “unauthorised copying”, which is more common.
But what I mean is that even supposing there is a solution, even supposing governments / record labels / authorities clamp on the unauthorised copiers and stop the phenomenon completely, the music industry of today will still have its true problem. Artists will find extremely hard to make a profit anyway.
It is just not a sane economy. It is an economy with massive “unemployment” because of extremely abundant offer and low demand, and it suffers from it.
So yeah, I agree, artists shouldn’t be worried about piracy. What they should be worried about is the horde of other artists out there. And I don’t think you can eliminate them.
I posses upwards of 1500 albums on my computer’s hard drive and most of them are not by major label artists. Most, if not all of them, I did not purchase either. Now, as a 15 year old, I can safely say, by no means, could I ever EVER afford all of those album at this point in my life. But, with that considered, free forms of file sharing have opened up my horizons to places unimaginable no more that 10 or 15 years ago that I am beyond grateful for.
I do not intend to hurt any artist I love–suffering artists=no music. So once I have downloaded an album, if I find an artist makes music worth listening to/being bought, I will go to their concert/buy a t-shirt/both. In most cases, an artist will make more money from selling merchandise directly through themselves on a tour than they will if you purchase it through a vendor etc.
Just the two cents from a concerned, caring member of this generation who does not mindlessly consume anything the radio will force down my throat.
I believe this (http://bandcamp.com/) is a business model everyone should check out. Very good intentions, very successful (at this point).
Happy Listenings,
-A
Further more, I wouldn’t be able to support the artists who I find truly valuable if I had to spend my money on every single album that looked slightly interesting to me…
I hate to post 3 times in a row, but this website is also a good multi-media platform for the lively hood of artists.
http://www.kickstarter.com/
I’ve read the article, and I’ve read the comments, and I feel a little sad . . . this article to me is a little too happy-go-lucky about the situation that presently exists for artists/musicians/composers who could spend years developing something and never see a dime from it. That is tragic. But that tragedy also indicates — for a musician past a certain age — poor planning. If as a musician you have put all your financial eggs in the basket of selling a single album, the climate in which we have to live and work will simply CRUSH you. Complain about the state of things all you want; I sympathize and agree. But you still have to meet the conditions.
Before you put anything out now, you need to spend some time thinking about multiple income streams — it would be worth you doing your first project very cheaply (think, “live albums”: buy an Olympus digital recorder with USB access for $59-$99, and invite your friends to come clap and cheer. Cost: $59-$99) in order to give it away online while at the same time thinking about what physical merchandise and what licensing options there may be to attach to it. And, by the way, your music has to be REALLY good to a fairly large number of people — try out your songs in as many places as you can and get some HONEST feedback. It is better to put out three GREAT songs than to put out ten good ones — there are too many good songs already, and you will never cut through. And, by the way, you may not make much on selling any of your hits either — which is why you have to think about licensing and merchandise (and more).
I recommend a BUSINESS book to those reading; although there is no model for music business now per se, principles for business success for entrepreneurs can be useful to independent musicians. If you intend to make money from your music, you had better start thinking a little more like a business person in a rough economy and figuring out what you can do to meet the conditions — and, Instant Income, by Janet Switzer, can help.
@Matthew Bentley:
thank goodness we got some HARD FACTS rather than “one man’s opinion”
fail post, bro.
@Ellen Tift: if i found out tens of thousands of people had downloaded my record, i would be ecstatic. and i make music for a living. ten thousand downloads, even for free. that kind of exposure is hard to come by. besides, i don’t think george is saying it’s all good and fine that music is copied without authorization, just that it is a reality. to believe that it is possible to make any sort of significant profit from the sale of music alone is silly. it is 2011, people get their music for free all the time. it’s reality. embrace it or you will be angry forever. i wish ten thousand people would rip ME off.
Great post! I agree with you theres nothing really we can do as musicians to stop unauthorized copies of our music. I would worry about music piracy and unauthorized copies if I were someone big like the band U2. But untill then I’m going to worry about getting my music heard.
Music Marketing
if i were as big as U2, i would not be worried about “piracy” and unauthorised copying, because it wouldn’t be affecting my income. U2 do not lose sleep overnight worrying about how they’re going to pay the rent.
The fact that you can get any of your favourite big acts’ music for free fairly easily is not damaging those bigger bands, it’s simply stopping any small/new bands from “breaking through”, because all the listeners are now conditioned to expect free music from everybody the whole time. Remember that when U2 were starting out, the music industry was able to force people to pay for albums, that’s how U2 became a big band in the first place.
It definitely is a very different situation now, and it’s yet to be seen whether the current climate can work as well, for artistes. I’m not saying it can’t, i’m just saying it’s very different, and yet many people out there in the music world seem to be operating like nothing’s changed since the seventies.
Very interesting discussion all around. I’ve noticed a lot of posters making various analogies to other industries. One that has not been mentioned: newspapers. I’d be interested to hear what people would say about that industry. I don’t know much about it, but I think we all know a couple of basic facts: 1) that there has been no uniform way of responding to the internet; some papers (like the New York Times) offer their full content for free online (although for awhile you had to pay extra for “premium” content); other papers offer some stories for free but charge for the others (Wall Street Journal); other papers probably do other things; 2) advertising apparently pays for the free content; 3) many decent newspapers have gone completely out of business; 4) everyone (or more liberal people I guess) just gets their national/international news from the NYT because it is the best (on some level), because it is free, and because there is actually a sense of community that comes out of this; i.e. people always say, “oh my gosh, did you read that article in the NYT the other day about xyz?” (especially if it was on the list of “most emailed”) and if you read the paper then you can actually have a conversation with them.
Not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from this, but I thought I would just throw it out there.
Your article reminded me of a quote by baseball’s Rickey Henderson, who happened to be Nolan Ryan’s record-setting strikeout when Ryan set the record for career strikeouts. When asked by reporters how it felt to be the record-setting strikeout, Henderson replaied, “If you havn’t been struck out at least once by Nolan Ryan, then you ain’t nobody!”. Same thing with music. If you’re not being illegally downloaded, then you ain’t nobody.
Very well put, Ellen. It seems like the unauthorized downloaders (cockroaches as I affectionately refer to them as) usually use all the flawed logic they can think of to justify their actions, while the people getting screwed, the musicians who actually have enough fans to perhaps make a profit if enough of those fans actually purchased the music, are mostly on the other side.
I’ve also heard the argument “Well, you just have to be flexible and adaptive. The revenue model has changed. You might not be making any money on your recordings, but you’ll have lots more fans coming to shows and you’ll make money that way”. Not true. I say that from my experience (comparing numbers from both before and after file sharing became rampant) and from the experience of 20 other bands that I know that don’t tour because they lose money touring.
The entire middle class has been ripped out of the music industry. The artists with a small or no fan base will always lose money, and the huge artists will always make money despite being downloaded and pirated. It’s the middle class that will be starved out of existence, and unfortunately that’s where the greatest pool of creativity is.
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Music isn’t being “devalued”. Consumers determine the value of a product simply from “consuming” it, free, paid, or otherwise. So if “thousands and thousands” of people have downloaded Ellen’s album, then her music is VALUABLE…
Here’s a riddle for you “glass half empty” readers: will you (A) continue “worrying” about the pirates, bootleggers, and P2P downloading, or will you (B) channel your energy into figuring out how to get your music to these check-writing phone companies & digital distributors??!!
Read about Muve Music
While you’re working out the above, go ahead and put some 30 sec snippets of your music on your website, along with a PayPal or Band Camp (etc) link to make your money from full-length album sales. Then put a “video” of said music on YouTube (even if it’s only a shot of your album cover) and create an outrageous fake title (i.e. “Boy Tasers Policeman”, etc). Now post said video link on various gossip blogs. Repeat process until you start making $$$ :-)
@seriousfun: Right on! Labelling kids as “pirates and theives” is really just a projection of those record execs own personal business strategies. Basic psychological projection of their own theiveries against artists onto the new youth generation of “hoodlums”. People who talk like that sound so 1950′s McCarthy-era.
Sometimes girls buy my cds, and are so excited they just say right to my face, “I love your music so much I’m gonna burn it for all my friends….” How can I bash love like that? They don’t even realize there is an element of wrongness in doing that. Just innocent excitement. “Thanks,” is all I can say and hope they keep comin out to the shows. Now when a guy who made 6 figures told me that one day at work he used my music as part of a corporate workshop on creativity and burned copies for everyone in attendance, I felt very differently. Then I felt like,” shame on you dude…I can barely put gas in my car…thanks alot.”
So for me… it really depends. great article Miss Meaghan
No wonder no-one’s come up with a solution to unauthorized copying – You’re all bitching in this topic. I don’t take kindly to being labeled “a thief/pirate”. No. Unauthorized copying is what I do to people who can’t get over the fact that they think they’re hot shit (you’re not. That includes all you whiners who posted sometime in the last few years). Streaming is great, it’s the best way to get your music heard. I’d actually rather listen to stuff via streaming, then find some way to “steal”, or even buy it. Sadly, this is probably just me. Most people can’t figure out how to keep a tab open in their web-browser for more than 5 minutes without having to close it and then open a new tab for something else.
Jeremy George, have you listened to everybody’s music who has replied to this article? If not, where do you get off telling everyone they’re “not hot shit”? Also, why would you want to make unauthorised copies of their work if you thought that about their music? Also, did you even read any of the comments? The majority do not think that unauthorised copying is piratical or even morally wrong, as far as i can see. In fact, did you read anything on this page at all before rattling vitriol out onto your keyboard?
I find your suggestion that some sort of “solution” could be come up with if less “bitching” was done to be supremely confusing as well, clearly your thought processes work very differently to mine.
By the way, i’m not just poking fun, if you can straighten out any of these confusions i have with your last post, i’d be very interested.
@Calum Carlyle:TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
thanks for replying Jeremy, i think i’ve got a clear idea of how seriously i should treat your input now. :-D
@Dubber:
I find treating people like consumers far more offensive. Calling us consumers says how little you value the individual in the first place – that’s why you’re bothered they’re not falling in line and paying for music, like good little consumers.
This article just plain advocates piracy. Sorry, but people are not entitled to our unique creations. We deserve to be paid for our time, work, and money spent; and listeners who appreciate the music should respect that. Your article doesn’t even slap them on the wrist. From what you’re saying, Dubber, we should then be allowed to download movies, shows and games freely without remorse–unless of course you’re devaluing music in comparison, which I would find highly disagreeable.
There’s something wrong, and I noticed it in a few comments here and there. Music is art. Painting is art. Have you ever seen a painter going famous by selling his art right at the start ? No. That’s because that’s not possible.
You just should try being a Musician instead of being a commercial in the first place, because you don’t sell anything we can touch, anything we can use in everyday’s life like a fork, a pair of shoes or toothpaste, you sell feelings, like any other form of art. People might like what you do, other might not, others might just listen to it from time to time. Now, you want to focus on people who will love what you do, and that starts at just being a musician.
Let’s take some contemporary example, Samo, now a famous street artist, was poor as hell, had to pay the bills like everyone else so he had to take little jobs here and there. But well, he lived for his art, he just kept going on, painted because he loved it, gave his work to people he met, sold some for peanuts. Eventually he met the right people, and he started having a larger audience, people were talking about him because they loved what he did. So they bought it, and he finally ended working with figures like Warhol.
So, what you have to understand is, wanting to be paid for art in the first place is wrong. Because that will get you nowhere. You do art because you love what you do, you love to express yourself through music/painting/theater/dancing only because you love it, not because you want to sell it. If you happen to sell some, well, that’s good ! But that should never, ever, be the first thing you think about when you compose your songs.
Now, Internet has made the world entirely different, you can promote your work easier, to a larger mass of people, but you will still be in the same shit than artists ever were in. Same goes for unauthorized duplication. It’s just a different world, but with new problems and solutions, you can’t control that, and you shouldn’t care of it anyway, just make music, maybe you’ll sell some to people who love it, and in the end you might be lucky enough to meet the right people.
[Addendum: I'm a student in a Graphical Arts school, I happen to sell some of my work to friends of friends, but right now, I'm just happy to draw. I draw because I love it. I also download lots of music, I can't pay for much of it, but with Internet and peer-to-peer, at least I'm now able to choose which artists will get my money, and that's always the ones I love the most, independently of how famous they are.]
“Copying, as I’ve mentioned before, just happens online.”
This promotion of passivity and acceptance of a wrong is a classic fallacy: the is-ought gap. The fact that matters stand a certain way does not make it right that they are so.
” You can’t legislate against it, prevent it by technical means nor force people to behave in ways that you would like them to.”
Of course you can. The purpose of the law is exactly to enforce certain ethical and moral standards of behavior. Begin by educating in the value of intellectual property. For those who fail to comprehend the message, enforce the law, and make the penalties strong enough that one will not repeat the infraction.
- Versus
@Versus – your comments are spot on, except that not everyone may agree that simply copying music is wrong. You seem to assume that any copying of a copyright work is morally wrong. It only is wrong because our society made it illegal.
I support legislation as a framework to try and ensure fairness in creativity, but legislation is not a 100% successful framework or we wouldn’t be even discussing this.
One important issue that many struggle to talk about is the issue of artists making their works freely copyable. This is perfectly legal, but is it undermining those who wish to try and make a living from their art? Logic would say yes, evidence would say no. I paid full price to go and see Explosions In The Sky live last week, and why did i do that? because i had downloaded their stuff to listen to and really enjoyed it.
But wait! This band don’t have a problem with people sharing recordings of their performances, you can get tons of stuff by them on archive.org, and if this wasn’t the case, i wouldn’t have heard of their music, and wouldn’t have bought the ticket.
Just making the point it isn’t as simple as prohibition and enforcement. And remember, it’s art, it’s supposed to be enjoyable, for the artists and the people.
As a little PS to everyone saying things like “This article just plain advocates piracy” i really have to say, if you have a problem with people copying your music there is one foolproof solution: don’t play your music to anyone. Certainly don’t put it on the internet. Problem solved.
Hello!
The latest comment has some cynism in it. To me, it reads like “if you don’t wanna get shot, never ever leave your home” – that comment misses the point that pirates are offenders instead of victims.
If we’re talking about those downloads that are meant to be free (as “Explosions In The Sky” obviously did), then I do agree with Calum Carlyle’s oppinion.
However, if an artist decides to sell their music, then I regard downloading that music without paying anything as really disrespectful (note that “disrespectful” is a moral categorisation, not a legal one)
Just to turn the argument round…..
A friend of mine runs a small shop and, like me, plays music from like-minded people who choose to share their music for free with no copyright. Unlike me, he is being hounded by the PRS for not paying them a licence fee to play this music, despite the fact that they have no connection with the musicians involved, and freely admit that none of these ‘royalties’ will ever get beyond their own bank account. Surely this is piracy and theft in it’s most blatant form, demanding money with menaces for someone else’s freely given work, and keeping it?
2 flaws to all this IMHO:
1. Encouraging the public acceptance that copyright is irrelevant in the digital world may (possibly) be workable for music where we can monetise tshirts instead but it will kill games, ebooks and films. So if we have to protect their IP as far as possible, why not also protect music? There’s a world of difference between it being possible to copy somethng and it beng ACCEPTIBLE to copy something.
2. “2) The vast majority of people who have unauthorised copies of your music would not have ordinarily paid for it anyway” link to supporting stats please?
First, my soapbox speech:
These all sound like perfect justifications for why unauthorized copying is acceptable. But let me refer to a general truth of life:
“Doing the right thing requires no justification.”
If you’re doing something you know is good, you don’t waste time on thoughts like, “…but what I’m doing is actually okay, because…” You just do it. Whatever it is you’re doing, copying music or otherwise, if you find an inner voice justifying why what you are doing is okay, it’s because a deeper inner voice knows IT’S WRONG.
To name two points specifically:
1) “The vast majority of people who have unauthorised copies of your music would not have ordinarily paid for it anyway”
Sure. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I just went to a Chevy dealership, and broke into and drove off with a brand new Corvette. But it’s okay, because I would have never had the money to afford one, and otherwise would never have bought one anyway. So I just took one instead. I’m sure the people at the Chevy dealership will understand.
2) “Do you really want for people who cannot afford your music to be prevented from ever hearing it?”
Seriously? It costs 99 cents for a song at iTunes. Less at some other sites. If you can afford the computer to get to iTunes in the first place, then you should be able to afford the 99 cents to buy a song.
But enough of fantasy. Back to the real world.
Unauthorized copying is every bit as bad as piracy, just on a smaller scale. But guess what? I do agree that the problem is so enormous that it is futile to try to stop it. Every business in the world, music or not, has a problem with shoplifting. From an accounting standpoint, all retail businesses actually set aside money each year to cover losses due to shoplifting. According to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), they list a separate account on their Chart of Accounts called ‘Inventory Shrinkage’, which covers loss due to theft, damage, expiration of products with shelf-life dates and such.
The message here is simple: Your music will get stolen by some. Don’t worry about it, plan your business model around it. For one example, perhaps generate some of your revenue from T-shirt sales. Last I checked, no one can download and steal a T-shirt.
One final comment to anyone reading this: The musician(s) who wrote the music you are listening to had to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars buying their equipment, repairing it, and taking lessons to learn to play it. It took them years (sometimes decades) to learn to play their own instrument, hundreds more hours to find the right other musicians to play it with, and practice it to perfection. It took many very expensive hours in the studio to record. mix and master it. they had to pay for things like copyright registration of their music, trademark registration for their logo, paying an attorney to verify they’re not about to violate someone else’s copyright. They had to pay to get the logo, album art, and website designed, and the CD’s and inlays duplicated in little protected jewel cases for those who’d rather have a hard copy…
I could go on forever with the enormous amount of time, money, and effort that goes into presenting you with a single CD. All they’re asking in return from you is ten bucks. Help ‘em out, would ya?
@Arthur Jammz: It is not my responsibility as a consumer to take into account how much money, time and effort went into producing the commodity that you want me to pay for. You can slap any price you want on it, but it doesn’t make it actually worth that much. If 99% of the people who want it don’t consider it worth paying for, its nominal value is zero (as is the nominal cost of producing & distributing with today’s technology), even if the remaining 1% will pay anywhere from $1 to $25 for it. I say take the 1% where you can get it, and be damn grateful anyone is interested in it at all. No one is entitled to profit from your art. If you do happen to stay in the black or earn a comfortable living from it, you are and always have been one of the extremely fortunate few, and it was wrong of you to feel as if you are forever entitled to maintain that lifestyle, especially off of work you did 10, 20, 30+ years ago. If that makes you resentful or unwilling to create it, then good riddance.
@Ophelia Millais:
Okay, let me respond to this…
“It is not my responsibility as a consumer to take into account how much money, time and effort went into producing the commodity that you want me to pay for.”
Absolutely true. It is always the burden of the seller to determine what price they think the market will bear for their products.
“If 99% of the people who want it don’t consider it worth paying for, its nominal value is zero”
It amazes me how thieves can talk out of both sides of their mouth. One side says, “This sounds so cool, I need to download a copy of it now!” The other side says, “I don’t consider this worth paying for, its nominal value is zero.” Is it good or not? If it’s not worth anything, why do you want a copy of it bad enough to download it? Make up your mind…
“…its nominal value is zero (as is the nominal cost of producing & distributing with today’s technology)”
Absolutely false. Services like TuneCORE and CDBaby make internet distribution extremely cheap, but not free. They charge 99 cents per song, and take a healthy 40% chunk for their own operating costs, making their money in volume.
And you say the nominal cost of producing is free? How uneducated of you. Either you buy your recording equipment (DAW, microphones, etc.) or you pay a recording studio for use of theirs. And, you either hire someone ot run it, or take the time and money for classes to learn to run it yourself. If you know of one that does this for free, PLEASE let me know.
“If you do happen to stay in the black or earn a comfortable living from it, you are and always have been one of the extremely fortunate few…”
I absolutely agree. That’s why most independent musicians have day jobs, and pay recording expenses out-of-pocket. Most are not trying to live a life of extravagant luxury, but just to recoup their recording costs.
“It was wrong of you to feel as if you are forever entitled to maintain that lifestyle, especially off of work you did 10, 20, 30+ years ago.”
There’s ongoing costs as well, ask any Publisher. You have to constantly monitor sales and usage of the song from places like ASCAP and Harry Fox Agency, collect money from consumers, labels and distributors who are slow to pay, and pay taxes to the IRS for any profit. Band websites to sell the music have operating costs, copyrights and trademarks need renewal, etc. This will cost as much if not more 10, 20, years from now.
In summary, I refer back to my previous analogy. If a Chevy dealer (who we both agree is responsible for pricing) says a Corvette costs $55,000, you’re saying out of one side of your mouth, “Corvettes are so cool, I’m driving one home today! Give me the keys!” Out of the other side of your mouth saying, “99% of the people who want Corvettes can’t afford $55,000, therefore it’s worth $0.00, therefore give it to me for free.”
Why is it that this sounds absurd if the product in question is a Corvette, but not if the product in question is a song?
The last comment was made months ago, but I always like to throw my two cents in.
The idea that the majority of people who download your music illegally were never going to buy it anyway is pretty damn true. My taste is punk and metal, but I have some pop artists on my iPod that had I not had the opportunity to “steal” the music, they still would not be on my iPod and I would NEVER listen to them. But instead I said, its free, why not? I simply do not like the pop artists as much as my favorite punk artists so purchasing physical or even paying for digital is not something I’m going to do EVER. This also extends to artists I DO really like. About 90 percent of the music I listen to I found online through various music blogs and randomly downloaded for no reason. Never heard of it before, simply said why not. If this music wasn’t available to me the way it was I still wouldn’t know who they are. The other 10% is music I had bought because I already liked the artist. If I like an artist I will shell out the money to help them out. If I have NEVER heard of an artist I won’t. So 90% of the music I have are artists I would never have bought to begin with. However alot of those artists I have grown to like enough to buy future albums from them or better yet, go see them live when they come through.
I am a musician. I see this as an opportunity to be heard. The story about have tens of thousands of people download your shit. I want that so bad. I don’t care at all if they stole it from me. The fact that they liked it enough to steal from me is great. I was happy as fuck when I discovered someone had purchased my bands album from my bandcamp and proceeded to upload it to megaupload for others to get for free. It got downloaded by people who would have NEVER gotten it before. When I create music its to satisfy my want to play and other peoples want to hear…money is an added bonus if I even get any.
I think you have to take into consideration what I just said in the previous paragraph and the fact that alot of stuff getting downloaded (atleast what my friends and I download) are harder to find releases from bands that are no longer around. If you make legislation keeping people from downloading current artists…then these other artists who aren’t here to continue sharing their own music will be lost to many people such as myself because the law will make it impossible to tell the difference…and I think thats a tragedy.
“If I like an artist I will shell out the money to help them out.”
“help them out.”…that attitude kind of encapsulates what’s wrong with many of the current pro piracy arguments. Do you buy milk, bread, a TV, a pair of shoes, to “help” the manufacturers out? I’m sure that the pop musicians whose music you downloaded for free even though you don’t really like them would rather you took yourself and your trigger finger elsewhere, to put it mildly.
As for the rest of your comments, fair enough, you’re an amateur hobbyist who wants to connect to other people. Nothing wrong with that at all, but don’t confuse that with someone with serious talent who wants recognition and the rewards that come with that. Their aim in life is not to go begging cap in hand in search of an audience, any audience. You wouldn’t dedicate your life and huge amounts of perseverance & effort for that.
But you sort of have a point in your final paragraph. There’s definitely something to be said for a system which breaks down the old, restrictive models of distribution and impedes a powerful few from becoming the sole arbiters of what gets heard by everyone else. But please, no platitudes about how “real” artists just want to get heard, by any means necessary, it simply isn’t true.
@Arthur Jammz: You assume too much about me; I am not just a consumer, I’m a musician and I’m not a thief. To some extent, you missed my points and erroneously believe that anything that’s desirable and that some people will pay for must always be paid for, even when not scarce, but I’ll just focus on your final straw man. My response amounts to the “copying is not stealing” mantra you’ve probably encountered before. The Corvette is a scarce physical good; digital music is not directly comparable. If the relatively impoverished 99% could instantly copy and cause to materialize in their garage any Corvette and each other’s copies thereof, at no cost to anyone, then it doesn’t preclude the dealer, taking his cue from the bottled water business, from continuing to sell or lease his authorized Corvettes to the 1% who can help him and Chevy recoup their costs. In this scenario of no lost sales, it’s a stretch to say that the unauthorized copies are each worth $55,000, or that “theft” has occurred. Likely there are some in the 1% who are harder to sell to, but the revenue hit is not an insurmountable problem, as I’m reminded every time I opt to get my car fixed at the dealer rather than by a relatively affordable independent mechanic…