About eight months ago, possibly a bit longer, I heard the phrase “music has been devalued” for the first time. At the time, I thought “what an odd thing to say” – and gave it very little more thought. But then it popped up again, and this time with more certainty about it.
Before long, I was starting to get questions that started with the phrase “Now that music has been devalued…” and suddenly it was a fait accompli. Now, it’s a presupposition that seems to underpin every conversation I end up in these days.
Music has been devalued. It’s just what’s happened as a result of mp3s, free downloads, file sharing and ease of access to music. Right?
Is it just me – or does that sound like complete nonsense to you too?
Marked down does not equal “devalued”
For a start, just because something is, on average, less expensive than it used to be does not mean that people value it any less. In fact, quite often when things are abundant and cheap, people come to rely on them more and more heavily – and would consider life unbearable without such things.
Mobile phones do not devalue conversation any more than cheap public transit devalues travel. DVDs don’t devalue films and ready access to different cuisines from around the world does not devalue food. I could go on.
I feel like I’m explaining the utterly obvious here – but just because recordings are abundant and cheap – that doesn’t mean people hold music less dear. In fact, if anything, I’d say that music is so deeply woven into the fabric of modern life today, that its absence is virtually unthinkable.
Value is not price
There’s a great line by American humourist David Sedaris. He talks about how different countries around the world celebrate Christmas, and notes that people in European countries that open their gifts on Christmas Eve, rather than on Christmas morning, usually give small and symbolic presents rather than a lot of large, expensive items. The exchange of gifts makes up only a small part of the overall celebrations.
Sedaris notes that instead, those cultures generally prioritise tradition, togetherness, family and friendship – “whereas, I prefer things of real value.”
The joke’s a good one (or at least, I like it), simply because it points out the absurdity of contrasting something that is good (and better the more abundant it is) with the idea of ‘value’.
Music – like friendship, togetherness and beauty – is highly prized as among the greater things in life. It’s one of those things that the more you have, the better. It doesn’t lose its value as you experience it. From a purely humanitarian point of view, everybody should have as much of those things as they can possibly handle.
Music does not equal recordings of music
I don’t know how many times I have to say this – but recordings of music are not the same thing as music. They are just one way in which people have experienced and consumed music in recent years. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, recordings have not been the main way in which music has been consumed for very long.
Before recordings, sheet music was the main method.
Not so long ago, a great many middle class families would have a piano in their living room. Music was played by (horror of horrors) amateurs, and if teens wanted to invite their girlfriends over to listen to the latest hit songs, they would get the sheet music, sit down together on the piano stool and play.
It was a shared experience of music, it was still a process of economic consumption, and most importantly, it kept their hands busy…
And as a side note, for a long time musicians strongly resisted the coming of the recorded music era, on the basis that it put musicians out of work. If a radio station could play records, who would employ bands? If a party could have a DJ, what would gigging artists do for money?
Frankly, if you described the today’s record industry to a musician from the 1920s – and particularly the industry that people who use the phrase ‘music is being devalued’ want to try and retain – they’d have been utterly horrified.
Infernal machines
In fact, when they first came along, composer and conductor John Philip Sousa criticised record players as Edison’s “infernal machines.”
As he put it:
These talking machines will ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy, in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today, you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal chord left in America! The vocal chord will be eliminated by a process of evolution as was the tail of man when he came down from the ape.
If you do not make the people executants, you make them depend on the machines.
Sousa was incensed that mass produced recordings would utterly professionalise musical performance, stop people from playing music themselves, and turn music into something that you just kind of passively ‘have on’ rather than something you can actively engage in.
Sousa’s fear was that the record business would ‘devalue music’ – and he kind of had a point. That’s pretty much exactly what happened.
Piano sales collapsed. Likewise the sale of sheet music. The music business, as it was understood then, went into complete meltdown.
Making specific performances of music available widely completely rewrote the rules, caused havoc at the time and (to everyone in the previous incarnation of the music business) did so precisely because it “devalued music”.
Which, of course, we see as laughable today. In fact, what it did was ‘revalue’ music. It gave it a different kind of “value”, around which a whole lot of different social, cultural and economic activities arose – many of which we can make money out of.
The world didn’t end, and people didn’t care less about music than they did when they played it on the piano in the salon. If anything, people cared more.
But these days, the piano in the salon is the remix software in the bedroom. While the criticism that music is being handed over to people who are not ‘proper musicians’ may in fact be based in reality, it’s something that should perhaps be celebrated rather than feared. Music is not – or should not be – the sole domain of the professional and the virtuoso.
Value, like music, is not purely economic
Music has not been devalued. The economics of music have changed. There’s a difference.
The economics of music have changed before. It was scary, and most musicians simply could not see how they could possibly make money any more if they could play music just once, and people could play it over and over again. Worse still, they could not see how they could possibly make money if their records were played to massive audiences, for free, on the radio.
Recordings devalue music. Broadcasting devalues music. And in the same way, the internet devalues music. Which is to say – it doesn’t. It just changes the way that the business works – and from this side, it’s very hard to see how that change will operate.
But more people listen to, engage with and enjoy more music than ever before. It’s not only valued, but prized. Personal identity, association with a sub-genre ‘tribe’, clothing style, use of language, socialisation and a great many other cultural factors are now entirely predicated on music. Far from being devalued, for a lot of us – it’s pretty much the most important thing.
So – to take what might be seen as a provocative stance, I propose the following:
1) Claiming that ‘music has been devalued’ is both entirely defeatist and a complete cop-out;
2) Blaming everything and everyone else for the problems you may be facing as the world changes around you makes you come across, like Sousa, as a miserable old sod;
3) Recognising the fact that you haven’t yet found a way to tap into the ways in which people now consume music (but that such a way does exist) might just be the key to solving the problem of extracting commercial value out of the immense cultural value everyone’s getting out of music – more than ever before.
What do you think?
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56 Comments
Interesting post and concept. You make some good points and do a good job of dissecting and clarifying the various ideas, arguments and terminologies that are floating around but overall, and perhaps also to be provocative on my part ;) I would say that you’re largely arguing about semantics. It’s a very eloquent and precise argument but to spout my own opinion, I think we’re getting to a stage where a lot of people just don’t think they should pay for music. So I do think that has made it devalued in the economic sense – perhaps not, as you say, in the currency of human emotion – but artists can’t pay the bills with props alone! Perhaps “taken for granted” might be a more accurate phrase to describe the phenomenon.
I wrote a little about this here:
http://elemental-consulting.com/blog/will-variable-pricing-ruin-the-music-industry/
Admittedly, not as eloquently as yourself, but I think you’ll get my general point.
Anyway, thanks for the great post!
Thanks, Lucy.
You’re right: arguing about semantics is exactly what I’m doing. And I’m doing it for a reason. The words we use shape our thoughts.
When we first encountered “political correctness” there was a lot of complaint about it just being semantics. After all, what difference does it make what words you use, as long as you don’t cause offense? But causing offense was not the target of political correctness. By shifting vocabulary, you change thought and you change society.
It’s important that people think of a person who uses a wheelchair as a person who uses a wheelchair, rather than ‘a cripple’ – not to avoid offense, but to change how we are as a society.
The goal of political correctness is to no longer need political correctness. We are better off when we stop thinking of (and therefore treating) our fellow human beings as ‘spastics’, ‘poofs’, ‘niggers’, ‘chicks’, and whatever other derogatory collective nouns you can muster. Words that we are now horrified to hear in conversation used to be the default terms. The deliberateness of language use draws our attention to the harmful effect of our words – not as weapons of attack, but as debilitating shapers of thought.
So yeah – semantics are important.
The idea that music is valued is – quite naturally – incredibly important to musicians and music businesses. Describing it (and therefore thinking of it) as ‘devalued’ is a complete psychological and actual barrier to success.
Someone who takes the approach “People really value music. How can I capitalise on that fact?” will come to different conclusions about their commercial approach than someone who takes the approach “Music has been devalued. How can I get money out of people that take my music for granted?”
This is about strategy, remember. It’s about finding new ways to survive and thrive in a radically changed media environment. It’s not about bemoaning the fate of an industry that’s suffering because of its unwillingness to change in the face of the overwhelming evidence that the old methods don’t work any more.
One of the key things that we need to rely on – and indeed, can absolutely rely on – is that amongst all of this change and all this confusion, isn’t it great that at least music is still valued so highly?
Spot On!
I think the main difference here is between human activity (music) and monetized human activity (recorded music as a product).
Music may be older than language itself. It’s not only valuable, it’s vital! ;-)
The ancient Chinese spoke of the cosmic tones creating the universe, God SAID let there be light in the Bible, the Hindu teaching tell us of the AUM sound foundation of the Universe.
Enough with the esoteric though!
The money-focused, as you well said, have only been able to monetize music since the birth of sheet music, and then recorded music just over 100 years ago.
Now the ability to monetize recorded music is changing if not slipping away completely, they scream that music is being devalued!
“The music suffers, the music business thrives”
I think Paul Simon sang something like that. I think we may be in for a reversal of the above line. Something like…
“The music business suffers, the music thrives” ;-)
As, long as music serves it’s primary function of communicating the sublime it remains vital to human life. When money becomes the main focus the music starts to suffer.
The key issue is now how to enable artists to be true artists with a focus on creating quality music. Artists need the space and time to focus on their art so I suggest musicians and producers start web businesses to create income to live on and to self-finance their music activities rather than do the “starving artist” route.
Recorded music is going from commodity to being something you can use to attract and entertain your tribe to your real business which is you, the artist.
Successful artists will be those who use the Internet creatively for multiple income sources and see music as a means to entertain and attract fans rather than as something to be sold.
There’s money to be made with music rather than just from music so I feel it would be better for musicians to focus on the bigger picture of the Internet and what it can do for them.
It’s easy to believe the media who tells us about the “state of the music industry due to the Internet”. They scream for the major labels who based their entire model on selling plastic discs. They don’t see how the power shifts from the big companies to the small agile independent musicians and labels due to the exact same Internet.
I think musicians will be better off as long as they take advantage of the power the Internet places in their hands. They can create the time and money they need to make good music. This is the most important thing.
Good music will always be valuable and attract attention. Money follows attention.
That’s my pre-morning-coffee 2p! ;-)
Thank you for another thought-provoking post Mr Dubber. ;-)
Copies have become devalued.
Music’s value remains unaffected.
The copy is not the music.
The map is not the land.
The photo is not the person.
http://digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=142
http://digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=114
http://digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=98
I’ve noticed an alarming trend in my own listening and buying habits.
The amount of music I am buying is increasing. OK, it hasn’t had far to go as it got down as near to zero as it could, but I find myself buying more and more music. Why? Because finally the internet is maturing enough for me to be able to find new stuff that I like more easily and then buy it.
As tagging, linking, sharing and the whole caboodle finally comes into shape it ultimately leads to people finding and getting what they want with virtually no hoops to jump through.
And then, just as every blog and marketing idealist will tell you, if the sale is actually asked for (as opposed to presumed ‘null’) then in fact there will be a sale.
And that’s what I have noticed about my own habits this year. I am repeatedly saying ‘yes’ because it’s been as easy to buy as to find. That one track that I downloaded could lead to an album sale down the road, or more ‘fan’ interaction. But definitely what I have noticed is that the easier things are to find and buy, the more likely I am to grab something on a whim – something retailers have long known and which the mechanics of the internet is only now starting to provide.
I’m actually starting to turn into a ‘need more interesting music’ nut and I haven’t been like that for almost a decade – it’s the availability that’s doing it to me. And heck, I may even check out one of these bands/artists actually playing to the sheet music one day.
If music had been devalued I would be searching for it less, not more.
I think the value of something should be judged on how much people are looking for it.
great post – i agree with the general point you are making. the only issue i can raise is that you write “just because something is, on average, less expensive than it used to be does not mean that people value it any less”
hmm, i’m not sure about that statement, seems like a contradiction. the price of music has gone down towards zero because the internet as a means of distribution has facilitated free transfer of music – which means that consumers are not willing to pay more than close to nothing for music. if they are not willing to pay more, surely this means that they don’t value the recordings very highly. they may appreciate the music, but if it costs even a few dollars per track, most people would not buy it anymore meaning they place no value on the recordings.
Thanks for that Sash.
To clarify: I’m making a distinction between people valuing music highly per se and people feeling like a particular recording of a particular song should cost a particular amount of money. The point is to separate the two, because they are very different things.
The price of my monthly internet bill has dropped dramatically over the past 15 years. The amount of internet that comes through the ‘tubes’ has increased dramatically. The price per discrete unit of internet (MB perhaps?) has gone through the floor.
That fact in no way contradicts the fact that I prize these internet-mediated conversations more and more each day.
For those who are using the argument that music is devalued because people don’t want to pay for it.
Recorded music has been very expensive for a long time. probably over priced in fact. We have become so used to the typical selling price of an album for example that the fall in price may seem like a devaluation, but this is economics. If you compare the ratio of what a CD costs now to what you can get a CD player for then I’d say that the CD player has been devalued if you apply the argument of cost/price etc…
Albums don’t really cost much less now though. The difference now is that it is possible to buy a song for a dollar, but the whole album (at far less quality than a CD) will cost you $8 to 10 in general.
Anyway this is all about face value and financial worth, which is driven by market forces and is a reflection of the commerce of music.
More people than ever pay to see live music and they pay more for a ticket now than they ever did. I am a recording artist and I would love to sell loads of copies of my record. I will still try and do just that, but I realise that I have to find other ways to use my musical talents in order to sell my services in other ways, which I am thinking about now and have a few ideas which I am very excited about trying out.
What people are prepared to pay for something is only a financial model of value. We have become so entrenched in monetary terms in almost every aspect of life that we are finding it more and more difficult to use words like value, wealth and success without it being all about money, which it is not.
The “People not valuing music” argument is most likely spoken by artists who are struggling to make a living from selling their music. I’m on your side, I am a recording artist myself. I just happen to believe that we as artists just simply have to adapt as all kinds of businesses have had to whenever their markets and industries changed.
All in all I believe the value of recorded music may have shifted, but not diminished and that is because there are countless new ways of obtaining it and thus far ways to monetize those channels have either failed or have not yet been realised.
Whew. I don’t really have the time to respond to this today, but I’m going to take a stab at it.
Now, I’ve posted here before and am a HUGE proponent of new music mediums, file sharing, and encourage artists (particularly new ones) to give their music away where they can. But, let me say that I agree with the statement that music has been devalued.
For one, supply now vastly exceeds demand. That’s always a problem. With so much free music available, and much of it of dubious quality anyway, it makes the casual listener value music much less.
Also, part of the blame for the devaluing of music is on the artists who do NOT support file sharing or downloads. You still have bands like AC/DC who do not want to put their music on iTunes. It is generally shown that most people who pay for legal downloads do so because it is convenient, and would rather just pay than dig around on torrent sites or p2p. But, they don’t put their music up for download anywhere and people will just boot up their favorite p2p client to get it, and get it fast.
Music gained through p2p is often somewhat soulless. It often comes in dubious bit rates, sometimes with glitches, no artwork, and no real personal message from the artist. Yes, there is not much value here, and it is difficult for some people to establish a real relationship with the music this way. It is just a bunch of tracks in a folder. If artists would step up and control that process and let people come to them for the downloads, they could control the experience and make it more real and more rich. People could again take out of it a much more personalized experience.
I could elaborate, but Im out of time. But, I do think music has lost value, but I do not think that is a valid excuse for anything, and I think it is partially the fault of artists who are resisting the inevitable.
Daniel.
Actually you make some good points. Well said.
I do believe though that supply has always exceeded demand. In the past nobody had much of a chance to access unsigned music. It was there, but nobody ever heard it. You could say that was of little value too, not as a fault, but simply in terms of it not being accessible, which was down to a whole different set of reasons. The major record companies got to say what we had to listen to most of the time (thank God for John Peel), which may have been accepted, but the value of it was restricted to what a select few chose we got to listen to, which by todays standards just doesn’t cut it in the value stakes.
Still, crappy CD rips on p2p networks at 96Kbs are not of much value I agree.
The supply of music exceeds demand? What planet are you on?
List your top ten favourite musicians, and then tell me that you don’t really want them to produce any more music, at least not for the next year or so, because you’ve not yet finished listening to the music they’re already released.
I’ve got a big wodge of notes I’d gladly give to my favourite musicians if I knew it’d get me more great music from them.
Of course, if you’re talking about the supply of musak for elevators and supermarkets, well, yes, perhaps there’s a glut.
I don’t think the concept (not word, lest semantics get us…) of ‘devalued’ has some merit actually.
I think that it is reflective of the information age. the unlimited access, the ability to access so much free music, and primarily the sheer volume of accessibility to music of every genre, form, length, and price has created an expendability.
An expendable view on music is more likely to lead to disinterest and devalue than it is to create more interest or value.
It is not a monetary discussion alone, you are correct. But it is not wiped from the discussion – because value and worth in the business of music are inevitably tied to financials.
Haha … Not only is your analysis spot on; you also notch up a few laughs along the way. Good work.
(Sousa does come across as a miserable sod, doesn’t he?)
Supply vs demand. Interesting issue … I’m no economist (far from it), but with p2p, aren’t the two inextricably linked? P2P has surely been so huge *because* of demand.
People also *want* to share their stuff, don’t they, and gain benefit from so doing?
Crosbie Fitch is right: I am able freely/easily to access far more music these days than ever I was before the internet (and I don’t even fileshare) … But there’re still about the same number of bands I’m *really* interested in (not as many as I’d like). And I’m just as hungry for their new material. Only now it’s far easier to keep track of these bands without shelling out for crappy magazines/papers like NME.
Glenroy: I agree that ‘value and worth in the business of music are inevitably tied to financials’. The issue, though, is surely that – for too long – the music industry has blinkered itself into considering ‘the business of music’ pretty much to equal ‘recorded music’.
And it doesn’t any more. And, with every passing day, the two drift further and further apart …
“The supply of music exceeds demand? What planet are you on?”
This one. There is so much music out there. There could conceivably be more music than time people have to listen to it. I mean, if you’re talking about everyone’s favorite artists, yes, if Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead produced albums ad infinitum, people would continue to download and listen to all of it. That’s fine, but I’m talking about music overall. I’m specifically talking about independent, DIY or obscure artists. There is a devastatingly large number of artists out there cranking out music.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the wealth of artists out there is great. But, as you have tons of great artists giving away music (essentially creating an infinite supply), it is difficult for music to not lose value. And different music cultures breed different mentalities.
I mean, even in the 90′s, techno was a pretty consumptive music format. People would buy CDs and records by the dozen, and just plow through that shit. I deal with some jungle-ish artists now, and the same phenomenon occurs. People don’t develop a relationship with it (they never did, even ten years ago), they just consume it and keep consuming more and more work. However, the more refined ambient stuff I promote, I get a much more intimate audience.
But I’ve been doing online promotion since 1994, and the patterns I’ve noticed indicate that people definitely consume music MUCH faster than they used to, making it rarer for people to invest huge amounts of time with individual artists. This is not universally true, as I’ve seen artists still build very serious, hardcore followings. The Dresden Dolls / Amanda Palmer as a perfect example. But, overall, I definitely think people’s perspective has changed in regards to music, and it is in a way where they see music as more disposable, overall. Again, not necessarily for all music, just in general. Also bear in mind I do not think any of this is necessarily bad (to the contrary actually).
Daniel, take a step back and spit out the notion that music is consumed. It isn’t. Music is an art form and every work lasts forever. It is either appreciated or it isn’t. What you think of as ‘consumption’ should properly be thought of as audition. People listen to tons of music (and rightly don’t want to pay for this process) precisely in order to find the gems among the gravel – and every ear is different. When you find the geese that lay eggs that sound golden to your ears, you want more – and there ain’t enough geese laying golden eggs to go around, mark my words – and it’s very tricky finding such geese in the first place.
There is a shortage of good music.
There is an abundance of music per se, but that doesn’t mean there’s an ample supply of good music per ear.
There is a colossal demand for good music, and the supply simply isn’t there.
Are you the owner of a radio station in search of music to play on it? Perhaps there’s too much music available for you?
There is a huge demand for good music, and this creates an abundance of music per se, but there still remains a deficit in the supply of good music.
There is a shortage of good music.
There is a surplus of crap music.
This is inevitable and perfectly natural.
Pay the musicians you like. Don’t pay the musicians you don’t like.
Fantastic article! Some of us do have a tendancy to blame all sorts of things for our lack of ‘income’. Being a musician is hard work and sometimes I think we forget how hard we have to work to get to where we want to be! It’s good to be reminded every so often. It’s also interesting how I managed to get that particular point out of this particular article………..must be where I’M ‘at’ at the moment!
I’m really enjoying your emails =)
Great Post. The two main thing that I take away is that artists need to be willing to adapt to techonological and societal changes and also that we can’t narrowly define the ways in which people consume music. We can’t always choose exactly how the world around us progresses and sometimes technological changes disrupt what we are used to.
Because of that recorded music is now a low-margin product and the succesful artists will be those who are able to create added-value products and services. I am still not entirely convinced what form that will take, but I am excited to find out. I do have a hunch thought about one potential opportunity.
I think that it is important to remember that until very recently music was entirely a COLLECTIVE experience. From mothers singing to their crying babies while gathering food, to music incorporated into religious ceremonies, to chain gangs chants, music was always a group activity. We are hard wired for this, and consuming music by one’s self is a recent phenomem. It is no accident that concert sales are still strong and I suspect there are other opportunities for artists to proft from group consumption of music in other ways.
I’m reminded of a similar blog/comments exchange on the subject of supply exceeding demand with Mike Linksvayer here: http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2006/09/10/supply-at-zero-price/
I read the post but not all of the comments, so I apologize if something similar has been said already.
I have also come across the thing about music and devaluation many times the recent year. I have however never heard that: music itself has devalued. In my opinion people across the board realize that music has a lot of value – maybe more than ever.
When I have come across devaluation and music it has always been clear that people meant the CD, the album and/or the physical product etc.
I think it is pretty clear that the CD has devalued. As it can be copied and since people buy it and then a lot of the time import it to their computer and mp3 player and never put their hand on the CD again.
Vinyl I would claim has not been devalued in recent years. Quite the opposite. It can´t be copied and compared to digital files it can´t get more physical and opposite!
cheers
Rasmus
To : Rasmus in particular (cause you mention vinyl) and all the others talking about music not being devalued:
Just recently I was watching a TV report about Paul Mawhinney who owns the worlds largest record collection http://www.vimeo.com/1546186.
A majority of his vinyl has never been digitized meaning you can’t even get it on CD, MP3 etc. So according to you guys, his collection would have increased in value, right – well wrong. His record collection, which was valued at $50 million is now not sellable for even $3 million. That was the latest price he tried to sell it at, but nobody wanted to buy it. So I don’t know what we’re talking about here – recorded music is devalued for sure.
Sash, we have to understand precisely what we’re talking about when we consider something’s value.
A particular collection of copies of music recordings may well be worth less than it was, but this does not mean that music has been devalued, nor does it mean that music recordings have been devalued.
The fact that we can make our own copies of recordings from the copies of recordings that we (or our friends) already possess means that the value of copies of recordings has decreased.
If you ask Sting how much he’d charge someone to produce a new recording of a cover of a song of his choice (that he hadn’t already recorded), and ask him if the market value of doing this had reduced over the last few years, then you’d find out if (for this particular artist) the value of a music recording had devalued.
If you then asked him how cheaply he could produce copies of this recording as CD singles, and whether the value of such copies had reduced over the last few years, then he’d be bound to say yes. After all, who needs to buy a CD single when you can download it for next to nothing from the Internet? Of course, if you want to continue paying the publisher and retailer you can also pay to download copies from the Internet from iTunes.
There are cheaper and more convenient ways to purchase copies of music recordings, so the value of copies of music recordings has decreased.
However, the value of the music recording has not decreased (unless the value of Sting’s music recordings in his audience’s ears has significantly reduced).
The value of music has not decreased.
The value of copies has.
Music has not been devalued.
Copies of music recordings have been devalued.
In general, libraries of copies of music recordings have been devalued – because copies have been devalued.
Undigitised, good quality vinyl copies of music recordings that remain highly sought after are likely to increase in value.
Crosbie: have you even read what i wrote ? the vinyl in Paul’s collection have no copies, they are mostly unique vinyl’s that have never been converted to digital – and his collection is fast becoming worthless. Just watch the video that I link to and you’ll see what i’m talking about…
Sash, being unique (or having no copies) is not necessarily an indicator of market value. Every pebble on the beach is unique, but unless someone finds it attractive, it has very little value.
If you have a vinyl LP that is highly sought after (whether due to its rarity/collectibility or the value of the music recording it contains that is otherwise unavailable in any other medium) then you are bound to see it increase in value if the demand for it increases (in proportion to rarity/availability).
However, if like Paul you may have a few gemstones among a ton of sand, and will sell the collection only on condition it is preserved as a collection, then you are likely to see the value of that collection decrease, given the steadily decreasing market value/demand for the majority of the vinyl.
Paul will have a few LPs that are increasing in value, but many LPs that are decreasing in value. I’m not surprised his collection has decreased in market value (given the maintenance costs it would incur upon any buyer prohibited from selling any of the higher value LPs).
Hello all
First post here, English is not my mother tongue so please excuse any mistake that may occur. ;)
Andrew, I’ve been reading this very interesting blog for only a few weeks and I already feel this should be your last post on this matter (at least for a while)! Seems like almost everything was said and it would be great to elaborate on “the problem of extracting commercial value out of the immense cultural value everyone’s getting out of music”, based on what you suggested in this post for instance.
http://newmusicstrategies.com/2007/05/15/thing-20-forget-product-sell-relationship/
Now I might get a little off-topic but would like to add one thought.
If an artist records music and does not expect to make any direct revenue from it, leaves people free to listen and share it (creative commons license typically), it’s really great.
If an artist expects to make money from recorded music and control how recordings are communicated, I do not consider it bad.
If someone listens to some music either under cc license or downloaded via p2p, likes it, makes a donation or purchase, that’s just fine.
If someone retrieves copyrighted music for free and does nothing but enjoying it with no compensation for rightsowners, that’s bad.
Isn’t it funny how so many of us (including myself sometimes) have all to good ready-made excuses for not buying this or that album (‘I don’t listen to it so much’… etc)?
Of course we cannot buy everything. Maybe ad-funded streaming will be part of the solution but more generally I wonder: if technology helped music ‘consumption’ to be better traced at individual level (avoiding any Big Brother syndrom), wouldn’t the ecosystem be healthier for all parties involved?
Julien, you say:
“If someone retrieves copyrighted music for free and does nothing but enjoying it with no compensation for rightsowners, that’s bad.”
If someone steals a musician’s unpublished work, it is bad.
If they are given or buy a copy of a musician’s published work, whether via download or CD copier, then this is good. It doesn’t matter about its copyright or license.
Copyright was a privilege (not a right) invented to enable publishers to enforce a monopoly among themselves. It was not invented to enable publishers to prosecute members of the public for engaging in cultural exchange. Unfortunately, those who enacted copyright in 1710 (UK) and 1790 (US) never realised that one day everyone would have the equivalent of a printing press in their house, nor that it would cost next to nothing to produce copies with.
The important thing is that if artists wish to let their audience commission their work, they can do so.
The idea that sharing copies of published works is bad, is only ‘bad’ from the perspective of a publisher.
It is not unethical for people to share and build upon human culture.
@Crosbie: “It doesn’t matter about its copyright or license.”
We will probably not agree on this. ;)
My point is: if someone enjoys listening to some recorded music (which I would consider as a service provided by the artist instead of the acquisition of a copy), and if the artist expects something concrete in return but there’s nothing, I think this is not right. Of course if the artist considers the compensation is up to the listener’s appreciation, there’s no problem.
To me this is not in contradiction with saying they should find other sources of revenue and so on… It’s just something we should keep in mind.
“It is not unethical for people to share and build upon human culture.”
Said that way, I obviously agree, of course not! But you may also agree that when technology makes something possible it is not necessarily right. ;)
Julien,
It is not actually illegal to receive, download or purchase a copy of a work whose manufacture infringed copyright, so even the law disagrees with your proposal as to what is bad.
As to people exchanging the value of their labour for money or other equity, this is supposed to occur by mutual agreement and without external compulsion.
As for technology making something possible, we are finding that copyright legislation is being demonstrated to be wrong (unnatural).
It was wrong for the state to suspend the public’s rightful liberty to engage in cultural exchange in order to establish a reproduction monopoly for publishers – even though this might once have been lucrative.
Technology that renders the antique monopoly ineffective also reveals the monopoly to be unnatural – to those who assumed it was natural.
Those who manufacture and sell copies suffer from a loss of monopoly.
Those who produce works of art need no monopoly to sell their art, they only need an audience – many of whom will be glad to pay the artist for their work.
“It is not unethical for people to share and build upon human culture.”
Perhaps not when the content is free and not subject to license, Mr. Fitch, but I have a different perspective and in many cases your assertion remains quite illegal. A statement of civil disobedience like “It doesn’t matter about its copyright or license“ is not only factually wrong but morally offensive and compels more contempt from this reader than anything else.
We do not have to align our ethics to recognize that reasonable people tend to agree that a rule of law is a good basis around which to organize a cooperative civilization.
All artforms in digital format have been subjected to the greatest industrial ransacking in all of recorded history, and the cost to the psyche’s and lives of artists all over the world is incalculable. In my view, our discussion here grows more valuable when it acknowledges the sad truth that a path forward voluntarily relinquishing income from copyrighted music but seeking to compensate through t-shirt sales renders the “musician” an uncompensated amateur and transforms that artist into an apparel retailer.
You have every right–and I applaud that right– to do as you wish with unlicensed property or that which you create yourself, Mr. Fitch. But when your so-called ethical rights trespass upon my clearly defined legal ones–not to mention the damage to our business– you can expect only the most aggressive resistance.
Digital art never deserved this, and digital artists grow stronger in the 21st century when they refind their backbone. It’s been temporarily misplaced by some, that much may be true, but it’s been right there between their diminishing self esteem and their common sense all along.
Sam,
The basis upon which civilisation is built is an ethical basis. That basis is then codified into law.
Thus law is formed out of the nature of a civilised people.
Law is not a means by which lawyers may culturally subjugate a civilised people at the behest of their unethically privileged and immortal publishing corporations.
Sometimes, given highly persuasive lobbying by wealthy and powerful corporations, unethical laws are enacted in their interest instead of the people’s. Copyright is such an unethical law.
Ethics do not follow law, but vice versa.
Sam I Am: why do you have the idea that the artist somehow *deserves* to be anything other than an “amateur”? (A term that means ‘one who loves what (s)he does’.)
It’s a bit like saying a farmer oughtn’t have to take his (or her) turnips to the market, but should just be compensated: seeking to compensate through market-stall sales renders the “farmer” an uncompensated amateur and transforms that farmer into a vegetable retailer.
As soon as you’re talking about profit and loss and income, you’re talking about economics. And surely it’s the market, and only the market, that determines who has a right to income.
Crosbie, your contributions on this topic are *sound*, in my opinion. Right on.
I find it strange how economics (which apart from being an esoteric science understood by the chosen few – myself included – is also something we all engage in every day) can be so grossly misunderstood in the context of discussions such as this one.
Sam I Am has a point. Here’s the point clarified.
We all have needs we cannot fulfil ourselves. Hence, we specialize. Then we exchange the fruits of our labours with others and everyone is better off than they otherwise would have been. This is the basis of economics. We all do this, every day.
The underlying assumption is that no one is to benefit from another’s labour without compensation to him or her, unless the requirement is waived by that person. This we usually label “theft”.
Tom: Where have you got the idea, that artists simply sit around waiting to be compensated. The people who complain are usually ones who’s work is in the market. They do not think they have a “right” to income as such, they do however expect that they will be rewarded (at a price that they have set) when someone takes what they have made. Possibly, there will be no one willing to pay the price they have set and so they have to lower the price or sell nothing.
So far, so good. The problem here is one of unfair competition. If you have a choice of the same product at a price or free, you are likely to go with free. The people who are offering it for free however are not compensating the original creator of the work nor have had any input into its creation. They are, in essence, taking something from someone without compensation and compound the problem by encouraging scores of people to do the same (and facilitating this). This is wrong.
I’ve just about had it with people telling me that I should be performing a valuable service (music hasn’t devalued, after all) for free, simply because they feel this is the right way. Sadly, I have my own costs to cover and no one seems willing to contribute to them. I wonder why?
And yes, I am a miserable old sod.
Intent counts for a great deal, I think, and I agree with Mr. Fitch when he posits “Ethics do not follow law, but vice versa.”
But I also believe in certain rights–not debatable privileges but inherent rights— earned by the creator within our very act of creation and our laws tend to mirror the perception of these rights. It may be incidentally illegal to you but it is highly unethical, in my opinion, to take something knowingly intended for sale by the creator while willfully refusing to pay for it. I may not be in music, but my design business also prospers or dies along licensing lines and I have no desire to get into t-shirts.
To Tom, your farmer analogy is well intended but inaccurate and my use of “amateur” is in the modern sense; that is, amateurism tends by definition to be for love only and intended–this is key–as uncompensated, while monetary (or some other valuable) reward is at least a part of defining professionalism in the modern era.
As a consumer, you may elect to pass and forgo the possession, but taking it anyway without meeting that price is unethical and Mr. Fitch has it wrong when he points to the “public’s rightful liberty to engage” in such an act of infringement. Mr. Fitch is, however, spot-on when he says “people exchanging the value of their labor for money or other equity is supposed to occur by mutual agreement.” “Mutual”, I’d hope we can agree, is of no small importance here.
A better farmer analogy is one where the farmer grows the turnips but a combination of privacy laws and technology guts out his long standing model of turnips-by-the kilogram. Instead, now the farmer finds he must release the turnips at no charge and seek to survive by asking a fee to view the fields in which they were grown. The consumer will take the turnips but may pass on the viewing (as well as the associated fee) in the same way a filesharer may take the music but pass on the t-shirt. No matter how you spin it, our “farmer” now wittingly renders himself an amateur at a fraction of his previous exchange and is now, sadly in my view, a professional in only tourism.
Krzysztof: the point of my post was that it’s artificial to separate artist from vendor – which I felt Sam I Am was doing by talking about transforming an artist to an apparel retailer.
I certainly do not think artists sit around waiting to be compensated. But if they *wish* to be compensated, unless they are lucky enough to be represented by businesspeople working on their behalf, they generally have to accept that they cease to be pure creators and must “sully” themselves with sales/self-publicity and suchlike.
It’s not enough simply to be *in* a market: you have to work to innovate within it. Which is what we’re all aiming at, I presume, reading NMS as we do.
If there is a lower-cost alternative (or free), sure, there’s a likelihood that many people will choose that option. But don’t we get further by working out how to add value to the music we offer and the services we perform than by bemoaning this fact?
And, anyway, who says people will always go with cheap? I don’t buy Tesco value. We have to find a way to make ‘Finest’ music.
(I’m an artist myself, incidentally – albeit one without the good fortune to be ‘in the market’ – and struggle with these issues. I certainly wasn’t taking a shot at artists from the wings.)
Sam: Thanks for the reply. The analogy wasn’t intended, obviously, to mirror the C21st musician’s position exactly … Just to illustrate my belief that the way one makes money from something may very frequently necessitate the use of very different skills and modes of operation than those used in ‘creating’.
Obviously it was inaccurate in thousands of ways … But this was what I meant to be its point. Creators (whether of tangible or intangible goods) have always had to adapt to what people want and what they’re willing to pay.
Sorry that the point wasn’t clear … I write these messages too quickly, I fear.
At what point does creator cease to be doing his/her ‘core’ job, and become something else?
Sure, you may choose not to be a t-shirt vendor … but surely you can’t complain if that’s where the money is and you subsequently lose out? Because once you’re trying to make money out of your music, aren’t you now a businessman — pragmatic, following the money, the markets — not an idealistic musician (who just creates)?
Who’s to say that selling CDs is more true to musicianhood than selling T-shirts?
>The underlying assumption is that no one is to benefit from another’s
>labour without compensation to him or her, unless the requirement is
>waived by that person. This we usually label “theft”.
Krzysztof, someone once gave me a basket. I benefitted from the labour of its weaver each time I used it – though I had never paid for it. I also benefitted from the weaver’s labour when I decided to weave my own baskets that I copied from it, and later sold. I never did pay that weaver…
Basket weavers would probably jump at the chance to be granted a monopoly over their baskets such that purchasers were forbidden from copying them. They might even be overjoyed to be granted the privilege of collecting levies each time their baskets were used.
It should be recognised that such monopolies and levies are UNETHICALLY granted as privileges by governments (whether monarchies or democracies). Basket weavers are not naturally able to prohibit people from copying their baskets, and thus to be granted unnatural power to do so is an unethical suspension of the liberty the public naturally had beforehand.
Let’s go back a bit closer to the topic of Andrew Dubber’s post…
The significant devaluation we have seen in recent years is in the value of COPIES, not in the value of music or its recordings. A CD or vinyl LP is a copy (a pressing) of a recording. The recording’s value remains unaffected by the value of the CDs or LPs that have been made from it.
Individual recordings may devalue over the years (as their audience diminishes), but the value of music recordings, just as music performances, remains as high as ever.
What people value less and are less willing to pay for these days are COPIES of music recordings (given they can make their own for nothing). People still want to reward the artist for their music, that the artist performed and had recorded, and are still willing to pay the artist for this. Unfortunately, very few artists have any mechanism to permit their audience to pay for their recordings. The artist either sells their recordings to a label (albeit via contract), or they sell tickets to their concerts and sell or give copies of the concert recording to attendees.
How many artists do you know of that invite 10,000 fans to pitch in with $10 each to commission a recording session? This would mean the fans would own the recording, and no-one need worry about the recording being copied without a label’s permission – because no label is involved – no label is trying to sell copies that people don’t want.
Musicians don’t need copyright to sell music, only publishers who make their money selling copies need copyright.
It is my belief that Mr. Fitch has finally crossed over into a self-deceptive disingenuity. Mr. WISZNIEWSKI very plainly states “unless the requirement [of compensation] is waived by that person” and yet Mr. Fitch no longer draws a distinction among being given a basket, being properly sold a basket, or simply taking one because it “naturally can” be done without the intended compensation.
“Natural” is not the equivalent of “ethical”, Mr. Fitch. A physically larger man may quite naturally visit unprovoked aggression on a naturally smaller man and we’d acknowledge the natural capability in the physical hierarchy even as few would argue this is therefore inherently ethical. I would respectfully suggest instead that we have government and an organizing system of laws, expressly to sort out these kinds of injustices.
“Basket weavers are not naturally able to prohibit people from copying their baskets, and thus to be granted unnatural power to do so is an unethical suspension of the liberty the public naturally had beforehand.”
Substitute “Smaller men” for “basket weavers”, and “harming their children” for “copying their baskets”, and you can readily see how wrongheaded such a belief system really is.
Crosbie, I would like to agree with you (in fact I am 100% ok with getting fans more involved and selling “experience” more than “copies”) but
“Musicians don’t need copyright to sell music”: maybe not copyright as it is today but.. without any constraint, musicians shall only rely on people’s good will as opposed to those who sell rival goods? Isn’t it a bit optimistic?
To which extent do you think intellectual property law should be modified for music? What about software, patents, and so on?
@Andrew: I withdraw “this should be your last post on this matter (at least for a while” from my first post. It was not really serious and as the debate gets always more interesting there is probably some room for a summary or synthesis or whatever!
Sam, the difference between the wild west and civilisation is the institution of a government to protect everyone’s natural rights EQUALLY, rather than leave it to brute strength and the self-serving power of the mob.
The US constitution was created precisely to enshrine this egalitarian principle, to establish a civilisation of equal rights.
It still took time to completely eradicate slavery, and we still have one final unethical suspension of liberty to abolish and eradicate, the publisher’s privilege of copyright.
Julien, any craftsman or artist exchanges their labour, the intellectual fruits and material products thereof, with their customers.
In recent years a musician’s customer has been their label – not their audience.
This is because the label enjoyed an artificial monopoly in copies and could provide a far easier and larger compensation to the musician than the musician could obtain from their audience directly.
Fortunately for the public, and thanks to the Internet, the publisher’s ability to sustain their monopoly is coming to an end.
Fortunately for the musician, and thanks to the Internet, the musician now has the technology to deal with their audience directly.
“…reasonable people tend to agree that a rule of law is a good basis around which to organize a cooperative civilization.”
You are right in your assertion that this is what many otherwise reasonable people tend to agree – but that doesn’t change the fact that it is unreasonable to do so.
Civil disobedience against unjust law always provokes outrage from law-abiding, ‘reasonable’ citizens. But that’s almost always where positive change originates. Witness Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King…
Having said that, I do not happen to agree that copyright is, in itself, unjust in its purpose. Granting monopoly to publishers may be an historically accurate portrayal of the origination of copyright, but it has not been its sole application through its history in law.
It is, however, entirely broken in the current media environment. It stifles, rather than promotes creativity, and it stands in the way of cultural advance.
My current thinking on this is that we should not seek to abolish copyright. But its application in law as it stands must be entirely thrown out, re-thought and rewritten.
The proper purpose of copyright (a property law and not a natural right) is to encourage people to contribute creative works for the benefit of society. This is an idea around which successful and sustainable businesses can be built. But these businesses must be adaptable and change according to the technological, social and regulatory environment within which they find themselves.
Copyright should not be a means to lock down ideas and their expression simply so as to maximise corporate profit, and it is obscene that this is what has been allowed to occur.
Sadly, I suspect that the people fighting to retain existing copyright law as it currently stands for the noble purpose of the starving artist (and not merely for self-preservation) have been co-opted into a battle under false pretenses.
Existing copyright law harms rather than helps composers, audiences, performers, and music enterprises.
Moreover, copyright infringement is a by-product of copyright law and the changing media environment. It is not a mass failure of ethics on behalf of the majority of music consumers.
Imagine that making likenesses of public statues was illegal. Then give everyone cheap digital cameras. Are the photographs of statues that result an epidemic of moral failure?
The point is – we’re all essentially (as far as I can tell) on the same side here. We all want good things to follow for musicians, artists, music enterprises and audiences. What we disagree on is the means by which this can be accomplished.
Stopping people from doing what they want to do is never a good business idea. Helping them achieve what they seek always is. Retaining and endeavouring to enforce current copyright law, in my mind, makes as much sense as abandoning music as enterprise. Music is art – but recorded music is a media form.
Rather than abolishing regulation outright, I suggest that regulation should reinforce and support what reasonable people actually do, rather than criminalise normative behaviour.
And this is important to do now because copyright infringement is NOT theft. Digital information is not a physical asset. Ownership over ideas is not the same as ownership over ‘stuff’ – and I personally think that digital copies of recorded music falls between those two stools.
As neither ‘idea’ nor ‘stuff’, there are no workable property laws that adequately describe or cater to what we are talking about here.
I believe there should be, but that we have to start from scratch, and that they must reflect what “reasonable people tend to agree”, rather than mandate what reasonable people should have to agree.
At the risk of being misunderstood again, I’ll take the liberty of venturing on the subject of copyrights and publishers.
When copyright was first instituted, we were not blessed with the ease of creating copies that our present digital technology affords. This meant that large-scale manufacture of copies required considerable expense. It was, nonetheless, a profitable exercise, since the individual copies could be produced cheaply (compared to copying by manual labour) and in quantities that offset low margins.
Obviously, in order to copy something you need it produced in the first place. Initially, the product was books. Not surprisingly the people who wrote the books rarely had the assets necessary to then copy them and thus monetise their work. By the same coin, the printers (and soon to be publishers) weren’t necessarily authors themselves. If no legal restriction prevented a willing publisher from printing any given book, it was more than likely that everyone would profit, except the actual author.
While copyright did (and does) assure the individual publisher a monopoly in producing copies of a given work, it does impose a very important restriction: he must first obtain consent from the author (who is the original holder of copyright) and pay for the privilege. The fact that publishers, being in a position of power, often imposed grossly unfair terms on the authors is another matter.
Fast forward to Today: the same technology that presently allows the author to become publisher of his own work at little expense also enables just about everyone else to do the same. Now almost everyone on the Web is a publisher of some sort (in the broadest sense of the term), whether money is involved or not. The reason for the origin of copyright still holds true however: the person first entitled to benefits from publishing a work (i.e. making copies available to the public) is the author. He or she may choose to assign or license these rights to another party, but the choice and terms are at his or her discretion. To deny the author this choice is not only still illegal, but, in my opinion, ethically wrong.
Crosbie: At the even greater risk of being accused of inappropriate comparisons, isn’t the definition of slavery extortion of labour (and fruits thereof) at no compensation? I say no more.
One final word: If we consider it fair to accept fan contributions to the recording of an album ex ante, what on Earth is wrong with accepting such contributions ex post? I’d go so far, as to say that the latter is much more attractive to the fans, because it ensures that the recording in question is released regardless of how many people initially opt in. Plus, having familiarised themselves with the end result, unsatisfied fans may still opt out, by simply choosing not to obtain a copy of the recording in question (as has been the case for so many years).
@Andrew: I agree on most of your points, just a slight problem with “regulation should reinforce and support what reasonable people actually do, rather than criminalise normative behaviour”
Unfortunately normative behaviour is not always reasonable. This is quite the same debate as the one between Sam and Crosbie on natural rights vs. ethic.
Here in France bad driving is sort of a normative behaviour. Thanks to more controls and more strict regulations the death toll was divided by two within a few years. That’s pretty cool.
So it seems the question is really on what we consider reasonable in terms of regulation, technology, compensation… for the creative material that is shared over the internet.
Krzysztof, you ask:
> Crosbie: At the even greater risk of being accused of
> inappropriate comparisons, isn’t the definition of slavery
> extortion of labour (and fruits thereof) at no compensation?
Slavery is the suspension of someone’s liberty to privilege their owner – typically in order for the owner to exploit the slave (though not necessarily), whether by force or persuasion, whether rewarded for their labour or not, whether subsequently sold or manumitted.
Copyright is the suspension of the public’s cultural liberty (to share and build upon published works) to privilege publishers (the owners of the public’s cultural liberty) – typically for the publisher to commercially exploit, whether via litigation or persuasion, whether they reward creators of unauthorised derivatives or not, whether the public ever has their liberty restored to certain works or not.
Artificial monopolies reward the monopoly holder at the expense of the public’s liberty. These are unethical grants. That they have still been made over the centuries does not make them any more acceptable. They are certainly lucrative to those that receive them (who may well return favours), but this is an inefficient let alone unethical exploitation of a people’s liberty.
If you wish to compensate an artist for their art then do so with money, not by offering them the indirect exploitation of their audience’s loss of cultural liberty (by a publishing industry adapted to commercially exploit it).
Art for money, money for art.
A moral musician does not manacle the hands of the musicians among the members of their audience.
“I will not accept the enslavement of my fellow man, nor any imposition upon his liberty, as reward for the publication of my art”
“Imagine that making likenesses of public statues was illegal. Then give everyone cheap digital cameras. Are the photographs of statues that result an epidemic of moral failure?”
Absolutely, and you’ve expressed that very well. Good Morning Andrew, It’s morning in New York. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I think to some degree you’ve inadvertently hit the nail right on it’s head.
By and large, reasonable citizens pay their taxes despite few chances of apprehension. A shared appreciation for the greater good, coupled with serious penalty, keeps this essential system very much in place. Good drivers stop at stop signs in the middle of the desert, with no traffic for miles around. People can quietly get up and easily leave on restaurant checks, too, but virtually all do not and many would agree a certain moral failure is in play when they try. If this grew epidemic, the payment system would change but we would not reasonably expect the food to be free.
“Stopping people from doing what they want to do is never a good business idea.”
You have this wrong, sir. The history of corrected moral failure is almost endless in every culture. The loss of physical product to the temporary epidemic of shoplifting in the 1990’s resulted in a complete overhaul of the world’s product delivery system, complete with surveillance, electronic tags, scanners, guards at every portal, court approved bag searches. Digital does not and should not require a rethinking of our ethics. Rather, when an otherwise just society finds and exploits a temporary weakness that does damage to a segment of our population, that just society closes the weakness, it doesn’t tell the damaged party to suck it up and start selling t-shirts.
Two keys differences are in play here, Andrew. Technical ease (digital copying) and hiding behind privacy laws (a form of corrosive, cowardly behavior.) In tandem, they are the basis for what has proven out to be in retrospect, a moral failure that must be corrected if our beliefs of right and wrong have future worth.
Don’t make the mistake that thinking this is only about music. What is really at stake here is the potential viability of our network as the greatest sales and distribution platform in the history of humankind, and the much more simple question of whether a decade of pent up digital product in industry across the board will become available in the release of digital distribution or not. Music is the canary in the coal mine and the canary is sick, no question. The real issue at hand is whether government and industry, with secure the mine or not. Filesharing was never the future of digital business, it’s the reason why digital business has temporarily stalled.
The whole purpose of my suggestion that musicians grow some spine and start pushing back— rather than meekly accepting that they are now to be uncompensated along our time-tested system of barter— is based in this reality. This is not expressly because of industry leverage, although clearly they are leveraging all that they have at their disposal. Closer to the truth is that our model of barter is not broken, only the morals associated with digital exchange are, and even then, only within in this confluence of technical ease and privacy protection.
As for:
“Fortunately for the musician, and thanks to the Internet, the musician now has the technology to deal with their audience directly.“
It’s time to put this old saw away. The marketing advantages are huge and the influences of the network are only just beginning. There are obvious advantages of having 3 million friends on MySpace, but only within the context of proper compensation for product. Without this, there is no livelihood. The utopian notion that music consumers will pay for “good music” without first a decade of industry support or at least a corresponding overhaul of the product delivery system is simply untrue, and proven a false image time and again for almost a decade since Napster. But even if it were possible, it also begs the question that a musician (with a musician’s professional skillset) has the ability, the time, the resources and funding, even the inclination to accomplish professional level results in an extraordinary variety of narrowly specialized but essential areas of expertise, if an effective livable wage is to be achieved within the arts. All of this is lovely to imagine; none of this is reasonable to expect. At least in this one regard, Mr. Fitch lives in a world where reality–and our human nature– need not intrude.
Artists rights are inherent Andrew, the laws intend to mirror long held human beliefs of a certain proprietary domain over that which we create ourselves. Only duration is not inherent and therefore debatable. Copyright law has overexpanded and needs to be rethought, I agree, but Mr. WISZNIEWSKI is on the right track when he says “To deny the author this choice is not only still illegal, but, in my opinion, ethically wrong.” Or a moral failure, to use your earlier term.
This, more than any other single element in our debate, is why everything digital must demand and achieve for itself similar regard in the marketplace. To allow this epidemic of moral failure against artistic creation to be accepted as civil disobedience in the light of “Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King…” is not only outrageous, but it threatens to transform hardworking digital professionals in every digital business to uncompensated amateurs, now forced to work in some other analog/tangible pursuit at the direct expense to their craft, and while sadly imagining themselves as someone else.
Thanks, Sam.
I don’t want to respond to your rebuttal point by point, because I feel as if we have both made our positions clear, and while we draw different conclusions, we are interpreting many of the same phenomena in different ways. We agree on the facts of what is going on and have come to different conclusions about what they mean.
But I do want to raise a red flag about one particular phrase you use. It belies a presupposition that, once accepted, leads you inevitably towards a particular set of logical conclusions – and I suspect this presupposition is at the root of our disagreement.
“What is really at stake here is the potential viability of our network as the greatest sales and distribution platform in the history of humankind”
That’s not what’s at stake here.
If you think that’s what’s at stake here, then of course you will come to the conclusions that you have – because what you assert is logically consistent based on that idea.
If you are interested in the internet as merely “the greatest sales and distribution platform in the history of humankind” then you will very quickly find yourself arguing (among other things) against the principle of net neutrality.
What I believe is at stake here is instead the potential viability of our network as the greatest communication, collaboration, social and cultural medium in the history of humankind. This, of course, includes sales, marketing and distribution – which are subsets of communication – and various platforms for those kinds of communication, which can be mediated by those networks.
The internet is neither restricted to sales and distribution platforms (as I hope this conversation itself evidences) – and nor should it be entirely subservient to their internal processes.
> Good drivers stop at
> stop signs in the middle of the desert, with no traffic for
> miles around. People can quietly get up and easily leave on
> restaurant checks, too, but virtually all do not and many
> would agree a certain moral failure is in play when they try.
> If this grew epidemic, the payment system would change but we
> would not reasonably expect the food to be free.
Sam, a respect of everyone’s inalienable rights, to life, privacy, truth, and liberty is precisely what’s at stake here.
We cannot rely upon respect alone, so we empower a government in order to protect these rights.
Unfortunately, a government can do more than protect rights, it can also grant privileges. These are powers that people do not self-evidently possess by nature, but that government has seen fit to grant anyway, usually with the excuse that they’re in the public’s best interest (not just in the interests of those who’ve been privileged).
People can naturally protect their own lives, their private domains and the possessions within them, collectively protect the truth against impairment (in the interests of justice), and pursue their liberty in all other respects (obviously without violating any rights). These natural powers and proclivities that people possess are all that people seek to protect as their natural rights when they institute a government; they require that all people are considered equals in this, that none may be privileged above another (whether due to skin colour, sex, religion, or anything else).
When a government privileges a publisher to prosecute members of the public for asserting their natural liberty, their engagement in cultural exchange and exploration, to thus elevate the publisher above the public, then the government has lost sight of its ethical constitution.
Anyway, the ethics of copyright are only a tangential consideration for the mission of this site – to explore ‘New Music Strategies’.
We can believe copyright good and file-sharing bad, or vice versa, and this will bias our strategies. We either veer toward greater enforcement of copyright and other means of exerting cultural constraint of the public, or we veer toward laisser faire, copyleft licensing, and cultural emancipation of the public.
In the long run it doesn’t really matter. Only in the latter case will we be adopting strategies that are adapted to the inescapable fact that copyright is ineffective.
Computer scientists saw the writing on the wall years ago, and for some considerable time have been adapting to a software culture in which copyright is voluntarily neutralised (GPL).
The public, and our audiences among them, WILL share and build upon our published work. Just as we have shared and built upon the published work of artists before us. Not only that, but just as we would make money from our work that builds upon that of others, so will the public wish to make money from theirs that builds upon ours. And all this will be done without seeking permission from the artists whose work is built upon, nor seeking permission from their publishers – irrespective of the ‘educational’ prosecutions they engage in.
So to those of us who wish to make money from our art, let’s do it by selling our art to our audiences, not by selling our audience’s liberty to publishers who can exploit it.
Start today.
“I will not accept the enslavement of my fellow man, nor any imposition upon his liberty, as reward for the publication of my art”
I don’t think music is devalued, I think people have more things to do with their time and money as it relates to the commercial music business. As long as music is played, sung and/or performed during a wedding, funeral, graduation celebration, family reunion, sporting event and/or used for various treatment methods “music therapy” it will not be devalued.
OK, I did not finish reading all the comments (I am at the day job, sorry)…But from reading the post and a few of the coments, one thing kept popping into my head:
The Comic Book Boom of the 80′s
I heard a program the other day talking about what happend to the “value” of collectible comics. The answer was that when DC and Marvel saw their sales grow they naturally began to print more copies of the books.
“The Dark Knight” by Frank Miller lost a whole lot of its $$$ value when it became so readily available…multiple re-prints, etc.
The drawings are still brilliant, the story is still brilliant and neither of those elements lost one bit of value…However, the physical graphic novel did.
I think the point I am making is that the “value” of a song and the “value” of the media it is recorded to is not AT ALL the same beast.
But hey, you guys already knew all that from what I have read here.
Think: “Rubber Soul” first run press on vinyl….then think: “Rubber Soul” mp3 with unlimited shelf space.
“Hey Bulldog” is still as wonderful as it always has been….But that dirty old piece of vinyl might not be!
Cheers,
Milton
Gentlemen,
I am first fascinated and then drawn in deeply to the issue being discussed here. As a Dj, I ‘perform’ others music (primarily electronic and dance) with limited income myself and even less to the original artist per performance. I have always accepted that this was done with a total disregard to the copyright legalities stated on the sleeve, understood commonly, and with no malice towards that original artist. As a Dj, I make real effort to provide a promotional service and the understanding is that I am performing this music, created by this person or group, located here, for purchase this way.
As the market has changed in the manner so eloquently discussed above. My cost to procure said music has decreased and its availability and succesive procurement by listeners has increased.
As the owner of a recording studio and editor of an online magazine and media streaming company, I have sought new venues and new methods to manipulate these market trends and to promote said art and music. I believe Dubber’s original statements about “new manipulations of this medium” and the statement about creative diversified use of this new medium to remain effective and present, even compensated is what should be discussed here.
What “new music strategies” are available to us?
Copyright issues, which have dominated a large percentage of the above comments, are an issue of outstanding import. However, are you all aware of internet radio and media streaming being threatened by fees and policies that seek to crush the creative and small business means by which new artists are seeking to maintain a presence in this new market? I believe the website is http://www.savenetradio.org. Please get involved…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
Above is a link to an equally eloquent report on copyright as it relates to the Amen Break. I think this poses the same compromise and content that this discourse is wrapped upon.
With sincere affection and gratitude,
Hugs
Great post. This is something that has been swimming around in my mind for awhile, and I wasn’t sure what to think, but I think you’ve got some good points. What has changed is the way in which music is consumed, not the value of it. Thanks for this insightful post.
The “value” of “music”…The “value” of the “media/format/product”
Semantics is a bitch!
What is the value of a fond memory triggered by a fave tune? Certainly NOT the same as the value of the format you are using to listen to the song.
That’s all.
It is true that people are consuming music in different ways now, but it is also true that if we want to continue enjoying music, songwriters and musicians need to get paid. You can’t make a generation who have never paid for music suddenly have the conscience to do so, so innovative new business models are essential to bridge this gap. Ad-funded free streaming and paid download sites like We7 are one answer, so fans get free music funded by advertising and bands get paid – everyone’s happy.
Steve Purdham
CEO – We7
http://www.we7.com
I realize this is an old thread and so therefore perhaps no one will read this comment. But…
But I disagree with the author (a very rare thing for me.) Music does NOT have the same value TO PEOPLE now that it did 20 years ago. You can argue verbage all you want, but go out into the world and ask people. Non-musician people. Music had more value when it was one of the only games in town. It competed for our attention with three channels of TV. No video games, no Internet, no video on demand, no 500 channels of cable.
Kids used to go outside and play catch with a ball. Kids used to go inside and put on a record and just sit and listen. Most kids today don’t do either, anymore.
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I think when people say “devalued” they are referring to the economic math of it, not other lenses through which you could view it, i.e. emotional attachment, perceived quality of the ascetics, and so on.
Music costs dramatically less and people are willing to pay less for it. The markets perceived value of any one particular piece of music has declined therefore the economic value of digital music is less.
If an artists could charge $17.99 to hear their album on YouTube rather than basically for free, then they would but they can’t because people would inevitably say, “Your art is not that valuable to me, I’m going to move on to the next guy.”
Interestingly, I bet that artists could sell a vinyl record of that music for $17.99 and that’s because society values the record higher.