It should also be noted that most major labels, from what I’ve read, require that the artist reimburse them for some of those costs (most notably Marketing/Promotion) as part of their contract. Also notice that Marketing/Promotion is more than the artist’s royalties so that can lead to some precarious financial situations for major label bands. This book is a pretty fun read and describes from one musician’s point of view what rock stardom entails these days.
Then what did people do before the advent of recording technology? Live lives of lonely desperation?
The copyright law requires authorization of the copyright holder for public performances and copies. Singing to yourself (or to friends) a song you have heard and loved is not restricted. Recorded music is not a necessity to the human condition. It is, however, popular.
People used to buy (copyrighted) sheet music from the traveling salesman, same guy they bought shoes and stuff from. I think that’s cool, but have no interest in going back. I like my ipod. (Now iPhone)
Peace,
mangeorge
I like the way things are now better than the way things were a century ago too, but I think the point is that even if the music business is rearranged considerably, it will do so in ways that provide ample pathways for music (which people will continue to want to make) to find its way from artist to listener.
Given that for most artists and bands you hear on the radio, the vast majority of their earnings come from live performances rather than sales of recordings, one thing I’m NOT worried about is the notion that minuscule profits from selling recordings will result in less interest by artists and bands in creating music.
there was a version of the RIAA, called Tin Pan Alley, with it’s own set of critics.
Actually, there’s a pretty strong parallel between the two with TPA maybe being even more exploitative than the RIAA. Talk about your “starving artists”.
Just remember that these are lawyers making these statments (read opinions) in briefs. These are not laws, and I can’t find where RIAA has proposed them. Essentially, they mean nothing outside the context within which they were stated. It’s just a lawyer pontificating.
These statements fly in the face of what the music industry is actually doing, which will make a fun trial later. Check out Amazon.com MP3 downloads. All music there is provided by the music companies. All of it is DRM free. Even iTunes converts to an iPod only format, which limits copying ability. Sony BMG is the only (major) music company that does not participate. Outside file sharing services, I can’t see how the RIAA would have a leg to stand on when it comes to the personal mp3 user, especially if the music companies are providing the music with the knowledge that it will be copied, and in fact, making it attractive for downloading by removing the DRM characteristics. It’s forseeable to them that the music would be copied, even shared. The companies have the means to prevent this and are chosing not to use it. I don’t expect Sony to keep up it’s hardlined approach, espeically if Amazon music takes off.
Besides, there are still a bunch of folks who still respond “backup? I don’t need no stinking backup!” so when the computer dies they’ll have to download again.
Well, frankly, yes, they did. 150 years ago the best most people could do was a player piano, and they were few and far between or, you bought, as mangeorge pointed out, copyrighted sheet music from traveling salesmen or in general stores, and learned to play, or you didn’t learn, and we stuck listening to someone else play.
That’s a good point though for discussion though, how essential is recorded music to you?
Hm. I think a poll is in order, off to imho I go.
Yes, they did what? Live lives bereft of music? No, they didn’t. They learned to sing and play for themselves and listen to each other do it.
This doesn’t describe a life bereft of music. And it also doesn’t show how requiring you to pay for recorded music is somehow impinging on your natural rights as a soulful human being.
Just a slight bump to say that this week’s Billboard reveals that Nielsen SoundScan counted 1.35 billion scans (full album sales, full album downloads and single track downloads) for 2007. This was a 14.7% increase from 2006.
So the RIAA is still selling plenty of music and saying “the music industry is dying” or crying poor is all a load of hogwash.
You know, I think this was the beginning of the collapse of the old business model. The success of a song or an album used to be determined by Billboard using radio airplay and shipments to stores. Both of these could be gamed by the record companies pretty easily. It would be much more difficult to actually buy back all the records at retail prices in order to manufacture momentum for an artist.
Asencray, the days of people being able to make gobs of money from recorded music are over. It’s finished. Because guess what? More and more free music is going to be available. Free, as in, music that someone recorded and then released into the public domain, and also, music that’s just sitting there like $100 bills on the street waiting for someone to pick it up. You can make it a crime to pick up money lying on the street, but simple common sense will tell you that enforcing such a law is pretty damn hard, and convincing people that they’re doing something wrong when they do it will be even harder.
Here’s the future of recorded music: Everything ever recorded since the dawn of recording, on any device, in any format, whenever you want, however you want, as many times as you want, and all at no extra charge for the user.
THIS WILL HAPPEN, and sooner than you think. The only question is, will this happen legally, in a way where the people who create the music are paid at least something for their efforts, or will it happen illegally, where the creators get nothing?
The RIAA model of suing uploaders rather than downloaders only works if the uploaders are living in the US. What happens when there are billions of uploaders in China, Russia, India, Brazil, and Indonesia? What happens when terabyte hard drives cost a few dollars, and a street kid living in Bangladesh has a computer with hundreds of thousands of songs all available for anyone with a wireless connection to download? How effective will it be to sue judgement-proof people who live in other countries?
Copyright law wasn’t handed down on stone tablets from Mt. Sinai. It was a method invented during the industrial era to advance the useful arts and sciences. If copyright law doesn’t advance the useful arts and sciences any more, then it has outlived it’s usefulness and should be changed to some other method. Whether this means artists and record companies can still make money selling copies of music is irrelevant.
The purpose of copyright law is not to allow record companies to make money selling recorded music. The purpose of copyright law is to advance the useful arts and sciences, and it turns out that since people like money, one good way to do that is to invent a scheme whereby the people who create useful things get money in return. Everybody needs money, that’s why they call it money.
But the current law only worked if copying files was an expensive industrial process that no one would undertake unless they expected to make their money back. And it was easy to enforce, because the legitimate parts of the distribution chain had no incentive to deal with infringers, and infringers were easy to trace, easy to find, and easy to put out of business.
But that’s not the case any more, putting music file sharers out of business is impossible because file sharing isn’t a business, people upload copies of music files because it costs them nothing. There was always a disincentive before to make illegal copies available, because it used to take a lot of money and effort. Not anymore.
And so the golden age of recorded music is over. Finished. You can’t stuff that genie back into that bottle, the best you can do is come up with some solution where artists aren’t completely screwed. It may be that the best we can do is for artists to put up a tip jar on their website and say, “If you liked our recorded music, hit our tipjar, we accept VISA and PayPal. Also, by some of our swag, and by the way, we’ll be at these venues, so come by and see us perform, tickets are available here.”
We might be able to do better than that, since the old model of charging people per file copy is right out, but that’s the floor. Now, you may argue that music creators are under no obligation to provide music under those terms, just like music consumers are under no obligation to listen to music under the current terms, and you’d be right. There are plenty of music creators who make a living under the current scheme that won’t agree to the new scheme. But so what? They don’t have to agree, they’re free to withhold their creations from the public if they wish, just like we’re free to not listen.
Or perhaps there will be a scheme where everyone pays a flat fee per month to their ISP, and all music, movie, TV and other media consumption is tracked, and creators are compensated out of that $10/month pool, based on adding up the amount of whole pool, and dividing by the number of files accessed, and cutting checks to everyone on the list. Or something else that I haven’t thought of.
But the alternative isn’t today’s pay per copy scheme, the alternative is the tipjar.
Bartender, I’ll have whatever he is having.
I believe that what will happen will be closer to what happened with VCRs. They will learn how to continually make a dollar. They will evolve because they have to evolve. And they won’t learn when the next big thing comes along and our children will hash out the exact same debate again. I think your next to last paragraph has the start of a new idea; the tipjar will likely not work very well.
But let’s be honest, people like their top 40 music. That’s why they call it top 40. 
All the packaging and processing and glitz that sells costs money, and the people footing the bill aren’t going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts or their love of music. An indie band relying on word-of-mouth, house shows, and free downloads does not have the same overhead. And given the volume of sales that all that packaging and processing generate versus word-of-mouth alone, and that the former is a successful, repeatable process, the labels are going to find a way to make money. Right now, they are just trying to protect revenue streams until they figure out the new one.