Piracy Didn’t Kill The Music Business
Piracy didn’t kill the music business, the music business killed itself. Filesharing, also known as Peer-to-Peer Networking, has gotten a bad rap by the music business. When I say “music business”, I’m referring to a few people and groups. For one, the “Big Four” record labels, Sony/BGM, Universal Music Group, EMI, and Warner Music Group. Others lumped into the “music business” title include artists (mainly major headlining acts), publishers, advertisers/promoters, A&R departments, and pretty much anyone else involved in the process of releasing a major record.
The reason I say the music business killed itself is because the music business was in a major recession long before anyone had ever heard of “P2P” or Napster.
The Artificial Boom
In the early 90′s the music business was booming. Record sales were through the roof and everyone wanted in on the action. Major corporations took notice, and record labels sold off to the highest bidders. The very same thing that caused the 2000′s dot com crash, the music business over saturated the market. No longer were businesses being operated by the people who loved the business, but now it was being run by men in suits who’s livings were based off profit/loss margins.
In the early 90′s, if you were an artist with a back catalog, you were an overnight millionaire. As the Compact Disc took off, people around the world were forced to go back and re-buy their entire catalog of music. Everyone, in a matter of two years was buying up the music they had been collecting over the previous ten. Buyers soon went back to their normal purchasing routine and caused the start of the downfall.
With national corporations running music, also came budget restraints, annual reports, and shareholders. Unable to meet the growing demands, major labels needed to cut costs. One of the first places to go was Artist Development, and Promotions.
Now instead of having a promotions department which was truly passionate about their product, now we had a bunch of businessmen trying to promote a product they had no relation too. This caused a major disconnect between the product and consumer.
This is when major record labels started depending on one-hit wonders and bubblegum pop to push profits ignoring their own rich history and tradition.
Sell Fast. Disappear Faster.
It’s expensive to develop an artist. It is common knowledge that for every 12 artists signed to a label, 10 lose money, 1 breaks even and 1 makes enough to pay for the development of all the others put together. It’s a really risky business. But, the small independent labels didn’t care because they wanted to discover the next Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen. They knew that one major success could make up for a string of costly failures.
Unfortunately, that equation doesn’t work in the corporate environment. You have to justify your budget every year, every quarter. The only way to do that was to release lowest common denominator music that would sell fast but fade just as quickly.
This caused major record labels to forget what got them involved in the first place, “heritage artists.” Tom Petty, Springsteen, Bon Jovi, U2, Metallica, and others were what sustained them over the long haul, not The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Heritage artists were bands and musicians developed over years and they didn’t come cheap, but they made up for it in the long run.
Pink Slipping The Food Chain
For years, the way music got from artist to fan was the same. One department (A&R) would discover and develop artists helping them with everything from day-to-day expenses to making records. Another department (Promotions) would take the finished product and promote it using teams of college interns, radio promotions staff and others. They would pass the actual product on to distributors who would send their representatives to record stores to convince stores to buy records. The promotions interns would put up displays in the store and hold promotional events designed to help artist, distributor and record store. The employees at the store would talk to their customers and play the music in the store.
That system worked really well for a very long time. But, once again, the big corporations saw an opportunity to cut costs by making independent deals with big box retailers like Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy. The result was the death of distribution companies and independent music stores and even chain music stores. This may have seemed like a smart financial decision, but they got it wrong again.
What the suits failed to realize was that the chain of people working on selling music for them was key to making sales. Even now in the age of blogs, people still listen to what others suggest when it comes to buying music. Prior to the internet, those people included DJ’s (we’ll get to them in a second) and record store employees. After your friends, these were the people you trusted to know music.
Even worse, retailers like Target only put about 300 titles per year on shelves out of 3000 or more possible releases, honing it down to ONLY the most demanded (according to them) artists and records. A good record store could not only steer you towards a great alt rock record, but also to a blues record that influenced that alt rock band you like so much.
I’m not naive. I realize that with iTunes and other forms of downloading, the days of the music store were rapidly coming to a close, but the labels, instead of acting as partners with stores as they always had, turned their backs on them prematurely before anyone had ever heard of an MP3 or Napster. It not only cost thousands of people their jobs, it placed limited stock on the shelves narrowing the choices for people even further. Like cutting development, they were forgetting that it takes more than just a pretty face and a catchy hook to sell records and the more options you put out there for people, the better your chances of developing artists who will sell for you for more than just a few years.
I think there is real truth to the idea that video killed the radio star, but the radio industry helped it along by killing off the primary link between listeners and stations: the DJ.
Where Have The ‘DJ’s’ Gone?
Much like the chain of distribution, there was a long history of record label staffs sending music to radio stations where program directors and DJ’s would play what they thought their audience wanted to hear. DJ’s took chances and, as a result, broke artists for labels and made them an awful lot of money. There was always corruption and undue influence exerted on DJ’s, but a large percentage were in it for the music.
When the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was signed into law, large corporate radio empires like Clear Channel destroyed the listener-DJ relationship by flooding markets with stations owned by a single entity with programming decisions made at a regional level, far removed from the DJ and his/her show. DJ’s were replaced with “on-air personalities” more about selling ad revenue than “spinning hot wax” as they used to say.
While the record industry may not have been directly involved, they sat by and did nothing and even encouraged the centralization of power because it made it cheaper for them to peddle music. They didn’t have to call or visit hundreds of DJ’s anymore. Now, they just went to a central nexus.
Just like destroying distribution removed variety from the shelves of retailers, centralizing programming ended variety as we once knew it on terrestrial radio. In the Steely Dan song “FM” they talk about how FM stations in the 70′s would play pretty much anything from reggae to blues to rock and everything in between. It was all about the relationship between DJ and listener, between people. Once that relationship was destroyed and stations began playing the same narrow play list, people began to abandon radio in droves.
“Who, Me?”
Long before the record industry was, in their estimation, attacked by downloaders and people believing music should be free, the record industry itself compromised its own business through questionable decisions, corruption and the corporatization of music. Art and commerce always have and always will have a tenuous relationship. But, when the pendulum swings so far to one side, it is no shock when it eventually comes flying back the other direction. So, record execs, the next time you look into a camera or into a room full of onlookers and try to tell us that file sharing and video games killed your business, don’t waste your breath. Instead, take a look in the mirror and you’ll probably find the culprit.
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I’d love to hear the thoughts of everyone else on this subject. If you have something to add, please feel free to leave a comment!
If you think this is something more people need to read, please share it using the links below. Thank you!
Nick C. says...
4-4-2013 @ 3:37 pm
If you go back to the 1990′s, there are at least 20 or 30 bands / solo artists I can name that sold music, toured, and MADE A LIVING AT THEIR WORK. You could say the same about the 70′s. And 60′s. Can you name even FIVE rock acts that made a living in the 2000 decade? I can’t. Can you think of anyone that sold merch or some how made it without selling their music? I can’t. Of the bands that are making a living now toruing – but give away thier music, they are by and large acts that were established back in the 90′s by a label and promoted by a label that used record sales for promotion. The title of this article implies an agreement that music (as a profession) is dead. But there is no agreement piracy was to blame. But here is something else to consider. In a market economy, if there is demand for a good or service, and the current vendors offering it are doing a poor job, they are replaced by those that will do a better job. So, according to market theory, if the music industry players were the cause of the music demise, they would soon be replaced by others that do a better job. The fact that this has not happened shows that there is no demand. And according to basic economic theory, demand for a higher price good will drop when a lower price good takes its place. After 15 years of piracy we are all still waiting to see one example of an act that can survive financially without being able to sell their music.
Sofujid says...
4-4-2013 @ 11:04 am
Very clear, concise, relevant, and true article! I read an article in Fortune 500 magazine about the decline of album sales and how the record industry should cease to sell music and give it out for free. I had been hearing the cries from those in the industry about sells dwindling and the criminalization of music piraters. I fell in love with the idea of free music being a musician myself. I feel that giving out all free music yet selling other items will be a successful way to prosper in the industry and at the same time send a message to the industry/ real music killers that we as listeners and makers of music will not be forced to do what they want.
Nick C, says...
3-24-2013 @ 6:10 pm
Michael, there is no comparison to the older day copying of albums to on line duplication. I was there. Putting an album to cassette was a tedious process. First you had to use a costly blank cassette. Then you had to arrange your songs to fit both sides. It was a manual process. You waited for the songs to play out to flip the album and tape. After it all you had ONE copy. It was not practical to produce a tape for anyone but yourself. People would typically make a copy for their car, and that was it. On the other hand, a song file is uploaded in a couple swift steps, and with another swift step anyone can grab a copy. It can easily land on millions of computers.
Michael says...
3-24-2013 @ 10:15 am
I’m pretty sure people were duplicating LP’s and cassettes way before file sharing. Maybe it didn’t have as big of an impact as digital downloads but that is partly because enthusiasts enjoyed adding to a physical collection, there is less sentiment for a list of MP3′s.
Digital Piracy | TuneCity.com Blog says...
2-8-2013 @ 12:02 pm
[...] In essence, artists want to see sales on their music and make an honest living doing what they love to do. They have often made the assumption that they can’t because of what P2P and file sharing are doing to the industry, and that may not always be the case. [...]
Finn says...
1-28-2013 @ 4:32 pm
I’ll start out with quoting a Wondermark comic: “Why should I give you MONEY to do something a suitably obsessive person would do for free?”
It is feasible to charge $10 for a physical CD. There are pretty big production and distribution costs involved. But an MP3 can be hosted on a data server for next to nothing. When it comes to iTunes and the “Big 4″ there is an expectation that the album will still sell for $10. But the production of a physical copy is now a non-issue. The artists aren’t getting any more money. The difference between cost and price is going straight into the pockets of old men with no talent beyond the ability to write a check to make sure their new song plays on the next episode of Jersey Shore.
But websites have started to pop up that offer an alternative: Free self-publishing, minimal overhead, and organic advertising. The websites get started through a kickstarter program, take off by hosting ads, and sustain through donations or by taking a very reasonable cut from the artists’ profits. And these artists range from hobbyists who are just in it for fun to bands on the fringe of public recognition, like Mindless Self-Indulgence or Sufjan Stevens. Many of them are admittedly horrible, but some are good. And I will give $10 to a kid with real talent who doesn’t even require money to download his album. Especially w hhen I know that he. will get $8.50, and the rest goes to free hosting for the people who didn’t pay.
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Nick says...
1-22-2013 @ 9:27 am
I agree with much of what you said. I think the concentration of the recording industry and radio has done a large blow to music. But I still think the single biggest killer of new music was the downloading craze. You know there is always discussion of direct losses, but never is the discussion of indirect losses. When the download craze started, the govt stood back and did little to stop things. The techys told how all musicians would benefit by letting others give away their music. The Napsters were glamorized. Yesterday I read about the “entrepreneur” Kim Dotcom. What all this leads to is a public opinion that music is free, people are owed it, and anyone who dare charge for their work is out of touch. It is somehow ok for parasites like Kim Dotcom to make money off of other’s music, but if the creators of that same music ask for a pittance for their work – the greedy scoundrels! Musicians were told that all that exposure would lead to more revenues playing live. That never happened. The problem is that without recording revenues to promote a band, nobody will know who you are, and nobody will come to your shows. I have associated with musicians for decades. In the past, people had no trouble selling their recordings that they spent thousands to make. Today, most turn their nose up when a musician has the audacity to ask for money for a recording. What is more, I have never seen people so unwilling to pay covers to see music as now. They have the opinion since recordings are free, musicians should be willing to play those same songs for free live. The sense of value in music is gone. As a musician myself, what particularly hurts is the snide comments people make about musicians who dare ask for money for a recording or a cover that should be free. There is no sense of how much money, time, and commitment it took to bring music to the point of a finished recording or a polished show.
Dave Hayes says...
1-15-2013 @ 1:00 pm
Great article. I was in the independent music business for 20 years and sold my company to Mercury/Polygram in 1997. BIG MISTAKE! 18 months later they folded. I could tell you so many stories. But you have it pretty much diagnosed. What’s next?
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CJ says...
12-1-2012 @ 10:21 pm
Great insight. I download music that I otherwise would not pay for just to check it out. Is there lost revenue if I would have never paid for it anyway? I guarantee you I wouldn’t have paid $8 for Edgar Winter’s White Trash, live 1974.
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GT says...
11-22-2012 @ 2:07 pm
I go to parties and everytime I ask people where did you get your music? They tell me from youtube. They have a converter to take music from youtube for free and then they share files with their friends. Djs do the same. My Mp3 sales were to an all time low this year for me. We spend so much money recording and promoting and get nothing back in return. Then the same very people scold us when we don’t go back and record more music.
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The RIAA Responds to Michael Carrier… « says...
7-27-2012 @ 10:46 am
[...] the year prior instead of building a long-term plan. Other events coincide with this like the labels downsizing specific departments, namely artist development and promotions (which ironically led to less of a grass roots marketing [...]
Octavio says...
7-23-2012 @ 4:57 pm
I agree with this! This is what is killing the music industry, today. This new executives which don’t now anything about making music, they are forcing artist to record whatever they tell them to. Just because it makes their ego feel better. The executives have to let music makers make music, and they should only focus on the business side of the business.
Is Piracy the Reason Your Music Isn’t Selling? « says...
7-19-2012 @ 3:36 pm
[...] his article entitled “Piracy Didn’t Kill the Music Business” he talks about how as the labels grew, they began to cut out certain departments they deemed [...]
Downloaders – Pirates or trendsetters? | lzajdmanguelph says...
6-25-2012 @ 9:40 pm
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Studiofeed says...
6-20-2012 @ 11:31 am
A really great article. What really killed the music industry was the attitude of total control and invincibilty that they displayed before the onset of the digital era. The internet provided access to a market that was largely monopolized, which corporations did not prepare for and thus felt the heat from the fallout.
CGhj says...
5-5-2012 @ 12:54 am
I think this is really well done. You make a lot of good points and have me feeling a lot more optimistic about the music industry than I was before. And, guys, come on- rock isn’t dead. There are still lots of indie and alt rock bands popping up all over the place and metal is still going very strong. There hasn’t been a new band like the Beatles every year. Someone will come around soon. It might not be as strong as it used to be, but it’s not dead and I don’t think (or hope) it’s going to be dead for a long time, as long as people keep making and putting out new music.
Steff says...
3-6-2012 @ 5:06 pm
great article, enjoyed it so much i’ve shared it with my college classmates, our lecturer was only discussing this 2 weeks ago. great points and nicely put.
John says...
2-1-2012 @ 4:20 pm
This is a great article, I have often been very disappointed with nowadays music (Pop hit singles, or lowest common denominators), and how they are all simple and the same. But I never knew how or why it got that way. I never thought, though, that piracy had killed music.
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austin says...
7-31-2011 @ 5:14 pm
love this, just wanted to add that while the P2P file sharing napster, limewire and other torrent sites designed to bring loads of music for free gets a lot of flack from people that are losing money (like sony) that was the response to the death of the heart of music. It was our way to take it back from big buisness. sites like youtube created new ways to find music and to hear artists you didn’t know before, although you have to sort through the bullshit to find good artists. As much as the “industry” is dying (if not dead) the soul of music is still there. even if mainstream music (poppy one hit wonders, electronic phases like dub-step or ego heavy redundant rap lyrics) exists in abundance – which it does and it doubtfully will change for a while- and is influenced by big labels supporting soulless “catchy” music there is an equal amount of people “true to the tunes” real music fans. that will never change even if big business did a pretty good job of fucking things up there will always be real artists and real fans and we’ll continue to say fuck the industry steal our music and support the artists who inspired us.
and before anyone says that stealing music steals from artists, while this is technically true the corporate labels take money from sales AND kill music. buy merch go to shows, promote your bands. support your artists not the corporations
Dirk says...
7-9-2011 @ 6:33 pm
I agree, record executives killed the music business back in the nineties by introducing and pushing artists without substance and abandoning established artists and marketing campaigns that portrayed these established artists as passe’. The fact of the matter is that the quality of music and the new artist’s talent was very mediocre, also these artists lacked style. For the most part they were ugly and sloppy. To summarize; the music that the record companies were pushing onto the public just sucked. Fortunately, music is making a comeback and artists of all genres and styles are all finding a place in the industry, albeit by their own self promotion and marketing via the internet.
From Walkmans to Streaming Music: An Evolution in Audiophiles says...
6-29-2011 @ 1:28 pm
[...] crazy. The problem was that all of those amazing musicians weren’t getting their royalties. The recording industry went to its knees.All it could do was sue. Nigerian pirates have nothing on a 15 year old with a computer in the [...]
Ken says...
6-13-2011 @ 1:55 pm
There’s a fair amount of truth in the article, but the author sort of forgets to mention the rampant corruption of the “golden age of FM radio.” Frederic Dannen’s book Hit Men goes into depressing detail about those gallant yeoman independent promoters (frankly, only payola can adequately explain REO Meatwagon). We had a big kahuna DJ in Cleveland in the ’70s and ’80s who was either on the take (those were the rumors) or thought he was Alan frakking Freed and could make acts all by hisself (Michael Stanley, Southside Johnny, a couple of other clowns whose names are lost — mercifully — to history).
If the indie labels screwed up, it was in trying to find the next Nirvana instead of a couple dozen Ani DiFrancos (or before her, Fugazi). I’m not a big fan of her music (and I suspect we wouldn’t see eye to eye on much else either), but I’m a _huge_ fan of her business model and work ethic. The world could use more like her.
-LT- says...
6-13-2011 @ 12:36 am
This is a great article but it seems to assume some kind of golden age in which music wasn’t corporate. The music business has always been run by suits and it’s always been profit-driven. The impetus to sign was never “this has artistic merit” but “can I sell this?” At the DJ level there was more of an artistic consideration but even then they were being told what to play by their superiors.
Personally, I choose not to look at the situation as the death of the music business but the democratizing of music.
Piracy and The Music Business’ Auto-Darwination | apocorama says...
6-12-2011 @ 1:41 pm
[...] this cool paper on the music business and piracy. This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged labels that don't put out anything good [...]
Sirscooter says...
6-12-2011 @ 10:19 am
I keep seeing that statement about independent labels taking a hit from piracy.
I would like to see figures on this. That IMHO it’s more due to the fact the smaller artist no longer need the indie labels as they once did in the early to mid 90′s.
In the mid 90′s computer editing and record production was becoming increasingly cheaper. Small bands like Hatebread could rent/ buy recording equipment from the profits of playing out and record “Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire” in a small sub-urban office building and make the expenses back from that record.
The price of that recording equipment has only become cheaper and better since that time. And some of that equipment is something all of us already have, a computer.
The price of making disc has also gone down. It’s about a dollar per disc and that’s with bells and whistles. Even if we calculate in $5000 for recording equipment or studio rental time, we are are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of about $2 for 5000 discs and and that price will get even cheaper if you also tabulate in digital sales.
So for around a $10,000 price tag you can get a record made, not counting the unexpected expenses along the way. This is where indie labels would come in footing the bill for studio rental fees, record production cost, promotion, artwork for the record, and such.
In this day and age, you can record a song at a time and release a songs the same way. This has been true for almost 10 years now. This means as a small act you, can record an album over the course of 6 months. You can tour local clubs and promote your music locally, as well as on-line. Then use the money from those gigs, to get some time in a recording studio or buy the recording equipment a piece at a time. Then release that song on-line to pay for the next song. To start are you going to need seed money? Yes, but the barrier that it once was at least $10,000 up front, is not that high by far maybe just a few hundred dollars which could be provide by local gigs or band members.
So indie labels did not get killed by illegal downloading they where killed by the prices of being able to record getting cheaper through digital technology.
Santero says...
6-12-2011 @ 7:10 am
This article makes the classic mistake of only looking at the major labels, and ignoring the fact that independents are the ones who have taken the worst kicking by the explosion in internet piracy.
Jesse says...
5-5-2011 @ 7:51 pm
I agree with you, music has definitely moved to a more corporate, and it is changing our culture. Also to all you people saying downloading music is stealing your wrong. I’m not saying piracy isn’t bad but you gotta get your terms right or no one will respect you.
David says...
3-30-2011 @ 2:42 pm
The music industry blames internet piracy and some of the comments on here remind us all that piracy is illegal. Piracy is a red herring and this essay seems right on about the actual causes of the record industys problems.
For starters, piracy has existed in music long before computers, long before mp3 players and long before napster.
Anybody who passed along a mix tape to their friends or significant others in the 80s was certainly guilty. Anybody who taped off the radio also pirated music. I don’t believe either of these activies put a serious dent into the record industry profits, in fact, personal illegal distribution and recording of tapes probably helped sell more tapes and records than customers would have bought had they not had access to pirated media.
Secondly, napster was one of the first problems for the record industry when it comes to digital piracy. Prior to it some of the earliest indicators that problems were looming were the Rio mp3 player by Diamond, download service Scour, and desktop mp3 player WinAMP. Had the collective record industry talked to any 18 year old (their primary market) with an FTP client in the mid 90s, they would have possibly understood the direction distribution was going and maybe had some solutions in place to maintain their margins and provide the consumers with digital choices. Rather than try to find a compromise with the inevitible freight train coming toward them, they decided on lawsuits, injunctions and threats. The industry could have possibly come up with their own copy protected standard long before MP3 was a household word and everybody on the planet had an iPod. Napster tried to work out a deal with the music industry, they responded by knocking the head of the hydra, only to spawn a couple more in its place. There was absolutely no foresight in the music industry, they expected to litigate away consumer demands rather than try to accomodate the people who wanted legal and convenient ways to buy their products. These people had their heads in the sand for too long and I’m not sorry their stranglehold on the industry is crumbling.
Will says...
3-26-2011 @ 2:58 pm
The 10 out of every 12 artists thing is very, very old news. It isn’t anywhere near true anymore. The figures are far worse. It’s also a fact based on a (major label) system that no longer exists. Labels don’t “develop” artists anymore. They let the artists develop themselves, and then roll the dice once they’ve proven they can make money on their own. At which point as an artist, you have to wonder what that label is really going to do for you besides try to turn you into the last thing that made money for them. Furthermore, very, very, very few recordings make a profit anymore. FAR less than one in twelve. Recent statistics: In 2010, slightly more than 1000 records sold 10,000 copies or more in the U.S. I’d venture a guess that FAR more than 100,000 recordings were released. In February 2011, the record for FEWEST records sold by a #1 record according to Soundscan in a given week was broken TWICE! And Del, if you think this trend isn’t effecting everybody including underground hip-hop artists, think again. Rap and hip-hop have been driving the industry for 7-10 years. They’re not new anymore. And while they’ve been some of the last to feel the pinch, they’re feeling it now. In short, recorded music isn’t selling enough to support its own production. We’re all scrambling to figure out how to make the numbers work, but as long as people think recorded music should be free, the quality of what you hear (in every conceivable way) is going to continue to suffer. It certainly shouldn’t go back to the way it was. But think about it…would you take a job making pizza for free? Would you be surprised when the free pizza you ate tasted like crap? That’s where we’re at in the music business, my friends.
Del says...
3-25-2011 @ 7:16 am
You have a really good outlook on this whole problem. The good news is that the money will eventually have to start doing their research, and then they’ll find who people are really listening to these days. Unfortunately, rock and roll is dead. And it pains no one more than me to say it. But luckily, soon will be pop as well. Rap is the next generation, underground style artists like Chitty Bang, Chris Webby, Dyme Def, Bury BrothL will all soon be on the market. However there will be all the fun crossover acts too like the Dirty Heads and other pothead music. So enjoy the winds my friends, for they are changing as they say.
Chuck says...
3-21-2011 @ 12:10 pm
I find it interesting that the article didn’t mention the fact that file-sharin is indeed illegal. Only one comment touched on this and he lamented it because of the legal implications and not the moral reasons.
I don’t steal, not because of legal reasons, but because it is wrong to steal! Period.
Julian Paez says...
3-10-2011 @ 6:43 pm
artists themselves are also to blame. it isn’t just one hit wonders that came and faded. several good and talented bands and “musicians”(rap isn’t music, the beats are and I commend the engineer but rapping is poetry and childish poetry at that)signed their souls away to money.As a musician myself, growing up in the world this is, I grew up loving music. any real musician knows its not about making money. I know it sounds mushy and whatnot, but honestly, the feeling I get from picking up any instrument is enough to make me happy. and to share the music I have in my head with others is what I want, who am I to charge money for my bullshit creation? So, when I look at all the big music stars of today, all I can do is hang my head in shame.
nothanks says...
2-25-2011 @ 2:20 am
Thank you for writing this article. The entertainment industry as a whole is a charade. The people who create these songs, the people who sell them, and everyone inbetween is useless. As a musician, who also works for a living I cannot condone the insanity that is the modern business.
People steal when something is unfair or unacceptable. Most people will do not do so otherwise. Most people are good to their core. Therefore, it follows, that they are in the moral right, and it is not theft, or they are having their pockets picked and are rationalizing the act of theft.
Either way, albums and singles are advertisements for live performances. It is just data. Intellectual copyright is a joke, as straight up plagiarism is tolerated and sharing vilified. The musician should be paid as they play live, for punching the clock, not because their advertising and marketing department struck gold.
Thank-you for writing this article.
asdf says...
2-15-2011 @ 10:58 am
great article. Your points are cohesive and insightful. I don’t believe you really proved the crux of your point – which is that peer-to-peer DLing is not killing the industry. However, you’ve definitely shown that, to an extent, the record industry shot itself in the foot in the 90s.
I think it would be very interesting to compare the average # of albums per signed artist between like 1985 and now. I would guess that TONS of signed artists now pump out 3 albums because that’s what the label needs to break even, where many more artists back in the 80s only got 1 or 2 if they couldn’t last.
Jenny says...
1-20-2011 @ 4:36 am
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Jenny says...
1-20-2011 @ 2:47 am
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Jenny says...
1-19-2011 @ 12:24 am
This is a useful post, but I was wondering how do I suscribe to the RSS feed?
Bud says...
1-11-2011 @ 10:22 pm
Awesome article Dallas. I added it to my favs. I think you are right on the money. Now do one on the new internet market and open peoples eyes to the indie side of music. Tell people how to get a barcode so they can sell music their on amazon with out a label at all. And how to get their music on pandora and lastfm. That way we can put the lying executive out of business all together and the fcc can’t prosecute people for hundreds of millions of dollars anymore. Thanks for putting this out there.
Best wishes
b
Jaclyn says...
1-4-2011 @ 10:05 am
I think this was a great article. My take away from it is that as artist we need to become even more creative to stay in the game. Things will always be evolving and nothing will ever be perfect so we have to roll with it and think outside the box.
cheers!
Jaclyn
hipHOPfan420 says...
1-3-2011 @ 12:01 am
GOOD ARTICLE!!! The music biz is so screwed up these days, just like everything else. Radio is just as bad as TV now-a-days, all you wanna do is hear a good song or watch something but you have to wait thru 15 minutes of commercials to hear half a song followed by another 15 minutes of advertising. Bunch of crap!!! But more to the point, record stores are the main reason most people just DL music; you go in the store trying to find a certain album and the people working there haven’t even heard of whatever your requesting if it wasn’t on MTV(which doesn’t play music anyway)so may as well save the time and money and just DL it. Plus i don’t feel bad not paying a guy with a $50k neckless on, 4 a song
Angry says...
12-28-2010 @ 3:34 pm
Grey text on a grey background. This is the perfect way to encourage readers to skip right along to the next person spouting off at the mouth.
Ken says...
12-28-2010 @ 2:57 pm
What is described is the reason I’m trying to launch an Airplay for Exposure music system. Artists looking for internet radio airplay are listed at a web site designed for pr
ogrammers who are looking for new songs: http://www.rradiomusic.com
I’ve also created an “Intro to Indie Artists” series of programs that are offered free to internet radio stations: http://www.audiographics.com/landing_page/intro_to_indie_artists.htm
We need to revamp the way music finds an audience.
Scott Campbell says...
12-26-2010 @ 8:49 pm
Interesting read. The future is http://www.guvera.com they are rebuilding the industry relationship in an innovative way and artist get paid. Best of all it’s free!!!
Craig says...
12-22-2010 @ 12:04 am
Narrow play list of radio is so true! I have XmSirius in my car, and very rarely ever switch over to FM.. I used to enjoy listening to AM talk shows, but got so sick of news, weather, useless traffic updates and endless commercials.. So much less B.S on Satellite radio…oh, don’t forget Pandora either!
P-Rod says...
12-16-2010 @ 6:48 am
I wish you would address the fact that artists in the late 1990′s and early 2000′s don’t play venue’s fit for them. Everyone want’s their art/artist on the biggest stage possible, some don’t deserve it all at once. Also, the music industry ignored the smaller cities with smaller venues, missing the $$$ there.
Ive stumbled upon this. - DaShadyBoard.com - Shady Records Fan Forum says...
12-9-2010 @ 9:38 pm
[...] [...]
Connor says...
12-6-2010 @ 10:03 pm
Although all the information here seems to be true, and I do love the ideas incorporated, it still does not condone stealing. I would love to see a world were music is free, but as of right now, it is not acceptable from a legal standpoint. Hopefully this will change in a few years, buy if I download music without compensation to the owner, I am stealing.
mjcpk says...
12-6-2010 @ 3:29 pm
The other major factor that has nothing to do with file sharing is the dramatic changes in people’s leisure habits. With the advent of home computing, console gaming, the internet and a wide range of satellite and cable television music had more to compete with.
The same money that a teenager in the 70s might spend only on music and cinema was having to be split many more ways by a teenager in the nineties.
Also, singles never really made money. They were only ever promotion for the album. However, bubblegum pop was all about the single and the one-hit-wonder became common place. This reduced the desire by consumers to invest in albums. Why buy and expensive album when most of it is filler when you can just buy the single you want?
Like so many things these days we are presented with black and white arguments. Struggling artists want to be paid for their work and so the Music Industry encourages them to speak out against ‘piracy’ and some even believe the official line. The reality is that musicians need to, setting aside file sharing for moment, ask themselves if they are really well served by the corporate behemoth of the music industry.
Many artists are now finding the internet to be a means to promote themselves either singly or as part of collectives.
All things move on, this is no different.
Mark Cardon says...
10-9-2010 @ 9:42 pm
Great points Dallas! It always boils down to “follow the money”. As the music industry evolved, and the formula for pumping out a packaged product which could generate huge returns on invested $’s, (a well refined formula) with a lot of effort being put forth in the streets or in the trenches. That was the pulse and true reading of where the public’s tastes were formulating. Once there was blood in the water – aka profits – the corporate sharks then devoured these entities and in the process sterilized much of what had been the seasoning process which had helped to create, as you say, “heritage artists”. Gone were the impassioned people who lived and breathed the nurturing, mentoring and expansion of musical potential in artists. Replaced with corporate sterility and drive for the almighty dollar. The loss of that connectedness to the music consumer, and loss of the genuine connection to the chemistry of artist seasoning process has left a void now being filled by the indie’s. Albeit, in my opinion, has diminished the magic of what used to be a hyped and better time for music. The law of least common denominator has diluted the over all quality of product being offered. If one could harness some of the wild wild west of those going it solo, maybe that would return us to the days of wine and roses.