These Crazy Musicians Still Think They Should Get Paid For Recorded Music

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1. surgery archive
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:07 pm

   what about those artist who can not arrange big concerts?
   musicians should get money from recorder money, but its not going through prohibiting music download or drm. well, someone has to come up with a model for monetizing free music. but how?

2. Steven Hodson
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:08 pm

   Interesting in reading this viewpoint after reading Nick Carr (http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/03/meanwhile_back.php) .. was kind of surprised he wasn’t referenced somehow

3. SearcH◆ EngineS WEB
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm

   “The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise…Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend.”

   It is easy to understand the frustration of Musicians and easy to empathize with their valid concerns.

   The only problem is, should this policy extend to all creative outlets - such as YouTube, Flickr etc

   These outlets exist to offer alternative ways for the common person to get massive publicity if their work is exceptional - without having to deal with the establishment.

4. Michael Arrington
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:12 pm

   surgery archive - well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.

   if an artist can’t make a living playing concerts live, then he/she may want to think of it more as a hobby than a way to make a living.

5. Michael Koby
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:14 pm

   You had me until this line “Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist.”

   The fact of the matter is that recorded music is much more than marketing material, it is in fact product. Plain and simple. It is product that an musical artist can sell to generate revenue. This is especially true of smaller, lesser known artists who make money off everything they make: from recordings such as compact discs and Mp3s, to t-shirts and stickers, and even concerts.

   If recorded music was nothing more than marketing material why even bother to sell it? I agree when it is a large artist with major label support, this statement would have a little more truth behind it. But to make a blanket statement like really does a dis-service to the smaller, more independent artists out there.

6. Michael Arrington
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:18 pm

   Michael - Sure its a product. But it costs exactly the same to produce one copy of the song (the first one) as 10 million copies. Simple economics takes over. Free.

7. Andrew Korf
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm

   Great post Michael

   You’ve putting some solid thoughtful stuff lately.

   The music question is a terribly complicated one which it seems like groups like RadioHead and NIN are beginning to solve themselves. I like Billy Bragg but agree he’s off the mark here.

8. Joe
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm

   Agree with Bragg. Also endorse his position, stated at SXSW gig at Thirsty Nickel, that musicians should organize a cross-industry union that can negotiate residual rights ala the Writers Guild.

9. Jenny Young
   

   March 22nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm

   Lots of acts and artists do not like touring, how do you propose they earn money if they give away their music for free?

10. Tony Gilmore
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Billy Bragg’s commitment to fairness in both music and society is well known in the UK and your final paragraph in which you accuse him of jealously over Bebo’s success is unworthy of you. He may be wrong or he may not but his input is undoubtedly sincere. He is not, at any rate, claiming that music content is the sole reason for Bebo’s success only a small but important contribution.
    In an age where genetics companies and Big Pharma are busy patenting naturally occurring medications why should songwriters and artists, whose work demands some original creativity, not expect some reward for the use of their material?

11. B.H.
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    it’s very simple:

    if the user comes to hear the artist (but on the way “discovers” the site) then the artist should be paid

    if the user comes to enjoy the site (but on the way “discovers” the artist) then the artist should pay

    there is probably a point in the middle, where no one is getting paid.

    That’s how reputation works. welcome to the real world. Trying to discuss it in such general terms, leaving the reputation out, is a muted conversation. Show me a single starving musician that wouldn’t sell his soul for a top spot in the radio-stations play-lists (even if he doesn’t make a dime)

12. Nigel Mellish
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 3:48 pm

    “Billy Bragg’s commitment to fairness in both music and society is well known…”

    Billy Bragg’s commitment to being a complete nutjob is similarly well known.

13. Adam Lindemann
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Michael, alright lets play with your insistence that emotional/values based analysis of the issue has to be replaced with an understanding of the underlying economics.

    What would happen when in the future all movie and television production and distribution becomes digital and the marginal costs issue raises its head at the fundamental level of that industry too. Would the the George Lucas of that era have to give away the great work of his imagination for free in return for perhaps making ALL his money on merchandise and theme park rides? Would he even bother? In that alternate/future reality we have a situation where potentially a future “Starwars” or “Indiana Jones” never got made because the creators could not make a living to support the incubation of these works of art. If I had the choice between paying several bucks to go and gain the enjoyment of watching the next generation equivalent of “Starwars” and knowing that it may never get produced because of a lack of any financial incentive for the creators - I know for one that I would prefer to pay.

14. alan p
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    I don’t really see the functional difference in the supply chain between a traditional music aggregator and a music-toting social network - they are both just middlemen. Oh wait, the Olde Industry actually paid the musician something

    I think the view that “Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist.” explains the rest of the post’s mindset perfectly - ie its a market and caveat sellor.

    However, I think this misses the distinction between art and crap. SocNets can generate the latter as infinitum, but to get stuff to make people hang around requires getting talent onboard, so the SocNet longer term needs the artist more than vice versa.

    We alluded to this in the analysis below, re the risks for a SocNet when its audience stops coming:

    http://broadstuff.com/archives.....Crash.html

    The issue is the disparity in negotiating power - if the musicians could organise themselves they would start to have some chance of extracting revenue from the Bebos, YouTubes etc of this world.

    They need to hand together, as right now they are most certainly being hung to dry apart.

15. Miiko Mentz
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm

    I found Bragg’s article of interest, but you are right in that he’s insane if he thinks that Bebo should give artists any cut of the $850 million. The music industry has been imploding for some time now and it’s not of any fault of social networks. The music industry started imploding long before MySpace, Bebo or any other SN was ever created. And SNs are excellent platforms for promoting music. It’s my main source for discovering new artists.

    Of course, radio is also a huge marketing driver for recording artists. It’s still the main platform for marketing music to the mainstream masses and that’s not going away anytime soon because there’s still big money in it; which is exactly why payola happens. Despite the fallen Spitzer’s crack down, payola is still happening today (it’s not right, but it’s an ugly reality that continues on and hurts those who take the high road and play fair…but that’s an entirely different issue).

    The Internet is certainly challenging both the labels and radio and I certainly don’t have the answers on how to stop the bleeding of the music industry. But I do believe in supporting the songwriters/artists (and those who are part of that ecosystem, which includes my best friend and other friends). And I do believe that songwriters should be paid for their work, but a royalty model similar to radio on the Internet seems extremely far-fetched and challenging to create and control; but what I do know about the tech industry is that innovation abounds and I’m sure some brilliant person out there right now is working on a solution that will help bridge this painful gap between the two industries. But that’s only going to happen if those in the music industry accept that the old model will NEVER work on the Internet. Change or die!!!

16. D
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm

    “As a result of my complaints, MySpace changed its terms and conditions to state clearly that all rights to material appearing on the site remain with the originator.”

    Have you seen how much the Beatles got to put their music on iTunes.

    You don’t think the ownership of music question is important?

    That question defines the entire music industry — who owns the music.

17. azhar
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    With the population of the World being 6 Billion and music being universal. Bebo’s 40 million users listening to new artist’s music does not make much difference to the artist if his music is really good, It will only give him more fans who will market his music to other friends and family which gives him free marketing and then the chain reaction starts of recording company signing the artist and making him a star.

    What Bragg forgets to note is, if the artist becomes famous by using Bebo as a platform and when he is worth millions in future, will he give back some of his millions to Bebo. The reason being, when the user upload’s his music, all he wanted was people to appreciate his music and new fans and all Bebo wanted was the artist’s content which can keep their users happy. I think both of them are happy with the deal.

18. arn
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    @Michael: “But it costs exactly the same to produce one copy of the song (the first one) as 10 million copies. Simple economics takes over. Free.”

    I’m not sure what this means… and I don’t think it means what you meant it to mean.

    So, can I copy all the content off TechCrunch and start a competing site with all the exact same content since the cost to reproduce it is free?

19. alphaxion
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm

    The thing is tho, arriving at that recorded copy does cost money and usually needs to be recouped somehow.

    Record labels will have to begin looking at no longer being the guardians of music through their past control of the distribution model, instead they should be looking into becoming a “value added” enterprise - anyone can record their music now, but the record labels are the ones who can still provide talented producers, have the knowhow and connections to promote an artist.

    Their control over the market as a whole has been smashed and they should learn to accept this, instead of trying to own the music, they should simply become a service to the artists in the future.

    People forget that the music label is still a relatively new concept, and what they are is far from set in stone.

    Maybe the musicians should look to the software industry for inspiration, how about selling the license to use their music in any form rather than as it currently is now, which is selling the rights to use that physical media for the lifetime of the item.

    And don’t get me started on the arrogance that a pirated copy of something is a sure fire missed sale, there is only so much money per person to go round..
    many people obtain pirated copies of something because they don’t mind watching/listening to it on rare occasions, but they don’t think the asking price is right.
    Maybe we should look at a small annual license to cover any items they “pirate” and gives them the right to use that copy up to 5 or 10 times a year, any more and they need to buy a full copy of it.

    A little bit of creative thinking and you can begin to see ways out of the hole they have dug for themselves.

20. jc
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:11 pm

    Musicians make a heck of a lot of money from concerts and merchandise. Loyal fans should purchase both. They can charge for mp3’s on their site and even sell CD’s or i-tunes, but because the threshold to get in the music biz is so easy now that anyone can upload an mp3, it means that you will have to charge less or nothing for that music to be distributed.

    Also, if musicians wanted to pay radio stations for airtime or pay a site like Yahoo or Myspace to feature and advertise their music that would be an interesting situation.

21. Michael Arrington
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    arn - congratulations on being the first meathead to add the “oh, yeah, well how would you feel if i stole techcrunch content” comment. Not only do we syndicate our content for free to a number of other sites (free marketing!), but we also give it away to all of our readers for…free. The correct analogy would be around us trying to charge people to read our content. I don’t want to do that, because i want to get as large an audience as possible and find other ways to make money. Think about it for a minute or two. If you agree, come back and apologize. If you don’t, keep thinking until you do.

    And…when it comes to stealing our content, there are dozens of spam blogs that do exactly that. We don’t try to stop it, because the cost of doing so would far exceed any benefits. It’s inevitable.

22. Andrew Dubber
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    This is actually a much more complex issue than it might at first appear from the point of view of taking a position for or against Billy Bragg’s claim on Bebo’s money.

    Bebo clearly benefits from the inclusion of music on the website. Artists clearly benefit from the inclusion of music on the website. Arguing which of those two parties is getting the better deal overlooks the more interesting and relevant fact that this is actually a symbiotic relationship.

    The nearest clear parallel is around music videos on television. Are the record companies supplying free TV content for the channels — or are the TV channels supplying free advertising for the record companies? The answer is both — and the answer is, in fact entirely irrelevant because both parties make money in different ways. There is an exchange of value - and some money does change hands, though not in any sort of direct way.

    Everybody wins when music is available on social networks. Arrangements that factor in the wider and more complex music environment as a whole, rather than this very simplistic and linear ‘you’ve got money, so we want some’ approach seems a far more nuanced and rational approach.

    The clear nonsense here from Bragg is that he seems to feel that social networks steal from artists in the same way that music fans do — which to me seems based on an entirely flawed presupposition.

    Arrington’s post title is a clue that his tongue is somewhat cheekwards, but to suggest that artists not be allowed to make money from recordings is equally baffling.

23. Scott
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    Michael, please tell us how you really feel

    I totally agree with everything you said. I was surprised to learn the songwriter vs. artist bit in regard to radio.

24. Frank Church
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm

    @16, if you have ever read posts where MA espouses this same opinion, you’d know that TC doesn’t like it, but they do not whine or litigate. Go check out ajaxgirl dot com (there are countless others) for an example.
    SO, you are w/o a point here.

    #8 and #13 hit the nail on the head. You want to demand revenue? Band together and get a contract. Otherwise, BigCorp will just laugh and sip their scotch.

25. jeffbart
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:27 pm

    If the owners of the musical work ( the ip of the song ) want to charge for it, or not, let them make that decision. I am so amused to see *everyone else* deciding this for them. This includes the industry analysts, tech geeks, freeloaders, RIAA haters etc etc.

    Not everyone is Radiohead. Royalty for composing music is a fair and equitable method of receiving some reward for it. “Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist” does not help composers, and ignores their fundamental income stream. It may help the owners of the recording, and maybe the artist, but not the creator of the ip.

    So, please consider who hurts more - the poor geek who has to pay a few cents to listen to a song, or the composer who has his work grabbed by the mob because the mob found out they can.

26. danielmatthews
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:40 pm

    Bragg isn’t simply some jealous artist, he is a known campaigner of rights and politics in the UK, he isn’t ignorant, and he isn’t stupid.

    I think that artists (large and small) should see some return on their contributed music, and i hope that bebo does figure out some sort of revenue/profit share scheme.

    Billy Bragg FTW.

27. Britney Spears' butler
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    We shake our heads when a musician puts forth a “theory” that because he can play guitar and sing a song written by him in his “artistic angst” he is due a chunk of money.

    Rarely have we heard a graphic artist asking to be paid for his Photoshop images used on these social network sites.

    Rarely have we heard a writer crying for compensation because his words have been quoted too many times.

    Rarely have we heard a software programmer claiming he should be paid for the widgets created by him and used by millions of teenagers.

    Only musicians make frequent attempts to link their “art” with money.

    Sigh.

28. James
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:43 pm

    I love this
    “Simple economics takes over. Free.’
    I love that if you drop the term marginal cost you are suddenly an economist.

    Actually Mike, that’s wrong. The cost of reproduction has NOTHING to do with the sale price of music. What would be more accurate is to call music a commodity which is dropping in price due to increased competition and increased means of access (illegal and otherwise). Otherwise why wouldn’t this be the case with software, which most certainly isnt MARCHING TOWARDS ZERO.

    I personally know artists who do not have concerts and yet are able to make a living from their websites or other sales of their music. To claim this should be made their hobby shows an arrogance I feel is deserving of your typical “disclaimer, my hubris in my own intelligence may create bias in this post.”

29. Markus
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:43 pm

    I’m not familiar with Bebo but there is an important point to know here. Was Bebo providing high quality, full length albums or just a few ‘teaser’ tracks?

    If they were providing a few tracks to sample then they are definitely promoting album sales and recognition for the artist. If they offer high quality full length downloads then they are (possibly) competing with album sales.

    Anyone know what they provide?

30. Michael Arrington
    

    March 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    James - you’re right, more is necessary than zero marginal costs. But if you click on the link I provided there, you’ll see that all factors are present. In particular, the fact that anyone can create their own supply.

    http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....ards-free/

    The only thing that can stand in the way is massive civil and criminal enforcement. As we’ve seen with the drug war, even that isn’t enough to stop market forces from doi