So to sum it, you don’t mind if artists are not paid to produce their tracks, but you hope on google ads money and want free traffic by sharing somebody else’s work. How lame’s that ?

Pete
Your right 100 percent and its time for change. If we as artist are forced to give away our music then everything else should be free. Ford should build cars for free, homes should be free, cloths should be free, food you got it should be free. This is the problem with the me ology age group. I call them the give me generation the world owes me because I was born so give me give me.

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I”m kind of amazed that anyone could actually write something this moronic. Do you think composers like Mozart worked for free?. They worked under a commission basis, meaning a sponsor or nobility would pay them to create. Then the composer was usually sponsored financially by a ‘promoter’ who would pay to book a concert hall and musicians. The composer was paid a fee for each performance – a performance right based on their copyright, EXACTLY the same analogy to composers being paid for a digital performance. Let me type it slowly so you can understand. THEY WERE PAID ON EXACTLY THE SAME PERFORMANCE RIGHTS PRINCIPLES AS DIGITAL MUSIC SALES.

The way it worked was like this . .
Concerts were NOT free. That allowed everyone to get paid. And concerts were VERY expensive in comparison to personal income.

If music was FREE in 1780, then you would never have heard anything from Mozart because he would have been working as a laborer or something, and would not have had the financial resources to spend years of full time effort on his music, nor could he have ever staged a performance.

What do you do for a living?. I think what ever you do, you should do it for ‘free’ too.

Right now, there’s this very inexplicable (and completely narcissistic) attitude , widely spread, that musician’s are doing something wrong by trying to make a living off sales of the music they create. To those people I say this.

Are you a carpenter?. Build a house, spend all your money on lumber, tradesmen etc. Someone asks you to GIVE it away when it’s finished. ‘Housing should be free’. Yeah right. Get a job hippie. How many houses are going to be made if you commit financial suicide by building one.

Are you a software developer?. Build the world’s greatest 3-D flight sim shooter game. Hire on 12 developers, pay for the software tools. Spend money on cover artwork etc. Then, some wiener asks you to GIVE it away because ‘play should be free’ or some similarly idiotic statement. Again, the economics don’t support it?

The ONLY reason we haven’t seen the same problem with movies, video games is BANDWIDTH. As the digital pipe to your home improves and improves, it will be possible to bit torrent down the next movie in 10 minutes. Do you know how many millions it costs to make even a ‘low budget’ movie?. They CAN”T give it away. If they did, they would have to stop making movies. Then all we would ever be able to watch is cute puppies on you tube. (Which has it’s moments, but – - not all the time)

J031 – I would love a world where your proper expectation of becoming a musician full time could become true. That works out for both of us. You get to do what you really want for a living, and I get to hear the music you create. We both win. And guess what. Sales of your music in digital form is the ONLY what that’s really going to happen.

There is NO ‘golden age’ in music due to digital media. Things right now for musicians are WORSE not better from digital music distribution. Music sales dropped over 30% last year. Record labels have stopped artist development (meaning, new artists), are reducing their catalogues and a new entry has virtually no chance. I know a lot of people think labels are evil, and largely, that’s true. However they do perform ONE function that has value. Marketing. A label can take an artist and generate demand through marketing (radio, press, print, etc). It’s still virtually impossible to market music yourself. That’s the other key that’s missing from the non-signed artist.

I think what needs to be done is for *someone* to create a strong motivation among consumers to pay for the digital media they use. Suing people isn’t the way. We need a carrot here and not a stick. Not sure what this model is yet, but I sure hope it comes about soon.

Now, I”m going to watch cute puppies

For those of you that say you wont pay for music etc.
Do you pay for movies, video games, software/operating systems or books yes or no. If yes why, when you dont pay for music same principle

@Peat

Your exactly right big artist may not have a problem with it but what about small or medium artist, and new artist. If theres no money in something how many people would continue to do it.

If the artist cant afford to go on tour how are they supposed to make money you have to pay for (hotels, transit, help/assistants, food, book a place etc) and after paying those cost after the tour you may be in the negative, earn nothing or broke even but those still dont equal profit.

So how does anyone make money just by going on tour unless your big enough or already have money out the a** imagine a new artist how the f**k will you afford a damn tour, pay for the t shirts, hats, shorts etc. to be made.

If this is the case then how many of the people posting on this blog would continue with there current job if your employer one day came and said where not paying you anymore because what you do is just for promotion.

I work in music- and the simple fact is that making a great recording is a very expensive process.

Fine, you can do it all on a laptop, but that effectively spells the end of nice instruments recorded in nice sounding rooms through nice desks with nice mics by groups of people that can really write, play, arrange, mix and master.

I can think of about 3 “great” albums that were done without those elements- and kudos to artists that made something very good out of very little.

If no revenue can be derived from selling records the simple fact is that its going to affect the quality of the records that are available- and we’ll all be stuck listening to recordings made in garages rather than the sweeping epic huge productions that stream counts, sales charts, radio plays, fanbases etcetera rather suggest that we all like.

For more on this:
http://slowblog...s-anderson.html

The business model of 2004 is dead. You should start writing this blog for free.

In centuries past there were no such thing as record sales. Mozart didn’t need record sales. Neither did any of the greatest musicians before the 20th century.

Get real, good music will be made one way or another. If you don’t care to make, no worries. Get a day job and let the hobbyists make the music. They seem to do just as well as the pros anyway.

it’s about china. geez.

I’m a songwriter, and I’d like to know from all the smart people how, if an artist signs a 360 deal with a label, will the songwriter – the one who provides the material to record, make money? Does anyone believe that a songwriter will get a cut of t-shirt sales? honestly. does anyone really believe that a songwriter will get a cut of the door?

People who talk about ‘free’ understand the economics of the music industry about as well as an Obama voter understands what he really stood for.

A new, independent artist CANNOT make a living of sales of T shirts, and revenues from touring. Much of the comments here indicate a complete lack of knowledge of exactly how the music industry works.

So, Allow me to inform you the realities. I am on this at the ground level.

Reality Check #1
Touring, except for the VERY biggest bands (i.e. Madonna, U2, Police) COSTS money. That’s right. Most bands going on a small tour will , at best break even. Hence, ’sharing revenues’ from concert sales doesn’t do anything for you.

Reality Check #2
Making an album costs a lot of money. Those costs need to be reimbursed. And spare me the ‘it doesn’t have to cost’ nonsense. You are WRONG. Making an alubm costs money, lots of it.

Reality Check #3
No, you can’t make any real money from ‘advertising revenue’ off your web site, or ancilary income streams by giving all your music away. You might, realistically, if you were very popular, make a few hundred bucks from that over 5 or 6 years.

Reality Check #4
Musicians can be highly intelligent, skilled and gifted. They DO deserve to get paid and make a living off it. Laywers get paid, so do video game developers. Where in hell is this attitude from that says Musicians don’t deserve to make a living?.

Reality Check #5
Sales of music, in physical or digital form is the ONLY revenue stream to a musician that has any hope of allowing them to make a living. All of this ‘new income’ streams and the digital world ‘liberating’ artists is complete crap. It doesn’t work.

Reality Check #6
Great albums from artists like Stelly Dan, Pink Floyd, etc could not be made now, because the high costs of making those albums can’t be offset now. PS – Steely Dan didn’t tour, so for them, nearly 100% of their income came from album sales. Same for Pink Floyd, because they rarely toured and only used the tours to promote album sales.

“Music Should be Free”
Sure, go ahead and make us some free music genius. Get your copy of garage band, put a few loops together and give it away. Why not.

Now, do you want to hear something *good*. Something that uses actual musicians, singers etc. Woah! That’s going to cost. So, go ahead. Spend your money, borrow from credit cards and make that album. Then give that sucker away.

And go bankrupt.

Sorry dude, no more albums from this artist.

Get real – Unless Musicians can make money from their album and music sales they CANT make a living at it. Meaning our world will become a poorer place because of all the great music we will never hear, because the musicians can’t afford to make it.

There, I’m done now.
Alex

My music industry colleagues are not fat cats, but they are losing their jobs. They are often paid less well than in other similar careers (Music Marketing<Marketing Soap Powder) and take that lesser pay due to the fact they love music and want to promote it and work with artists.

I agree that the Internet can create new business models. I suggest, like US TV right now, we give you advertising all the way. Maybe than, people will appreciate a minor monthly fee to music… and music only.

Peace indeed! We’ll get there… Don’t worry too much and start being creative.

Now things have reversed since the Internet, it is more a case of simply being an Internet Geek/Entrepreneur Millionaire instead!