UK Music Pretends That Musicians Aren't Against Kicking People Off The Internet

from the oh-really? dept

Recently, we noted that a bunch of big name musicians had come out against Peter Mandelson's sudden decision that it was ok to kick music fans off the internet for file sharing, despite earlier promises that such a proposal was off the table. Having these musicians speak out against such a "three strikes" plan looked really bad for the various collections societies and industry groups that want such a plan -- leading some to publicly complain that these musicians were doing something "destructive" in standing up for consumer rights (how dare they!).

There were rumors that following this little dustup, that the UK music industry would drop its support for three strikes. Instead, Feargal Sharkey, the head of the UK Music lobbying group, has come out with a totally meaningless statement that basically says that the industry supports the government's plan and there's nothing to see here in terms of a rift in the views of the UK music industry.

That's not very believable. More and more musicians have realized that a proposal to kick people off the internet does nothing to promote better business models and does a lot to create significantly more ill will with fans. The only people who seem to be supporting it are those who are looking to protect old business models, and seem to think that kicking people offline will magically bring back paying customers. Sharkey has claimed in the past that the industry needs to stop fighting against music fans. Too bad he's aligning himself with a plan that is entirely about fighting music fans.

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Elderly Classic Rock Musicians Don't Like Music Video Games

from the hey-kids,-get-off-my-lawn! dept

I guess once you get old, all that "new stuff" is suddenly "bad" -- even if you used to be a rebellious rocker. With the recent launch of "The Beatles" version of Rockband, it seems that all sorts of other classic rock musicians have had to step up and talk about how awful such video games are. Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones, Nick Mason from Pink Floyd, and Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin have all come out as being against these games for one reason or another:

"It encourages kids not to learn, that's the trouble.... It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument. I think is a pity so I'm not really keen on that kind of stuff." -- Bill Wyman, The Rolling Stones

"It irritates me having watched my kids do it - if they spent as much time practising the guitar as learning how to press the buttons they'd be damn good by now." -- Nick Mason, Pink Floyd

After first saying there was no way that Led Zeppelin would ever put out a similar version of Rock Band: "Obviously, there have been overtures made to Led Zeppelin, but if you start with the first track on the first album, 'Good Times Bad Times,' and you think of the drum part that John Bonham did there, how many drummers in the world can actually play that, let alone dabble on a Christmas morning?" -- Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin

This sort of strikes me as the old rockers' equivalent of "hey you kids, get off my lawn." I'm sure when these guys were first growing up, learning their instruments and playing with their guitars and drums, that elderly musicians from a bygone era were complaining that what they were doing wasn't music and wasn't the sort of things kids should be mixed up in, because it didn't encourage them to play a symphony or something. Time to get with the times.

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Why Are RIAA Supporters So Scared Of What Actual Musicians Think?

from the interesting... dept

Last week, I wrote a post about the idea for something called Project EquilibRIAA. The idea was to reach out to the various musicians whose music was used in the trial against Joel Tenenbaum and here what they felt about it. Obviously, this had no legal basis, but was interesting from a cultural perspective, especially considering that just a day earlier the RIAA had declared that the trial wasn't about the RIAA but about how "Joel Tenenbaum and his egregious illegal behavior which robs artists and music creators of the right to be paid for their work." So, according to the RIAA, it's about the artists and their music, and I thought (as did the original poster of the suggestion) that it would be interesting -- no matter what they said -- to hear what musicians thought about the whole trial. No one suggested that it would have any bearing on the outcome. We just thought it would be a good experiment.

But what amazed me was the vitriol in the comments from the standard (small) group of RIAA supporters concerning this idea, and their absolutely dripping contempt for the actual musicians. Some samplings:

Comment #2: "It is entirely irrelevant, as the artists have signed away many of their rights (including those things that Joel was sued under). It would sort of like putting a dairy farmer in touch with a kid who stole milk posters at school. The relationship isn't relevant.

Comment #11: "I suspect you will get "wanna be cool party line" stuff, as each artist will dump a little crap on the RIAA, and then quietly cash the checks they keep getting."

Comment #12: "The artists don't have any rights. I don't care what the former owners of my car think about whether I've been maintaining it well or not and I don't care what the creator of a song who assigned the rights to someone else is now having cold feet about taking money from a record company. Bought, paid for, gone."

Comment #17: "What the Artists think doesn't mean crap. They all signed the distribution rights over to the record labels, and they are the ones that were wronged. I could care less if the artist stood on stage and told everyone to download their music, if they signed the distribution rights away, they are equally guilty of copyright infringement by telling people to download the music too."

This fascinates me. Statements like "it is entirely irrelevant" and "the artists don't have any rights" pretty much makes the point right there, doesn't it? These are the same people (yes, with the same IP addresses) who yell and scream about how what we discuss around here is insulting to artists and an effort to take away their "right to get paid." If this is all about respecting artists and helping them get fairly compensated, why are they so damn afraid of actually letting them speak? And why do they treat them with such contempt?

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Project EquillibRIAA: Putting Joel Tenenbaum In Touch With The Musicians In Question

from the good-idea? dept

Not sure what I think of this, but Michael Scott points out a project being set up to try to put Joel Tenenbaum in touch with the musicians whose music he downloaded and shared. The idea is to find out what the musicians think of the RIAA's lawsuit and the $675,000 fine. After the Jammie Thomas ruling, for example, Richard Marx, one of the musicians whose music was involved, came out and condemned the RIAA's action. Considering that the RIAA is out there claiming this is all for the artists, it would be worthwhile to find out what those artists have to say.

I have to admit that I hadn't looked at the actual list of 30 songs that were a part of the trial, but I'm pretty surprised to see some of the names on the list. For example, it includes Nine Inch Nails -- and we've already had plenty of blog posts about Trent Reznor's new business models which succeed by encouraging file sharing, recognizing that with more people listening to the music, there are many other creative ways to make more money. In fact, Reznor famously has told fans at concerts that they should download the music that was released under his (former) major record label. I'd love to see the RIAA let us know how much of the $675,000 will get to Reznor. The spreadsheet on the Project EquillibRIAA also lists Radiohead (who has spoken out against the RIAA tactics) and Courtney Love (who has been very explicit in condemning the RIAA's actions since way back in the Napster days), though I don't see either of them actually listed on Joel's list.

Either way, I agree it would be interesting to see what the musicians have to say -- whether they agree with the RIAA's strategy or not... and if they expect to see a dime of the $675,000.

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More Musicians Pissed Off Over Their Own Music Videos Being Taken Off YouTube

from the nice-job,-labels... dept

Eric points us to yet another story of yet another artist getting pissed off that his own videos have been pulled from YouTube. The writeup suggests that this is about competing record labels issuing bogus DMCA-style takedowns on artists as a part of their competitive fervor, but I'm not sure that's true in this case. The artist, Calvin Harris, is based in the UK, who is signed to Sony Music. In the UK, due to a royalty dispute, Google has removed all official major label music from the site. So contrary to TechCrunch's reporting, it seems that this may just be collateral damage of the silly royalty dispute, rather than nefarious competitors issuing bogus takedowns. Still, the point remains: this dispute, which the music industry claims is to "help" artists, is actually doing exactly the opposite.

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Less Well Known Artists Make Use Of Mobile Platforms To Interact With Fans

from the an-artist's-an-artist,-no-matter-how-small dept

When talking about the success of musicians adopting business models around the economics we discuss here, people often complain that it "only works for big artists" or "only works for the little guys," so much so that someone dubbed the exceptionalism as "Masnick's Law." I admit that it was easy to feel this way when Trent Reznor launched the Nine Inch Nails iPhone app. How many less well known artists would benefit from (or be able to develop) their own mobile app? Well, a company called Gigdoggy recently launched a mobile "Fanteraction" platform that lets bands easily create mobile websites for their gigs. In a blog post chronicling a show in which the platform was used and promoted, the first artist to play didn't really push it, but the second artist, Greg (one of the creators), made a point of explaining it to people. Basically, by queueing up each song on the site, an artist is able to provide lyrics and additional information that the audience can access via a mobile device while enjoying the performance. It's web-based, so it's accessible from different platforms without the need for downloads (or the risk of getting banned by Apple). Greg was able to get some people interested and following along. One audience member even prompted him when he forgot the lyrics to a verse! The platform is in its early stages, but it'll be interesting to see how it develops and what people do with it. At the very least, it's a good illustration that you don't need to be playing in stadiums to find a use for this sort of thing.

Blaise Alleyne is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Blaise Alleyne and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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No Musicians Have Ever Been Guaranteed To Make Money Selling Music

from the let's-get-rid-of-this-myth dept

Another day, another "pundit" takes a righteous stand about the music business dealing with "thieves," but gets the whole story wrong again. Someone who prefers to remain anonymous alerted us to a writeup by a reporter/analyst, Ellen Ratner, entitled simply "stop stealing from artists," which discusses a musician friend who apparently is suffering because "She can't be guaranteed that what she records or performs will be compensated." Can someone point out when anyone was ever "guaranteed" compensation for recording a song?

Also, as the anonymous submitter pointed out, the artist in question seems to be doing just fine on her site, with a list of tour dates, and a merchandise site that includes some unique items (signed concert poster, handmade cowboy hats) in addition to CDs. Basically, she's like pretty much any musician both now and in the past, who has every opportunity to get "compensated," simply by putting in place good business models combined with good music. No one should have a right to compensation if they don't give people a reason to buy.

The rest of the article is a confused jumble of a few different issues, from performance rights, to China, to (seriously) comparing music sharing to copying a book on a photocopier. I can understand how someone approaching these issues for the first time might take such a simplistic view, but it's quite a jump to go from "it is hard to dispute the fact that the songwriter/artist is entitled to fair compensation for their work" to "Congress needs to recognize this and act now." Why? Every musician has numerous business models at his or her disposal to get fair compensation for their work. There's no need for Congress to get involved. What Ratner seems to be saying is that her musicians don't want fair compensation -- they want guaranteed, gov't-backed compensation. In other words, she seems to think the government should be providing welfare for musicians. If that's what you believe, then fine, defend why musicians deserve welfare. But don't claim that musicians have ever been "guaranteed" compensation.

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More Musicians Discover That Online Is The Path To Fame

from the and-so-it-goes dept

Whenever we point to examples of musicians succeeding by embracing what the digital world enables, we always get some angry comments, often from folks claiming to be music industry insiders insisting that what we describe is really impossible -- especially for unknown artists. They say this despite repeated evidence this is untrue, including an increasing number of musicians who pulled off success stories. The response is always a search to find exceptions -- especially when it comes to live shows. One popular comment is that it's impossible for unknown musicians to ever get gigs. And, of course, there are some who still insist that you have to spend a ton of money to do a decent recording to get noticed.

This is, of course, ridiculous. The Wall Street Journal pops up with the story of Justin Vernon and his band Bon Iver. Vernon recorded a bunch of songs at his parents' hunting cabin in Wisconsin with a computer and some software, and put them on MySpace, where he was able to build up a huge following -- often by giving the music out for free. While he eventually went a more traditional route -- signing with a music label, his success suggests those criticisms are once again unfounded. This, of course, does not mean that every musician who records some songs on his computer will be a huge success, but those who say it's impossible are going to have to dig deeper, as it appears pretty much every day we hear of a few examples of musicians making all of this work despite the naysayers.

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Time For Journalists To Take A Lesson From (Smart) Musicians

from the the-model-has-changed... dept

These days there are a few types of stories we see and write about consistently: (1) the legacy recording industry's troubles in adapting to a changing market, (2) the ability of a bunch of motivated, smart musicians, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success and (3) the legacy newspaper industry's troubles in adapting to a changing market. Given (1) and (2), you would think that (3) might lead to the obvious (4) of a bunch of motivated, smart journalists, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success. And, in fact, that is happening, particularly with upstart blogs, but it's not getting as much attention. Romenesko points us to what should be a must-read essay over at the Columbia Journalism Review, highlighting the fact that worried journalists should be studying up on the success stories of musicians who are succeeding even as the legacy recording industry struggles.

It makes a few key points (which I'm summarizing and paraphrasing in this list) that apply to both, but which don't always get as much attention in the journalism field:

• Give away as much content as possible to build a following
• Share, don't hoard
• Really engage and connect with your audience
• Be authentic
• Build your personal brand

Some journalists (and musicians!) will likely push back on some of these, but it seems pretty clear that the market is rewarding people who follow these steps, and punishing those who don't.

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Musicians Realize They Need Their Own Lobbying Group

from the but-will-it-be-more-of-the-same? dept

Many people realized long ago, that contrary to what the RIAA (and the politicians it supports) states, the RIAA is not representing the interests of "the music industry," but rather the interests of a few big record labels. Those interests are often directly at odds with the actual musicians. It's almost amazing it's taken this long, but a bunch of musicians, including Radiohead, are now forming their own lobbying/bargaining group, called the Featured Artists' Coalition. One of the goals, actually, is to put pressure on the record labels to allow the musicians to retain the copyright on their music, rather than handing it over to the labels. At the very least, it ought to be interesting to see the two of them fight this out. Though, my fear is that this new group really just promotes more of the same, and doesn't focus on new business model opportunities, but again looks for ways to "protect" rather than to innovate.

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Musicians Whining About Fans With Mobile Phones

from the get-over-it dept

This past Friday night my favorite band was in town, so I went out to see them perform at a club in San Francisco. It was a fun time and they put on a great show (as they usually do) -- and it struck me early on that, even though the club was mobbed, and every once in a while I saw someone pull out a mobile phone to snap a photo or take a video, most people were just dancing and enjoying the show. Apparently, that's not necessarily the case everywhere. PicturePhoning alerts us to an article where a bunch of musicians are whining about fans in the audience with mobile phones. While they do make some interesting points about how fans these days are so focused on documenting their experiences that they might miss the actual experience, the whole "controversy" seems overblown. If the experience is good, the experience is good, and why should the musicians care how the fans experience it? And, as I can tell you from my experience on Friday night, when the experience is top notch, most people don't bother to pull out their mobile phones. So, perhaps rather than worrying about what the fans are doing, musicians should concentrate on putting on a better show.

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Musician Claims He Was Tricked Into Appearing In Anti-Piracy Video

from the duped dept

Australian guitarist Lindsay McDougall was asked to appear in a film that he was told would be about what it was like to try surviving as a musician -- and only later realized that it was actually part of an industry-backed anti-piracy campaign. He's quite upset about it, as he claims he would never take part in an anti-piracy campaign if he'd known that's what it was:

"I have never come out against internet piracy and illegal downloading and I wouldn't do that - I would never put my name to something that is against downloading and is against piracy and stuff, it's something that I believe is a personal thing from artist to artist.... I would never be part of this big record industry funded campaign to crush illegal downloads, I'm not like [Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich. I think it's bullshit, I think it's record companies crying poor and I don't agree with it....I'm from a punk rock band, it's all about getting your music out any way you can - you don't make money from the record, the record companies make the money from the record. If they can't make money these days because they haven't come onside with the way the world is going, it's their own problem."

The folks who put together the movie claim that they were clear upfront about the movie and who was making it. They also say that the movie only has a small segment that's anti-piracy -- but that's not quite accurate. The rest of the movie basically just plays up how tough it is to be a musician on a major label and how difficult it is to make money as a musician. While there are some segments about how useful the internet is, the overriding message is definitely a combination of "think of the poor musician" and "don't file share." It's definitely not a pure anti-piracy film, and it does have some balance -- but it definitely does push the anti-piracy message.

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Musicians Wondering Why They're Not Seeing A Cut Of RIAA Settlements

from the hey,-wait,-isn't-that-our-money? dept

The RIAA and its associated organizations certainly have a rather long history of not sharing the windfall from various lawsuits and settlements with the artists the RIAA likes to claim it represents -- and now those musicians are getting angry. Torrent Freak points us to the news that various managers and lawyers representing some big name musicians are discussing filing a lawsuit against the record labels for keeping all of that money. The record labels claim either that they are distributing some amount (if required to contractually) or that they're still trying to figure out how to "split" the money. Of course, they're also giving the usual story about how "after legal fees" there really isn't that much left to give out. Remember, though, when it comes to talk to the press or politicians, they'll swear up and down that these lawsuits are all for the musicians.

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EU Looks To Extend Copyright And Blank Media Levies

from the welfare-for-musicians dept

Over in Europe, it appears that the European Union's internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy has decided that it's high time Europe turns copyright from an incentive system (as it was designed) into a welfare system for musicians. Despite the fact that the UK wisely rejected copyright extension for performance rights, McCreevy thinks that performance rights EU-wide should be extended from 50 years to 90 years.

It's important to be entirely clear here: this is a total and complete bastardization of copyright law. Copyright law was intended to grant the creator of content a deal: you create new content and we will give you a limited time monopoly on the rights to that content before passing it on to the public domain, from which everyone can benefit. It was designed as an incentive system, providing a gov't backed monopoly in exchange for the creation of content. By creating content and accepting that deal, musicians clearly said that it was a reasonable deal. To later go back and change the terms for content already created and extend copyright makes no sense and is violating the contract made with the public. You can't newly incent someone to create content that they already created 50 years ago. Thus, the only reason to extend copyright is if you believe that it's really a welfare system for musicians. If that's the case, then we should be explicit about it, and present it that way, rather than calling it copyright.

That's not all that McCreevy has up his sleeve either. He's also apparently a huge fan of copyright levies that add taxes to any blank media for the sake of reimbursing musicians just in case you happen to use that blank media to record unauthorized material. It's effectively a you must be a criminal tax. So, basically, McCreevy's plan is to treat all consumers as criminals, forcing them to cough up extra money for musicians, while also setting up a welfare system for musicians hidden in the copyright system. Musicians must love him, but it's a bit ridiculous for him to claim these proposals make sense because "copyright protection for Europe's performers represents a moral right to control the use of their work and earn a living from their performances". Does Mr. McCreevy earn a living from something he did 50 years ago? Does Mr. McCreevy get a cut every time a consumer buys something just in case they commit a crime?

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RIAA Still Pretending It Represents Musicians

from the feed-a-musician,-support-those-who-ditch-the-RIAA dept

The somewhat redundant new copyright lobbying organization, The Copyright Alliance (who still doesn't seem to actually understand copyright) held a little dog and pony show in Washington DC last week. It didn't sound all that well attended from the News.com description, and even copyright's best friend, Rep. Howard Berman skipped the show, despite being a scheduled speaker. Perhaps even Berman has noticed the shifting tide. However, other than a sad display of solidarity, perhaps the most ridiculous statement on the event came from the RIAA, who hung up a t-shirt saying "Feed a musician. Download legally." That suggests that the RIAA still wants people to believe it represents the best interests of musicians. Such a concept becomes more laughable every day, as musicians seem to be shoving each other aside to bail out on the record labels to take their chances making money without them. The RIAA has never represented the interests of musicians, and it's sad that so many politicians act as if it does. The RIAA has always represented the interests of the recording industry -- whose own interests have often involved treating musicians terribly. So if you want to feed a musician, you're better off not paying money to the RIAA -- but figuring out ways to pay for things where the money actually goes back to the musician.

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US Immigration Office Unable To Understand Internet Popularity

from the wait,-so-you-became-popular-where? dept

In the last few years, we've heard numerous stories of musicians rocketing to stardom, thanks to the internet. In fact, some bands really are coming out of nowhere, with tons of internet support worldwide, even if the band has only been together a short while. Apparently, that's a huge problem for foreign bands looking to tour the US, as the type of visa that US immigration grants to touring musicians requires that those musicians can show that they are "internationally recognized" for a "sustained and substantial" period of time. Unfortunately for internet superstar musicians, US immigration doesn't seem to recognize internet popularity as being "internationally recognized" and the quick rise to popularity hurts on the "sustained and substantial" period of time analysis. The folks in immigration respond that they will consider internet popularity, but since they have no idea if the popularity is real or manufactured, the band needs to prove that the sites that talk about the musicians are popular themselves, first. Even if that's the case, it seems that a few well known UK acts are having an awful lot of trouble getting to the US. Perhaps they should simply show the ticket sales from sold out clubs in the US waiting for them (the article notes that clubs have had to cancel sold-out shows after the musicians were unable to make it to the US). Either way, it's yet another example of how the internet is making old processes obsolete.

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Musicians Leveraging Mobile Phones To Communicate With Fans... But Need To Be Careful With Ads

from the communication,-not-advertising dept

The most powerful uses of new technologies are when they allow someone to do something that couldn't have been done before, rather than just doing the same old thing in a different way. That's why it's interesting to see how some musicians are embracing the fact that nearly everyone these days has a mobile phone by offering mobile-based services that increase the value of attending concerts. The article includes examples of a text message to Lollapalooza attendees offering them a chance to enter a guitar-playing contest that gave the winner a new guitar and a chance to play on stage with a band. Some musicians have competitions where they can win better seats via a text message. Prince asked fans leaving a concert to send a text message to his website, where the messages were displayed.

The article then goes on to talk about the marketing potential of all of this -- where these musicians can supposedly now market to these fans, but that's the wrong way to look at it. Fortunately, even those marketers quoted in the article admit that they need to tread carefully when it comes to marketing, admitting that the mobile phone is "sacred." However, the temptation will probably be too strong for some to overcome -- and that's going to be risky. Those who are embracing text messaging with those attending concerts should recognize that text messaging is simply a completely new way to communicate and interact with fans -- rather than just a one-way street to pitch them. The good news is that many of the experiments described recognize exactly that. However, the musicians should realize that this increased communication will pay benefits in a different way -- making more loyal fans, more willing to go to more shows (and potentially even pay more for those shows). Greedily spamming someone's phone with a pitch risks losing all of that benefit, for a very minor short-term return.

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