Do Fans Own Opeth?

[Windom Pearl]

I haven't been following this forum for years, but at least at 2001-2003 there was a certain profile most opethians fit in. And that was something of an elitist asshole. That Opeth > everything -attitude, which also led to fans being obsessed in a certain, very strong, way. The previous offtopic-forum there was, was also a chapter itself

Anyway, there was - and apparently still is - this strong "Opeth should do this and Opeth should do that"-phenomenon. No wonder it gets to them, hehe.

 

[Ermz]

It's pretty interesting really.

The moment a band sign a regular publishing and/or record deal, they virtually sign away their rights both to their songs and the respective sound recordings. Legally, bands half the time don't own shit. The various agencies that whore their music tend to own more of the rights to the music than the band.

I mean the moment those rights are signed away, the band say 'we want our music to be heard by the public and we want to make money out of it'. The people who determine the success of that artist both in terms of fame and finance are the fans.

It all boils down to those who stream, buy, go to gigs, request airplay etc. A band who's music is out for purchase are serving fans, no matter how much they want to deny it. They would not be a professional entity without the fanbase.

 

[Windom Pearl]

It all boils down to those who stream, buy, go to gigs, request airplay etc. A band who's music is out for purchase are serving fans, no matter how much they want to deny it. They would not be a professional entity without the fanbase.

Yeah but "a fan" is someone who loves their music, not someone who doesn't. By this I mean: A band makes an album and gets fans. Then they make another album and some of the old fans don't like it. This way I think they stop being fans. A band is supposed to serve their fanbase, yes, but they're not supposed to modify their art for some whiny fags.

 

[Ermz]

I'm not saying they have to modify anything. As long as there's a market for their product, they will be successful. Those who enjoy their material at any point in time can be considered 'fans'.

Old fans can be discarded if new ones can be swayed.

 

[Maggai]

Doing exactly what the fans want is selling out. When you do that, you're doing it to please people and sell more records, not because you write stuff yoou like for yourself.

Doin what the band themselves want is good.

Opeth has proved that what they write and like, I like. They can do no wrong imo.

 

[hibernal_dream]

It's pretty interesting really.

The moment a band sign a regular publishing and/or record deal, they virtually sign away their rights both to their songs and the respective sound recordings. Legally, bands half the time don't own shit. The various agencies that whore their music tend to own more of the rights to the music than the band.

I mean the moment those rights are signed away, the band say 'we want our music to be heard by the public and we want to make money out of it'. The people who determine the success of that artist both in terms of fame and finance are the fans.

It all boils down to those who stream, buy, go to gigs, request airplay etc. A band who's music is out for purchase are serving fans, no matter how much they want to deny it. They would not be a professional entity without the fanbase.

Great point. What's more, today if a band wants to make some alterations to their music, rerecordings or remasterings they can't without having those rights reassigned to them, or until they expire. Back when classical composers were around, they were able to make sometimes drastic changes to their symphonies after they were performed and then have them reperformed by completely different performers. In those circumstances you could truly say that the composer owned the music. Not so today.

 

[Ermz]

Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs. Although, at the very least the artist retains the right to give consent when alterations are proposed to their material. They usually do get a clause that gives them the right to deny any changes to the works.

 

[AFairJudgement0]

hmm interesting stuff.. The impression i have got from what mikael says about signing to Roadrunner is that the label doesn't have much say in what is created, but has a lot of restrictions on what is played on certain occasions (ie ghost reveries tour), or what can be filmed for DVD's (nothing before BWP). In this case the label certainly has a lot more subtle restrictions on Opeth than we realize i guess.

I also wanted to mention another thing that Mikael and Peter talked about in the documentary and has been mentioned a few times by people already. Opeth's fan base seems to be a unique culture. Very few fans will enjoy Opeth for a week, or a year and then move on, as they seem to have some sort of way of keeping fans interested (with 8 solid records it kind of makes sense). But I still dont see why Mikael would say state the comment that people think they own Opeth, if anything it seems like the record label is what owns Opeth and the fans are just reacting to all this sudden change to their former "garage band" as some have put.

I think its great that Opeth has got bigger, because in all honesty they really deserve it. How many bands out there are making millions off the shittiest music possible (ie, a lot of popular punk rock, emo stuff is perfect examples of this) and Opeth didn't start to get big until maybe their 4th record.

So although I do agree that some fans are going a little crazy about what they think Opeth should and should not do, I do not believe that we have any say in what Opeth produces, and kind of hope we never do... I like the surprise of seeing where Opeth will go next!