Now here is someone talking a lot of sense

[Symphony]

TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA violinist Anna Phoebe, who recently joined ROXY MUSIC for live shows, has posted her latest weekly blog. An excerpt is available below:

"The music industry has reverted back to the '70s where money has to be made from touring live since everyone expects recorded music to come for free. But this expectation that creative people should produce art simply for the love of it is not a new argument. The phrase ‘Ars Gratia Artis’ comes from the Romans, translating as ‘art is its own reward’. It’s been floating around in various guises ever since as an excuse to exploit creative people, by paying them as little as possible (or nothing) for producing art/literature/music.

Most musicians would agree that you don’t go into the music business because it will make you rich; you play music because it’s the only thing you can ever imagine doing. However, once you’ve accepted this ‘golden ball and chain’ and you find yourself part of the music industry, it is nice to make a bit of cash and earn a respectable living. And if you can combine being a musician with being a sensible business person, good for you! KISS are a band of excellent entrepreneurs. Love or hate them, they know about marketing, about branding and about selling, and are not ashamed to flaunt it to its full potential.

Footballers and the football industry probably make far more money than the music industry here in the UK. Football fans don’t expect to get their entertainment fix for free – they spend hundreds (if not thousands) per year on satellite subscriptions to sport channels, on season tickets to clubs, and on the latest kit. And after 90 minutes on the football pitch, no-one expects the footballers to turn up for a meet and greet. Footballers play football for the love of the game, and yet nobody expects to be entertained by them for free. Why should music fans’ expectations be any different?

Right. Unpaid hours of violin practice beckon."

 

[Andiferum]

All very valid points and a good read. Always interested in industry perspectives, cheers Steve!

 

[MetalCodd]

The comparison between football fans and music fans is not the best one IMO. Illegal streams of football and other sporting events are popular. The only thing stopping some people from watching them IMO is that the connection speeds of either the viewer or the broadcaster aren't always good enough to stream a video live for 90 minutes or thereabouts. Obtaining music illegally from the internet is a lot easier on the old bandwidth. I do believe though that illegal streams will only get more popular as the technology improves. A quick search on Google led me to a short article about myP2P.eu, a website that could become the Pirate Bay of internet TV, though they are one of many websites offering illegal TV streams:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/20/premier-league-fights-web-pirates

As far as I can tell music fans are still buying gig tickets and band-related merchandise, just like football fans are still buying match tickets and club-related merchandise. I tend to think that these will always sell simply because they cannot be downloaded, although whether downloading is effecting CD sales as much as everyone thinks is a contentious issue.

And football fans do expect players to come out and sign autographs after matches. I don't know why Anna Phoebe thinks any differently.

 

[Christabel]

Perhaps the best comparison would be with the book industry. In spite of the fact that you can have access to almost full books at Google books - the titles usually availlabe there are academic and referential material. And Google has reached a new agreement with publishers about that.

What is interesting is that you won't find a novel there that is still under copyright laws. As far as my knowledge of what is illegal around the net goes, if you want to read contemporary fiction, you do have to buy the book.

But I think Anna's main point is still valid, even if her parallel is not the most appropriate - the important thing it to bring up the issue of illegal download and the artists' rights to be paid for the use of their material and their intellectual property.

 

[HyperChris]

And after 90 minutes on the football pitch, no-one expects the footballers to turn up for a meet and greet

Is she implying here that she thinks she's doing everyone a massive favour when she goes out and meets fans? Gimme a break.

Personally I don't care if people steal my band's albums. And that's coming from the guy who writes all the music and would be entitled to all of the royalties. Sure it's nice seeing unexpected cheques in the mail from the PRS, but even if everyone bought albums, it'd still be petty cash.

She does make one valid point though, that you have to be a businessman to survive. Get your record label by the balls, make some killer merch to sell at gigs, and be sensible with what gigs you accept and reject.

 

[RedFox742]

Personally I don't care if people steal my band's albums.

Well, damn, Chris, wish I'd known that before I shelled out for Black Sails.

Here's the weird thing for me about all this downloading controversy... iTunes, a perfectly legal program, lets me burn a CD from music I have in my library. If I give that CD to a friend--even if I've bought the tracks from the iTunes store--he can upload it straight to his library. No downloading involved, just a blank CD. Is there anything illegal about that? I honestly don't know.

In any case, I've gotten a few back-catalogues that way, but I buy new albums. Seems only fair.

 

[MetalCodd]

It mostly depends on where you live, but at least in the UK burning the music to a CD in the first place is illegal, though nobody would prosecute you for it. Giving that copy to a friend would very likely be classed as piracy, kinda how it used to be done before everyone started downloading.

Also, I would recommend you always buy it if you like it, even if it has already sold squillions and you think the artist wouldn't notice one person who decided not to bother. And that includes Alestorm albums (though they haven't sold squillions), whether Chris likes it or not.

 

[1928]

Well, damn, Chris, wish I'd known that before I shelled out for Black Sails.

Here's the weird thing for me about all this downloading controversy... iTunes, a perfectly legal program, lets me burn a CD from music I have in my library. If I give that CD to a friend--even if I've bought the tracks from the iTunes store--he can upload it straight to his library. No downloading involved, just a blank CD. Is there anything illegal about that? I honestly don't know.

In any case, I've gotten a few back-catalogues that way, but I buy new albums. Seems only fair.

Yea, because he didn't buy the album. He's still getting the music for free, just in a different way.

There's a thing on the bottom of the back of Sacred Dawn's rerelease of their debut that I have sitting in front of me (bought it when they opened for Stratovarius, it's pretty much garbage but whatever - Sacred Dawn is a local Chicago metal band, btw). It says, "Please help preserve the metal scene - play it for a friend, but DON'T burn it for them!"

Also, wait a sec, HyperChris = Chris Bowes? Fuck's sake, he walked right in front of me last fall at Heathenfest in Chicago, I was the first one in line and we really quickly looked awkwardly at each other before he walked into the venue.

 

[Symphony]

Personally I do care if people steal my music......it's not like it's written overnight or anything like that! Of course, I do accept that there is pretty much nothing I can do about it either but when you think that these days it's impossible to record an album to the standard I require with the money available to do so......which means I do personally pay for an element of each PQ release to keep the quality of production as high as possible. As a result, it is really stealing out of my own personal pocket unfortunately. There again though we live in a society that increasingly expects something for nothing generally, so we shouldn't really be suprised.

However, after 10 years in this game I am accepting of the fact the the music industry needs to move on and the old ways of buying music are going to be anathema to the younger generations and those to come. Good job I'm not in this for the money.....LOL!

 

[Power_Metal_Dom]

I was aware of this thread and it's provocativeness as a talking-point but resisted getting drawn in to a lofty discussion about morality and rights.

At the end of the day here's my stripped down, bares bones two cents:

People who illegally download music or else acquire the bulk of their music without payment are stealing and they know they are stealing.
The minority will ignorantly attempt to justify it and will fail; the majority will, when pushed, admit there's a combination of laziness and cost effectiveness - clicking a mouse beats reaching for the wallet or getting off your arse to go down the shops every time, plus who wouldn't prefer to get the same thing they want for free rather than pay?

Given that motivation (which I'm not saying is justified) and temptation the individual person won't make a balanced and informed decision about what they owe to toiling artists, though something will twig that they're doing something wrong. You're not going to guilt trip or shock the person into re-evaluating their ethics like the irritating "You wouldn't steal a car/Piracy funds terrorism/Home taping is killing music" bollocks.

Personally, I'm by no means innocent but I think there's a reasonable balance people can keep. Sure download an album, listen to it. Or even listen to it all on YouTube where you don't even need to get your hands dirty but if you like it urge yourself to buy the physical product and try to see the benefits over a crappy quality intangible string of 1s and 0s - better quality, awesome artwork, booklet full of lyrics n stuff, showing your appreciation to the people who make the music you love and at the same time ensure that they're encouraged to continue to do so. In that sense heavy-duty piracy is just shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[Cello]

Completely, 100% agree with Dom's words there.

 

[1928]

100% agreed with Dom as well, he hit the nail on the head.

Someone on my Facebook recently complained about a song being taken down from YouTube because she could no longer listen to it. I tried to explain how copyrighted material and piracy works and it just went right over her head.

Almost everyone I know, save my girlfriend, thinks I'm a fool for actually paying for music. We're the only two people we know who buy CDs, even if they're hard to find. I always hear the excuse that bands make money from touring more than CDs, but what about bands that hardly ever get to tour? And then their response is well maybe they should make better music. The attitude the majority of people seem to have towards music these days absolutely infuriates me.

As a side note, I had a devastating car wreck last fall, and thought I destroyed my Power Quest CDs. Well, the cases were obliterated, but just last night I came across the Magic Never Dies booklet and the MND/Neverworld CDs! Time to see if they play! If they do, those are durable bastards!

 

[Christabel]

Personally, I'm by no means innocent but I think there's a reasonable balance people can keep. Sure download an album, listen to it. Or even listen to it all on YouTube where you don't even need to get your hands dirty but if you like it urge yourself to buy the physical product and try to see the benefits over a crappy quality intangible string of 1s and 0s - better quality, awesome artwork, booklet full of lyrics n stuff, showing your appreciation to the people who make the music you love and at the same time ensure that they're encouraged to continue to do so. In that sense heavy-duty piracy is just shooting yourself in the foot.

Lofty indeed but I think issues like this are serious matters and it's worthy discussing them among us. If we, who are so passionate about music, do not talk about these things, could we really expect this awareness from others?

I agree 100% with Dom too - if you really like the music you listen to, you'd better support people to keep writing it!

 

[Symphony]

It's a good point about touring...because often tour support etc is calculated on sales (as is subsequent album budgets) so if you have 50,000 people listening to your music but only 1/5th of that buying the product, or less, then bands can't get out on tour either.....so it's actually a lose/lose situation for the musicians.

CD's survived the wreck? PQ never dies dude! haha!