Open Letter about file sharing to some chick at NPR

[Melb_shredder]

Look, you gave a 10% figure (without sourcing!). Someone who's actually signed a few contracts and doesn't just jerk off on internet forums all day long has come in and said that that figure is wildly inaccurate and far lower than anything he's seen. I don't give a shit about your condescending strong statistics lecture, since it doesn't apply to your outlier number.

Ours was 50% cut of the profit. However... After the label accounts their expenses etc. it's still a lot less that in seems. We sold nearly 1000 physically in the time since our album, it has covered 1/2 what we paid for the album to be created...

 

[drew_drummer]

Wait, what?!

Finally, after seeing many centuries of "morality instituted and enforced through fear" growing to become tyrannies and dictatorships that have always ended in bloodshed, mankind (not all of it though) has slowly but progressively started to understand how those systems are bound to collapse simply due to the free spirit of men.

So - it's not whether piracty is a crime or not, it's about how far is the system willing to go to punish something like theft of intangible assets, and how would that system be regarding other problems. It's unnecessary to say that there are much, much more serious issues that require immediate attention in any country, and that deriving funds that could feed the mouths of starving people to "stop piracy" is simply an absurd idea, to say the least.

But that's the tip of the iceberg.

If you can severely punish piracy, you can severely punish using a song in some youtube video (not just lyric videos, but any video containing music) for illegal sharing. If you can inject fear into those that download something off the internet, you can inject fear into those that upload whatever the government thinks is "questionable content". The concept of "questionable content" would slowly start to be manipulated so that detractors of this policies have no say in any public social network, forum, etc (much like in China). I could go on... but you can see were I'm going with this. To quote one of my favourite movies: if you can do one, you can do the other. Because fascism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared to think any different.

May sound exaggerated, but seeing how history has turned out, time and time again, I say be careful with that thought.

+1 basically.

 

[drew_drummer]

Ours was 50% cut of the profit. However... After the label accounts their expenses etc. it's still a lot less that in seems. We sold nearly 1000 physically in the time since our album, it has covered 1/2 what we paid for the album to be created...

For reference, we've had a similar experience, but on a lower level.

We're a DIY band at the moment. Had a label offer on the table, which was a 50/50 split, after the label recouped their costs.

The way we were looking at it was that we'd already incurred high costs purely through the man hours we put into the last album, so we didn't go for it, as it lowered our chance at getting any of our expenses back. We started the album roughly around Jan 2011, and released it Feb 2012. After the songs were wrote (me being a primary songwriter) I tracked all the instruments, edited the small bits that needed editing, mixed the album, commissioned the guy who did the artwork, and got Jarkko to master it (who did a great job!). We had 150 digipak units produced.

All in all cost us £1100 to produce. Everything from renting the warehouse we recorded the drums in, to mastering costs, reproduction costs, artwork design costs, microphone cables when a bunch of them died on us... everything except salaries!!

S we've sold nearly all of those, and a bucket load of downloads also, and have made about £1700 I'd estimate off the back of album sales - so we've covered our expenses, and had a little bit of profit. Side note: It seems most of our fans prefer physical copies, although we gave away free digital copies with the physical copies, so maybe we made it too much of a good deal.

None of this accounts for the time I spent recording and engineering the album. So taking that into account, we couldn't do this for a living.

We've had some real fun, and there are people all over the world that dig us, but I'd say our fanbase is less than 2000. We're doing everything we can, but there is a limit to how much we can achieve on our own. Many other bands are in way worse situations.

The day the album came out, one of the tracks went onto Youtube. It's had 4000 views... unfortunately those 4000 views didn't translate into purchases.

 

[Mutant]

Wait !
I am talking about 10% of the end consumer price (price you would pay for a CD in your local music store) and you are talking about 50/50 profit split.
2 totally different things.

 

[egan.]

My knowledge on the subject is anecdotal and not statistical b/c these are private contracts and thus there are no reliable statistics despite your assertion. But I have plenty of friends at various levels of success in signed bands and everyone who I've discussed it with is getting a 12-50% royalty rates depending on how the deal is structured plus any publishing royalties. The only time I've heard of an actual 10% rate was from some friends on a major who's producer and mixer each took a point on the record rendering their rate functionally 10%. However, that rate is based on 90% of MSRP (not actual POS or wholesale) which was 18.99 at the time so even at that rate they were making $1.70/disc plus another $1 in publishing.

 

[Mutant]

THX for your reply Egan.

 

[smy1]

Sami, you have this down to a science - have you ever considered consulting for other groups, or even going as far as managing?

JeffTD: no, I am staying away from burdening myself with other people. Especially musicians who have large egos (I am one of them)

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

JeffTD: no, I am staying away from burdening myself with other people. Especially musicians who have large egos (I am one of them)

Don't you mean all musicians?

Seriously, I've heard some unnecessarily long solos that are completely out of place in a song. The perpetual need to self-indulge kills soooo many potentially good musicians.

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

Yet bypassing that hierarchy entirely doesn't benefit anyone (even the listener, down in the long term). You've got to accept that the people who work marketing, publishing, royalties etc. all fulfill valid roles in the process, much as the band do. They all deserve to make a living.

Regarding extenuating circumstances, of course the 'rules' change when you consider material which is no longer available through official means. Let's just assume that, for the purpose of this discussion at least, we're referring to artists who have their music readily available both in physical and digital form to the entire world.

I'd be more interested whether Russia and China actually have an equivalent to the word 'ethics' in their national dictionaries at all! I don't think the idea has even been given form over yonder.

They do deserve to make a living, but maybe there is too much of the middleman? Or maybe too much money is being alloted to the very top of the triangle? Personally, I'm all for starting smaller record labels so there's less bull clouding up the flow of cash. I understand how many hands go into making an album, but it isn't always best for the consumer.

Also, to be a bit more of a nit-picker, what about foreign or international artists? Again, the ethnomusicology end, I had a project where I was looking at the origins of the punk scene in China. Because the genre is so limited, I really couldn't get anything at the library or in Chinatown (different class of Chinese people all together.) Buying the CD with shipping would have been $35 and I have a deadline. Torrenting or rapidshit just works for this situation AND in addition, intellectual property laws are totally different in China (hence all the pirating). When you consider the issues of individuals illegally downloading copyrighted material, you have to consider copyright law on a national basis. On top of that, we run into censorship. Australia recently considered a ban on all pornography featuring small boobs and female ejaculation. Be thankful you can still illegally download that if you like little tits and squirting!

http://www.thefrisky.com/2010-01-29/australians-want-to-ban-small-breasted-women-in-porn/

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/socie...ll-boobs-and-bodily-fluids-20100129-n278.html

While I'll admit I'm very guilty of torrenting and illegally downloading, if the album inspires me, I end up picking up the LP. For about 20-30% of my music library, I have records to back it up. Hopefully acquiring some Devin and SYL soon.

 

[egan.]

We can all think of instances where traditional copyright is inappropriate or antiquated but those arguments just disintegrate when something is available for sale, with listenable samples from amazon or itunes faster than you could steal it. And let's be honest. That is the vast vast majority of cases. The average modern anti-piracy advocate is far less worried about out of print and un-released in your region stuff.

 

[Mago]

Here's that interview with Angela Gossow, where she gets stuck into the music biz: http://www.theaureview.com/interviews/the-au-interview-angela-gossow-of-arch-enemy-halmstad-sweden

Pretty interesting to hear it from her perspective.

Her thougts about this sums up everything I think about the topic.

It's pretty nice to be able to spread the word via the internet and all, but at the same time I see a lot of people having 10,000 songs on their iPod in shuffle mode, not listening to "albums" anymore.
I stil do that...whenever I buy a new album it keeps me busy for at least the next few weeks.
I guess that's the reason why people don't really feel bad for stealing music they even like, they don't really value/cherish it as high it used to be.

If someone downloads an album and it drowns in the library then fuck it, would be the same as if he buys the album at the shop and then returns it after a few listens because he doesn't like it.

What I just don't get is that some people don't even feel bad and don't see ANY bad in stealing music.
According to their logic it would be OK for me to take their iPhone, macbook or whatever if I like it.
Because I'm physically able of kicking your ass and I also have 2 arms, so it's my right to pick it up and spit in your face.
And then I'm upset that you're not online anymore posting funny cat pics on facebook.

As far as what can be done about it....dunno.
Personally I wouldn't want to live in a Nazi state controlling every move I make.
I don't believe in everyone having an epiphany about how wrong their doing is at some point, if there was only good in everyone then we wouldn't have a lot of problems in this world.

Maybe at some point it will go like this:
Noone or only a few people can afford to write new music and put it up, so the musical scene will dry out leading to less and less new music available.
Since people are addicted to lot of new music for free on the web it may would lead to some sort of detox, and through pain they learn that they have to pay to sustain their addiction, realizing that they shot themself in the own leg.
Dunno if that is a realistic possibilty

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

We can all think of instances where traditional copyright is inappropriate or antiquated but those arguments just disintegrate when something is available for sale, with listenable samples from amazon or itunes faster than you could steal it. And let's be honest. That is the vast vast majority of cases. The average modern anti-piracy advocate is far less worried about out of print and un-released in your region stuff.

I won't argue that, but it's still something that is going to have to be considered eventually if legislation in the US goes through.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

I don't know how you can make money off 1s and 0s.

I been saying it, and I'll continue to say it: this is a battle the music industry cannot win. In ten years, the money will be in the live shows anyway. It's inevitable.

 

[Mago]

^with higher ticket prices than ever.

 

[drew_drummer]

I don't know how you can make money off 1s and 0s.

I been saying it, and I'll continue to say it: this is a battle the music industry cannot win. In ten years, the money will be in the live shows anyway. It's inevitable.

Nope.

 

[Trevoire520]

I don't know how you can make money off 1s and 0s.

If your on this forum then you're likely creating a product made of 1s and 0s, using tools and software made of 1s and 0s, listening to it on a device that deciphers 1s and 0s. If you think all the industries involved in 1s and 0s are just going to accept that they must do everything for free then you really are insane.

 

[Uros]

hence the nick name

 

[AD Chaos]

There are ways to make information private over the internet (at least to an extent). Yet we broke-ass musicians don't have the global platform, resources, legal muscle and the like that for instance banksters do, to enforce any form of truly judicious regulatory policy. And from the looks of things, that is not an effort to be pursued by larger content developers, either.

In any case, I don't think it would be even legally definable to apply some sort of discerning 'censorship' each particular time a small content creator decides whether a certain piece of information (a video, a wav, an mp3) should or should not be stored permanently into a consumer's computer provided some payment (or lack thereof) or shared in between 'costumers', especially when those contents have to be buffered or allocated -at the very least- into the temporary memory of a browser's folder or the like, for them to be accessible at all, to begin with.

We would not be talking about a private credit card password, but rather pieces of content (art) which, by definition, are meant to be shared or exposed in one way or another, should they be printed in any way for such a purpose.