Musician's POV on intellectual "property"

[Jon Miller]

One thing he forgets IMHO (and which definitely also attributes to make life for musicians harder) is the emergence of casting shows.
Every year dozens of new casting stars are creeated in most western countries (with many countries having multiple casting shows competing for the viewer).
While the careers of most of these casting stars are rather short lived, most of them not bringing out more than 1-2 albums, before returning to obscurity, these 1-2 albums still are aggressively promoted by the TV companies who created the "stars" (and therefore generate sales, in which people spend money, which they, probably, would have spend on established musicians instead)

Or, to say it in more general terms ... the new world order of music has a greater number of musicians who compete for the money of the people, while the amount of money available to the people hasn´t grown in the same way, meaning, that there is less money per musician, than there was before (in the 80s/90s)

I would say that there is less money per musician, since disposable income has actually decreased.

JM

[MikeH]

Also the original guy is dismissive of new income streams, and of the possibility of operating truly independently. There are things like this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour

Ok there is an element that you have to be famous to make money that way, but you can become a cult Youtube star, create your own content, get fans to fund it directly and use that capital to release it. At that point you are 100% owner of your work and you are operating with a tiny budget compared to a major label release so you need less income to recoup your costs. The downside is that the risk is yours, not that of a record company. You are actually an entrepreneur.

There is definitely less money going into music industry overall and there is definitely more competition for what money there is. There are ways to make a living as a professional musician, but it's very hard to get rich doing it. And it's going to be incredibly hard work.

[onodera]

This guy's explanation sounds true, but it's useless. What's the point of lamenting the death of the old business model if it's dead? You can't unmince the meat, you can't remove digital music from the internet. What's the point of telling us the new business model sucks if you can't suggest a way out?

[OzzyKP]

I think one of his suggestions is that Apple should just take less of a cut from iTunes sales.

[-Jrabbit]

I don't think Lowery laments the death of the pre-Web music industry. He's really just pointing out that, in most ways, the new digital world is even less musician-friendly than the old.

It's never a good feeling to have your original works aggregated/distributed for the profit of others. Particularly when the profit-makers take no risk. That seems to really vex him.

[Tuberski]

I knew I could count on you to know it.

ACK!

[Guynemer]

Everyone should know it. It's a great ****ing song. It is a shame that it never got major play.

[Tuberski]

In Utah, we had a station that played CVB a lot. Those were the days.



ACK!

[MikeH]

I don't think Lowery laments the death of the pre-Web music industry. He's really just pointing out that, in most ways, the new digital world is even less musician-friendly than the old.

It's never a good feeling to have your original works aggregated/distributed for the profit of others. Particularly when the profit-makers take no risk. That seems to really vex him.

It's disingenuous to suggest that the big web players have taken no risk to get where they are now. Mostly artists are on Spotify or iTunes because their labels have put them there. Those labels have taken a risk funding the artist, and the makers of the likes of Spotify (and the venture capitalists who funded them) have taken risks to fund large new developments. For every Spotify there are a hundred dead internet music startups, just as for every U2 there are hundreds of bands who never sold a single record.

The opportunities are there now for an artist to make a living selling their music internationally, direct to the consumer without the need for a major label. Before, that really wasn't possible.

Recorded music is an incredibly modern development, prior to that you'd make money with commissions or from live performances, and there are lots of musicians who still make money doing that. The cover band/wedding band type performer etc.

Let's not forget, in the pre-internet economy the vast majority of musicians didn't make any money, just the lucky few who got signed by major labels. For those few, things have got worse, for the vast majority the opportunity to make a small amount of money, rather than nothing, is there.

[MikeH]

Here's where I stand:

1. Whether it is right or wrong digital piracy is the reality of the modern world.
2. I have yet to see a 'solution' to digital piracy which really addresses the problem, and which doesn't end up penalising the people who are actually paying for content.
3. Instant access, on demand services is what people want. Listening to something on spotify or firing it up on Netflix is vastly quicker and easier than torrenting something, and a lot of people are prepared for such services.
4. Those that aren't prepared to pay for digital content, won't start paying for it if it is not available for free.
5. The opportunities to connect directly with a global market via the internet is something that we are only just starting to see bands explore.
6. Making money out of being in a band is 10% making good music, 90% traditional business and marketing.
7. It has always been true that the bands that make money are the ones that are prepared to work incredibly hard. This is usually the reason why a "better" band was passed over for a major label deal, because the label knew the band wouldn't work for it.
8. Sadly though, just working hard, doesn't mean you'll be successful. Nor does being really good and working hard.
9. Live performances (in the UK) are attracting record ticket sales, vastly outstripping what the prices were in the good old days.
10. There is a much broader market for licensing work to film, TV and advertising.

[MikeH]

I have a friend, who is in a band which is signed to a major label, he signed himself up for a digital licencing agency and produced bespoke music for film and adverts. He made more money out of that than the band for a while. one time a request came in after a band refused to let their song be used in a film. "we need a song that sounds like this band, this tempo, this long in 24 hours." he produced one, they used it.

My brother's band have been used in various TV shows, movies, film trailers, computer games etc. They even had a song licensed to appear as one of the tracks on a music phone.

Another friend had one of his songs used as the closing credits for The Inbetweeners TV show and made more money from that than all his album sales.

So yeah, people don't buy CDs or MP3s, you have to look to other markets, but there are markets and there are people making a living out of music, or as JM said, doing it part time because they love music anyway so they are just doing it.

None of the people I know who are professional musicians making their own music are making anything like what they could make in a traditional skilled 9-5 job. But they do get to tour the world playing music which is pretty cool.