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• Reputation: 14 Q&A: 0 0 0 14 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Expert: 1 topic Music Panel Follow Following 0 Nicolas Heliotis

  2 0 A couple of points in response. "A physical copy of that information is worth about a dime now." To you, perhaps, but a lot of people still buy CDs and you are completely disregarding LPs. A lot of people buy MP3s on iTunes and elsewhere. There is definitely a class of people who WANT to spend money on music (be it CDs, LPs, MP3s, live music, whatever) and smart record labels are trying to connect with those people specifically. I for one probably spend more money on vinyl than food and shelter -- I am the kind of person that record labels should be trying to market to. Record labels have more than "limited legal authority to dictate the circumstances under which that information is copied" -- they have legal authority. Enforcing may be a little trickier but they do own the music, whether you like it or not. "How can we get past the idea that people owe a record company for shoveling bits around" I think this is a pretty facile way of looking at the situation. Record labels do a lot more than this for their bands (please see earlier posts for more of me arguing on behalf of the label). You very almost point out yourself that without the support of labels (or some other system) artists will be operating as "hobbyists" -- this brings up the very legitimate point that (at their best) a record label serves as a support system (largely this support comes as money for studio time, tour support, etc) for artists which allow them to focus full time on their art. Overall, I think that you may be viewing the situation in overly black and white terms. Before advocating for the "demise of these obsolete and hopelessly-clueless middlemen" perhaps a deeper understanding of the system (the positives and negatives) is in order? Nicolas Heliotis answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago | Report 6 comments by Phil M, Nicolas Heliotis, and Phil M… 0 0 I absolutely agree that a vinyl LP still has additional value. There's far more information on it than can be represented on a CD, and most people do not have access to equipment to produce it. I was speaking specifically of digital audio. A blank CDROM or 700MB of hard disk space costs roughly a dime. The cost of transferring information onto the storage medium is negligible. Record companies' and musicians' authority to dictate the circumstances under which information for which they hold copyright is limited. Consider fair use, backup copies, and transfer from one medium to another. Consider any copying in other jurisdictions. I know people who WANT to provide financial support for artists' work. I don't know any who WANT to spend money on audio recordings. I believe that when they do so, it usually happens because they are either unaware of or afraid to participate in alternatives, or because it's presently the best way they know to give some money to the artist in a show of appreciation for the work. I didn't bring up live performances, which are entirely different than audio recordings. It makes sense to pay for a service. It doesn't make sense to pay for information. I went into lots of detail on this in my response to CleverScreenName's answer below. People may owe record companies for things those companies do *other than* shoveling bits around, but the pressing and delivery of a CD simply isn't worth $15 on the free market. I don't know everything that record companies do, but I know they spend lots of money bullying people around in court and advertising the latest boy bands. I don't want to buy into that, and I don't think most people do, either. I did not "almost point out that without the support of labels or some other system, artists will be operating as hobbyists". I wrote that "we can't expect recorded music from anyone but hobbyists if those of us who listen to recorded music don't find some way to chip in on the cost of creating those recordings." I don't know how to clarify that. If people can't support the cost of being professional musicians, we'll be left with music from people who don't make music for a living, but just do so as a hobby. No one speaks in more ridiculously black-and-white terms about the issues surrounding the conveyance of information that is a digital representation of an audio recording of a musical performance than the record companies do. They have worked for years to convince us that copying information without permission is akin to the violent hijacking and robbery of a ship or to taking something away from someone else. Making a copy of some information stored on some computer connected to the Internet is not piracy, or even stealing; it is copying information without the permission of someone who was granted a limited monopoly on such by our government. If my image of record companies is flawed, it is almost certainly so as a result of their PR campaigns, their lawsuits, and their years of producing utter crap while cooperating with commercial television and radio to shove it down people's throats. Like I said, there are surely good ones, but in my eyes and in those of many people, the bad ones have already spoiled the bunch. See also: FRONTLINE: The Way the Music Died http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/ Phil M commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 I think you bring up a lot of good points here (as you did in the original question). Regarding paragraph one - people constantly pay more for things then the cost of the individual elements that make up that thing. That is a big part of capitalism, right? I almost made a Big Mac analogy here but I think you get what I mean. What is important isn't what a thing costs but instead what people are willing to pay for it. Right? Paragraph two -- I totally agree, except I would replace the word "authority" with "ability". Again, I (and other people - including commenters here) choose and do want to spend money on records, cds, mp3s (be it for artwork, convenience, or whatever). Sometimes for me it is as simple as wanting to play a song for someone bad enough to spend $.99 at iTunes. Now, that is certainly lazy consumerism -- but lazy consumerism is a reality that record labels (as well as other companies) can take advantage of. As for $15 CDs -- I agree the age of $15 CDs (as a standard) is pretty much over. We try to hit $10 and $11 dollar price points (often new releases will be on sale for as low as $9) to make it somewhat more reasonable for the consumer. Regarding hobbyists vs professional musicians. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. My point I guess is that the system in place (record label pays for recording - consumers buy recording - record label pays artist) is a system that allows for certain bands / artists to make a living making art. Is it a perfect system? No. Is it a system in danger? Maybe / probably. Are some labels still finding ways to thrive? It seems so. I would argue that for whatever evils record labels have committed / perpetuated one thing they did do is help fund and create a lot of really great art. Right? Getting to the crux of our disagreement -- if each of us had used qualifiers we might not be disagreeing at all? I think you are talking major labels and I am talking indie labels maybe? Nicolas Heliotis commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 In general, yes, I think I'm talking about a different class of record companies than you are. Please forgive me for neglecting to read your Questionland profile earlier, which would have clued me in to this. Paragraph one: You're talking about supply and demand in the free market. With the RIAA out suing people who choose alternatives and their cronies out manipulating our laws -- even participating in closed-door international treaty negotiations, this is hardly a free market. Paragraph two: I wrote: Note that by "steal" I mean to take something away from someone else without permission, leaving the other person without that which he previously had, not to copy information without first getting permission from someone who has limited legal authority to dictate the circumstances under which that information is copied. You responded by disputing that the legal authority is limited: Record labels have more than "limited legal authority to dictate the circumstances under which that information is copied" -- they have legal authority. Enforcing may be a little trickier but they do own the music, whether you like it or not. I responded by citing examples of limitations: Record companies' and musicians' authority to dictate the circumstances under which information for which they hold copyright is limited. Consider fair use, backup copies, and transfer from one medium to another. Consider any copying in other jurisdictions. You responded, confusingly, by agreeing with my dispute of your argument and quibbling over authority vs. ability: Paragraph two -- I totally agree, except I would replace the word "authority" with "ability". I still contend that people don't want to pay money for something when they don't have to do so. CD pricing: $15, $11, $10, or $9, unless I'm interested in a nice printed copy of the liner notes or the warm fuzzy feeling that some of my money will indirectly go toward supporting the artist who created the music you recorded and copied, you're still not offering more than what I can get on my own for about 1/100 of the price you're asking. And on top of that, I'll end up with this disc and box I have to store somewhere, and I'll have to do the digital audio extraction, FLAC encoding, and metadata tagging on my own. What a deal. Alternatively, when I find a copy of some music I like and I want to give some money to the artist as thanks for the gift gave to the world when he recorded the work, what am I supposed to do? Go to the store and buy a damned CD, share my money with some really nasty company like Sony, and throw the piece of plastic in the trash? Something about this system has to change. For $10, I better get a piece of vinyl with the analog audio stamped in it and convenient access to a well-encoded and thoroughly tagged -- both in standard, non-proprietary formats without digital restrictions management -- set of digital audio files. But the asking price for such a package these days is, what, $80? With record companies, it feels as if I'm being coerced into paying them to market stuff to me, to cover whatever relationship they've purchased from Clearchannel, to threaten college kids with lawsuits until their parents settle out of court for thousands of dollars, to install spyware on people's computers, and to corrupt our copyright laws. I don't want any of that, and I certainly don't want to pay for it. If indie labels aren't into all the crap that the big record companies are, they really should get the word out about what they do do, and how it's of value to people like me, not just to musicians. Phil M commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 Indie labels are not run by saints or anything, but they don't do any of the things (as far as I am aware, and my experience is certainly limited here) that you outline in the second to last paragraph here. Regarding the free market stuff...I will concede that it isn't really a free market. People that have power are going to use it to keep the playing field un-level -- but I honestly think that is a reality that is going to exist whatever the system of music distribution is. I mean, right? Digging this conversation by the way! Nicolas Heliotis commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 Yes, this has been an enjoyable discussion all around. I've made many of these arguments numerous times among friends, but never previously with the opportunity to get responses from anyone who's personally involved in the issues at play. I wrote the following two paragraphs in response to someone else's question, but I want to bring them to your attention: "An arrangement whereby information is conveyed in exchange for money with the agreement that the person to whom that information was conveyed will refrain from conveying it to others without permission is bizarre. Even more bizarre is to accuse Bob of anything other than a violation of an agreement he made with Alice when he conveys information to Charlie which was conveyed to him for fee by Alice. Furthermore, when Charlie in turn conveys that information to Doug, any agreement that was made between Alice and Bob seems irrelevant. Corruption of our copyright system, which was intended to spur the development of creative works that would eventually be added to our public commons, has resulted in the ridiculous system we have now, in which Alice can successfully sue both Charlie and Doug for a conveyance of information from Charlie to Doug that did not in any way involve Alice or her belongings. What's wrong with us? "Anyway, I'd like to hear from the panelists how we can get record companies out of the way so we can move on with figuring out how Bob, Charlie, and Doug can support Alice's efforts if they appreciate the fact that she worked to release information into the world that can be used to make sounds to which they enjoy listening." Really: I strongly dislike what's happening with U.S. copyright law now, but not because I want to get something for nothing. The system is being abused, and the primary beneficiaries are neither artists nor the commons. Until we fix it, I've chosen to drop out of it. I suspect that if more people would do so, artists would suffer in the short run, but benefit in the long run. I don't consider myself an artist, but I really like being around artists and their work, so I want us to find a way for them to support themselves by making art. What I have particular difficulty getting across about this whole issue is the idea that the power structure has been turned upside down. In most of our minds, to get an audio recording of some music, we must either steal it (physically, like go take a CD away from someone) or pay the price that the seller is asking. Americans aren't used to negotiating for anything but homes, automobiles, or in conjunction with second-hand sales from individuals, so we expect prices to be firmly set by sellers, and that we can either take it or leave it. The reality now is that the information which is encoded on those compact discs is mostly already floating around on the Internet. As the price of Internet access drops and bandwidth increases, this factor will be even more significant. Basically, once you've released a digital recording into the wild, it will nearly-instantly be replicated nearly-infinitely. This situation is, I think, inevitable. So laws aside (relatively, and increasingly, unenforceable ones), one need only dip his cup into the river of the Internet to retrieve a recording of some music one wishes to hear. Given all that, the decision of how much money will be provided to the producer of a recording now rests mostly with the "buyer" and mostly not with the "seller". We're looking at a few more years of RIAA lawyers chasing people around and shaking them down for their unauthorized copying, but that is rapidly becoming futile, and it's pissing off a whole generation of people to the point where they will avoid doing business with RIAA's constituents on principle. In the long run, the propaganda campaigns can't keep up with exposure to reality. So I honestly think we need to be looking past past that, past the days of paying for copies of information that we can easily make on our own for very little cost, and toward a system that rewards artists for good work. As long as people enjoy live music, musicians will be able to earn earn money by performing. They're just not going to be able to record their work then go out and sell copies of it. We need a cultural shift from the idea that with recorded music we pay because it's the only feasible way to get what we want, to one that has us paying voluntarily because it's the right thing to do. We already do this with waiters and buskers, both of whom would certainly prefer to force us to pay up front via the force of the law or threats of civil lawsuits by some industry association. The unfortunate part about all this is that (some) record labels and the RIAA goons have worked so hard to convince people that they should pay for the privilege of listening to recorded music *because* copying music without permission is, they say, stealing, that once people wake up and realize it's not stealing, they are likely to be left without any feeling of obligation to provide financial support to artists. In essence, people in your business have somewhat successfully convinced the public to do the right thing not because it's the right thing to do, but because the law presently says they should do so. So when the threat of legal repercussion is removed, people will be unlikely to do what we should be convincing them -- right now -- to do regardless of what the law requires. Phil M commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 As a thought experiment -- would you feel the same way about this if we were talking about easily reproduce-able works of physical art? Sculpture made from casts, or prints? Now, if a person had the tools necessary to re-cast a sculptor's work's would you be okay with them doing that? My point here is that when we talk about music / recordings we are not just talking about "information", we are talking about art. I think you are gaining a lot of mileage in your arguments via that terminology and I don't think it is totally accurate. (sorry, I am a bit rushed here but wanted to throw that out there; hopefully it is at least mostly clear) Nicolas Heliotis commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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• Reputation: 3 Q&A: 0 0 0 3 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Ryan Sprute

  2 0 I remember I used to think a lot like this - that artists didn't need labels and they were for the most part greedy and only cared about the bottom line. However, after being in a band that only has a very minor amount of success (Great Waves), it's clear that being in a label would make things a lot easier. Let's paint a picture here, using my band as a case study: The four main members of Great Waves all work full time to do two things: pay rent and pay for recording. We could do the home route or go to a cheap studio, but we want professional sounding recordings, something that is indistinguishable from what you'll hear on the radio. This costs A LOT of money (on our last EP - only 3 songs - we spent somewhere around 8k). The money that we've made is nowhere near the money that we've spent, and we don't have any plans to tour considering that when you're first starting out you almost never make money on tour. As well as rehearsing, playing gigs, and writing, we are also in charge of all our booking and marketing. With this on top of our day jobs we have our hands completely full. It's difficult enough when you're a local band, I can't even imagine the headache that comes with going national. To address the underlying assumption that record labels are greedy - Napster did a really good job of addressing that. After profits from record sales plummeted, there aren't many people who are still in the record business for the money (major labels aside). In my limited experience, labels mostly consist of overworked and underpaid music lovers who truly want to help great music get made. There are some fantastic local labels like Sub Pop, Hardly Art and Barsuk who do this every day, and the Seattle music scene would be way worse off without them. I do think there is a valid debate as to whether a label is necessary if you have a fan base that has proven they will support you financially and the means and drive to do much of the business side yourself or through independent agents/managers/publicists/publishers, and it's clear that new revenue streams need to be explored to compensate for loss recording profits. However, in my opinion the debate of whether or not record labels are necessary/nothing but evil is mostly done by people who don't have the first clue about what it takes to make it in the music business. Ryan Sprute answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago | Report 1 comment by Phil M… 0 0 Admittedly, I have only the first clue about what it takes to make it in the music business: the ability to perform music. From my layman's perspective, it sounds like what you need is a band manager, not a "record company" (where "record company" means a company that produces and sells records/CDs). Paying $1000 or so per hour for a quality recording studio and staff sounds like a lot, but I guess that's part of the startup cost if a quality recording is what you need. The interesting question, I think, is what the return on that investment is likely to be, given that the product of it which is most likely to be shared with others -- digital audio -- is infinitely replicable at a cost of somewhere between zero and ten cents per copy, depending on the medium. I wonder if bands could sell shares in their business instead of copies of performances of their music? People would chip in $10 or so, receive a CD as a token of appreciation (or as a stock certificate), and know that they'd get their money back if the band became profitable. Phil M commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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• Reputation: 4 Q&A: 0 0 0 4 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Emily Pothast

  2 0 Maybe you have good reasons to be jaded about the music industry infrastructure, but I agree with Megan that the status quo is falling apart on its own. Snark aside, I think this is a very good question, since it touches on the paradigm shifts happening simultaneously in a variety of spheres due to the Internet. How do we get people to pay for the news? What about movies and TV shows? Software programs? These things cost money to produce, and giving them away for free just because they can be transmitted in a digital format doesn't answer the question of how we can sustain these industries financially. While no one is buying musical recordings on the scale that they did 10 or 15 years ago, people are still buying, collecting, and enjoying physical albums. I'm a very visual, object-oriented person, so to me, there is an inherent appeal to owning a physical recording if I care about the music at all. If you're a band or label trying to sell recordings, I think there's a fairly simple threefold formula to make them more attractive to me and people like me (beyond having good music on them, of course!) (1) Analog formats. Vinyl LPs and increasingly cassettes offer an altogether different (many would say superior) audio and visual aesthetic from the ubiquitous digital. (2) Packaging and artwork. Even CDs that have handmade packaging elements or dynamic, well-considered artwork can be nice things to have and hold even if we can download the exact same data for free. (3) Scarcity. Limited, small press printings will find their way into caring hands much more readily than their mass produced counterparts. That said, I think some record companies DO deserve to survive, and they're the ones that see the big picture and are making an effort to market their artists' recordings in a way that capitalizes on the physicality of the recorded album as object. Emily Pothast answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago | Report 1 comment by Nicolas Heliotis… 0 0 I really like this answer -- brings up a lot of the points I was trying to get at but much more clearly! Nicolas Heliotis commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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• Reputation: 1166 Q&A: 17 0 21 464 58 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Expert: 3 topics Music Panel Questionland Redesign Baking Week Moderator Megan Seling is a moderator on Questionland Seattle Follow Following 0

  1 0 Well, to answer the question about "how can we speed the demise of these obsolete and hopelessly-clueless middlemen," I think that the trend has already started. More and more bands are using websites like Bandcamp to distribute their music, at least digitally. They can post whole albums, single songs, EPs, whatever--and they can control how much to charge for it (or even post it for free). I like getting music that way--it's instant and cheap (when applicable, I always throw the band a few bucks, at least). And I know the money is going directly to the artists. Megan Seling answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago | Report 2 comments by Phil M and Phil M… 0 0 The trend started when we no longer needed them to produce and transport physical representations of the information that is digitized audio recordings of musical performances. The question is, how can we put the nail in the coffin so we can move on free of their greedy clutches? From my outsider's perspective (I don't write or perform music for a living; I make machines do stuff for people), it seems that the record companies serve little purpose to anyone but their owners nowadays (well, and to plastic "pop star" entertainers, but I think we'd be fine without the next Back Street Britneys). Would anyone still be doing business with them if they hadn't bought off our representatives and had our laws tailored to their antiquated business model? Bandcamp looks interesting. I'll have to dig in later. Phil M commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 oops -- posted comment in the wrong place Phil M commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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• Reputation: 1610 Q&A: 27 0 12 879 49 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 CleverScreenName

  0 0 Heh. Figure this one out, and everyone involved in making easily-duplicated content--music, digital photography, and writing are three that leap to mind--will be beating your door down to get the answer. Everyone wants content, no one wants to pay much (or anything) for it, and the creators don't want to--can't--work for free. The Web allows you to create a global audience and if you're not there no one's heard of you, but if you are there you lose a lot of control over how your stuff is distributed. Same with performing, since people can record your stuff and distribute without even asking. Offhand, the only art form I can think of that doesn't have this problem is stuff like paintings and aculpture, since it's not easily duplicated in its original format. Performance is also good, but for some people can be replaced with recordings. The most sustainable models I've seen so far use corporate sponsorship to pay the content creators. The content remains free to the public but the creators get paid. Since the pool of creators is finite, the best/noisiest artists get the sponsorship. It's very hard to get people to pay for content online since so much is free. We've returned to the patronage system of the Renaissance. CleverScreenName answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago | Report 1 comment by Phil M… 0 0 Extending this discussion that was focused specifically on musicians to the general case, people involved in making easily-duplicated things should recognize that it is difficult to convince someone to pay for the privilege of duplicating the things they make, particularly when that person derives no profit from doing so. A painting and a sculpture are physical objects. Trading such objects -- goods -- for money makes sense. Performance of music is an action; a service. Giving someone money in exchange for performance of a service also makes sense. A series of 0's and 1's that when fed into a machine cause that machine to do something is neither a good nor a service; it is information. A physical representation of that information is a good, and the both the creation of that physical representation and the transportation of it are services. Unlike physical representations of information, information itself cannot be traded, as it is not something that can be transferred from one person's possession to another's. When information is conveyed, the person who "had" it first still has it. So while it makes sense give someone money in exchange for the service of conveyance of information (schools often operate in such a manner), to trade money for information is nonsensical. When we think we're purchasing information, we're really either purchasing a physical representation of that information, or paying for the service of conveyance of the information to us. An arrangement whereby information is conveyed in exchange for money with the agreement that the person to whom that information was conveyed will refrain from conveying it to others without permission is bizarre. Even more bizarre is to accuse Bob of anything other than a violation of an agreement he made with Alice when he conveys information to Charlie which was conveyed to him for fee by Alice. Furthermore, when Charlie in turn conveys that information to Doug, any agreement that was made between Alice and Bob seems irrelevant. Corruption of our copyright system, which was intended to spur the development of creative works that would eventually be added to our public commons, has resulted in the ridiculous system we have now, in which Alice can successfully sue both Charlie and Doug for a conveyance of information from Charlie to Doug that did not in any way involve Alice or her belongings. What's wrong with us? Anyway, I'd like to hear from the panelists how we can get record companies out of the way so we can move on with figuring out how Bob, Charlie, and Doug can support Alice's efforts if they appreciate the fact that she worked to release information into the world that can be used to make sounds to which they enjoy listening. Phil M commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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  0 0 Recorded music never had much value in the marketplace--the money paid by consumers was to pay off the middlemen. Once people didn't have to pay, they decided that "nearly zero" was an appropriate price. Live music at the local level serves as a marketing tool for alcohol/coffee vending sites. tiktok answered in Music Panel over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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