Speaker: Copyright Must Change
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I agree with your point Russell, it is a good one.
And I'm really pleased to see you back, Mark.
My favorite quote at the moment is from Bryce Edge who manages Radiohead – “If you have 50,000 fans you have a business model”, he is correct in that it is about having a smaller number of people who truly believe in you and then looking after them and keeping them for a long period of time.
And if that became the way things worked, it'd be great -- a situation where both sides of the deal had a degree of commitment to each other.
It's interesting that eMusic very clearly states its target audience is "**music fans**, over 25".
Music discovery, where you might not dig the same thing next year (or even next day) is a bit different. But every time I use Hype Machine, I think that I'd cheerfully kick in a little money every month just for the fun it brings me.
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There was more music released commercially in the US in 2008 than in any other year ever and the UK is currently undergoing a flurry of fresh innovative grassroots bands and acts.
that's half of the picture, now all you need is the other half that shows those projects breaking even, and if they don't break even where the money comes from to cover those short falls.
The short falls I'm seeing are picked up by the artists or person they managed to con into fronting for said projects.I haven't seen many with the skills to navigate a simple route to sustainability yet.
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In NZ the amount of kiwi music actually getting out is growing year on year but it is increasingly difficult for these bands to make a living from what they do-particularly if they are geared to use sales of music as a primary revenue resource. One result is that the level of investment from Labels etc is either falling or else the nature of the deals is changing to include management or live income-aka the 360 model.
The start up capital for a band to get a record out the door still ranges anywhere from 5k to 150k with the true average somewhere around 30-40k. This includes promo/marketing/production etc, its not a small amount and when the original investor (let’s say the Label for arguments sake) is getting income only from only sales this model is ultimately flawed in today’s age. Sadly the knee jerk response from most (but not all) has been to cut artist share on deals downwards and try and grab a bigger piece of a smaller pie.
Its my personal belief that the future has to be about partnership and that these projects will become much more of a joint venture (which is already happening in this country) scenario. This is why what the industry calls ‘3rd party’ income becomes so important, whether it be You Tube or Radio play or C4 play or whatever the case is of someone using music to increase the value of their media tool artists and their partners need to be at the gate getting compensation that is fair for both sides and reflects the value that BOTH sides are receiving-which is of course allot easier said than done
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that's half of the picture, now all you need is the other half that shows those projects breaking even, and if they don't break even where the money comes from to cover those short falls.
So essentially then, nothing has really changed. I think the oft quoted figure in the US was that 1 act in 20 recouped (I know you hate that word Rob but it's a part of the playing field and doesn't go away) and thus made money from master recordings (as compared to publishing and performance which pays from day one). There was a brief moment in the mid to late 1990s when that percentage improved due to the CD boom. The figure was very much worse in NZ because, uhhh, no-one lives there.
As you say, someone has to cover the shortfalls, and in the past it's often been a record label...NZ's majors have been enormously generous over the years mostly because of the passionate qualities of many of their managing directors..one has to wonder how many millions of dollars Adam Holt, Jerry Wise, Tim Murdoch, Chris Caddick and the others have quietly let slip away, often hidden from their corporate masters because they believed they had an obligation to support the largely loss making NZ recording industry. It is a myth to imply that all of a sudden, because of some ogre of file sharing this has changed and an industry has been destroyed (maybe it's me but I'm having trouble actually finding much NZ music on the p2p networks).
It's always been ludicrously hard to make money from records in NZ and it's usually had to subsidized by someone.
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It's always been ludicrously hard to make money from records in NZ and it's usually had to subsidized by someone.
And in writing, theatre, photography, any of the creative arts that can legitimately be considered as a career overseas. And it's simply a function of size, as you say - not enough people live here.
The Internet can be your best friend here, if you use it right by getting up to speed with what's available. But too many people don't understand it and declare it the enemy.
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Don't know how many of those opinions you looked at Mark, but I thought about half sounded (at least mildly) enthusiastic. Though, ahm, wary. Which makes sense to me.
Music is one thing. Film and television are also staring this in the face, and books may well be too.
t's all very well to talk about "new models" but what if it's just too close to impossible to compete with free?
It's gonna change "culture" considerably. Who'll bet on it mostly being good?
Simon, licencing deals are grand, for those who can get them. But at the least, if that's the primary means of recouping, it's going to mean a change in what gets (funded to be) recorded. Might be good, might not. WTR people chosing not to own, but listening on-line: my kids listen to music on youtube. Hardly ever watch the video, just have it playing... Unintended but quite pervasive, I think.
Copyright still "works" *ok* (for the copyright facists who think they can claim *ownership* of their cultural creations;-) when there's an entity big enough to be worthwhile suing. Licencing deals aren't in much danger. Is that where copyright will sit? Free to consumers, but cost to businesses?
And in the meantime, we have who- Simon Power? beavering away to come up with new law. Anyone willing to bet it's something Mark and Don love? All paua too him, but it'll be truely astonishing if he takes copyright in NZ in a bold new direction. I wouldn't put a lot of money on ISPs being completely off the hook. -
The Internet can be your best friend here, if you use it right by getting up to speed with what's available. But too many people don't understand it and declare it the enemy.
And it has the added bonus of actually reducing the significant costs of a recording project when one factors in the huge costs incurred, especialy in bigger territories, in promotion (you mean I don't have to mail out 2000 albums to reviewers and 5,000 to radio stations?), and video costs...I mean, who makes million dollar videos anymore? Very few when YouTube has given the artists a way of getting very low cost videos to a massive audience over over again.
Simon, licencing deals are grand, for those who can get them.
Those are the cream and are not what I'm talking about. The core income stream from non-sales is performance. APRA is doing verywell at the moment in this 'free' environment so clearly someone is paying and paying well, including much of the stuff that's coming off the net.
I think waving the word 'free' around is a bit dishonest. We're not there and unlikely to be there in the near future although the return from physical sales just in pure dollar terms is likely to drop further, but don't forget that sales of units actually rose in 2008, so people are paying for music.
And under most of the plans put forward will, in one way or another continue to.
But at the least, if that's the primary means of recouping, it's going to mean a change in what gets (funded to be) recorded.
No because the money has always been in the publishing and the performance. Even in NZ, I wager Neil Finn and Dave Dobbyn's income from publishing and performance and such vastly outweights their return from record sales. I reckon you could count the number of NZ acts who've actually made any money from sales of their albums on the fingers of two hands. And that's been neither improved nor diminished by the rise of the net.
But the potential return from the performance and publishing since the advent of the internet is much more.
NZ's music has virtually never been funded on whether it will make money because overwhelmingly it won't and that hasn't changed in decades.
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And in the meantime, we have who- Simon Power? beavering away to come up with new law.
I believe Chris Finlayson is leading that charge, though I'm not seeing anything from them at the moment.
Anyone willing to bet it's something Mark and Don love?
Not holding my breath, no ;-) but actually, I'd be happy if it was at least fair to all parties, and doesn't include anything that smacks of guilt on accusation. 92C is still an issue, but that's for another day.
it'll be truely astonishing if he takes copyright in NZ in a bold new direction. I wouldn't put a lot of money on ISPs being completely off the hook.
I'd be stunned if this government did anything truly radical that looked to the future, especially after Finlayson's acquiescence to the reintroduction of 92A, and in the current climate of copyright absolutism around the world.
I think a global review of copyright from the ground up is essential, as the ground has shifted mightily since the Internet came along, and the old models just don't work anymore. I'll be ecstatic if I see it in my lifetime, even. But, as above, I'll just keep breathing normally for the moment. ;-)
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Don't know how many of those opinions you looked at Mark, but I thought about half sounded (at least mildly) enthusiastic. Though, ahm, wary. Which makes sense to me.
All of them, actually. I started to respond here, but decided to turn it into a blogpost instead. And I hadn't read Jeff Price's piece properly. He gets it as well, as does Susan Ferris.
it's all very well to talk about "new models" but what if it's just too close to impossible to compete with free?
That's the point - you don't compete with free; you use free to connect with fans and and then sell them something. As Kelly says:
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied
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Thanks, Mark. That Kevin Kelly piece is brilliant.
Well, what can't be copied?
There are a number of qualities that can't be copied. Consider "trust." Trust cannot be copied. You can't purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you'll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.
...When anyone buys a version of something they could get for free, what are they purchasing?
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Kelly's a lot of things, but he's always worth listening to.
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That's the point - you don't compete with free; you use free to connect with fans and and then sell them something. As Kelly says:
1. Give stuff away.
2. ?????????
3. Profit.It all gets very underpants gnome very quickly; it all gets very Pets.com very quickly. (Which isn't a bad thing strictly, this is after all a bunch of dot coms and tech start ups; non-existent business models are traditional.) But you can see that there's a whole bunch of failure modes that are screamingly scary to a writer or musician, who, let's be blunt, doesn't want to be in the dot-com game?
And sure, fun darwinistic free market crap, but I don't believe that bullshit about miners or steel workers, and I'll extend the same courtesy to musicians. We certainly owe retraining, wouldn't you say?
also that nice mr. mcleod has forever ruined `information wants to be free' for me; i now hear `information wants to be paid'...
(Mr. Harris's post is here by the way, not there.)
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Well, between us there's a functioning link.
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None of the foregoing makes any kind of commercial sense to an already established writer. Which probablly means nothing much to any other artist of any kind- EXCEPT
how do you make sure of your revenue streams?
There's going to be control/lers taking way bigger bites than yer average agent et al-
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how do you make sure of your revenue streams?
Many of these sorts of streams are already monetised and collected in music and have been for some time. There are global agencies in place to collect, administer and distribute the funds from things like streaming, performance and quite a lot of other income generated by the copyrights you find in a recording. They're efficient and charge little for their services.
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Hmm, not sure how that happened, but thanks, Keir.
http://tracs.co.nz/gripping-hand/on-copyright-pt-3/But you can see that there's a whole bunch of failure modes that are screamingly scary to a writer or musician, who, let's be blunt, doesn't want to be in the dot-com game?
And how many bands fail through not being heard? the .com mode you refer to is more about failed business models and over hyped perceptions, because everyone wanted to get rich quick. The positive talk I read from Jeff Price and Suusan Ferris, for example, is about a more sustainable, long-term model. I think there's a difference there, based on the learnings of the past. It's the other ones, who express the doubts but are going ahead with limited change who are more likely to fail, because they don't actually have a model - they're just (reluctantly) following the crowd in the hope that they can make some money.
1. Give stuff away.
2. ?????????
3. Profit.Did you read the links, Keir? That's not what I read at all.
We certainly owe retraining, wouldn't you say?
Owe what to whom? Musicians? Writers? Label managers? Why do "we" owe anything to anyone? The game has changed for everyone and society has to adjust across the board.
This is not about "free music" - this is about a fundamental change in economic paradigm, from a scarcity-based model to an abundance-based one. It has impacts well beyond the struggling artist.
You, and some others, have decided to label me as a "social Darwinist" or "free market advocate", simply for acknowledging the change, and thus dismissing anything I have to say because of that. Well, that's your prerogative, but you haven't come up with an alternate analysis, have you? Something beyond the one-liners, perhaps?
For a lot of people, this is not some academic discussion in the caff between lectures - it's an economic issue they face daily. What's your solution, Keir?
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Those are the cream and are not what I'm talking about. The core income stream from non-sales is performance. APRA is doing verywell at the moment in this 'free' environment so clearly someone is paying and paying well, including much of the stuff that's coming off the net.
You know, I recall talking to Arthur Baysting at the supermarket a while ago and he was enthusing that APRA had just signed off its best year ever, it was tapping into the right revenue streams, and, by contrast, the record companies weren't getting it right.
True story!
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APRA had just signed off its best year ever
As have performing rights bodies around the world, and music publishers are quietly raking it in. Which means the primary form of remuneration for most musicians, aside from live, is healthy.
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Film and television are also staring this in the face, and books may well be too.
And software developers. Don't forget us. Sorry, it's all our fault. If only we hadn't coded up the pesky internet thing.
Some technologists even sound like the RIAA.
But Rob, Keir et al. There is money to be made out of 'Free' if that's what you want to do. It works for some people and not for others. Strangely, life hasn't changed in that respect.
Islander
how do you make sure of your revenue streams?
There's going to be control/lers taking way bigger bites than yer average agent et al
Maybe. But maybe it is also a way of reaching audiences and customers more directly.
Paulo Coelho may not be on your must read list but he has an interesting take on Pirate Bay (Hat tip to someone else) and encouraging the pirating of his own works.
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Hi Mark (Kneebone that is). Some good points there, thanks.
The question to me is how does that value balance against the value of owning a website that you sell advertising on when none of the copyright is yours (and in the vast majority of cases you have no rights to).
I thought that had been resolved. Google is dolling out money now. I expect they always expected to do so.
How *not* to make money is to lobby for intrusive and chilling legislation that turns clients into criminals and that has side effects that go way beyond the gains the recording industry hope to make. Something Copyright holders of many ilk have been doing for far too long.
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So essentially then, nothing has really changed. I think the oft quoted figure in the US was that 1 act in 20 recouped
Actually gradually a lot has changed from the 80's and 90s when you were on the street directly hawking records Simon. And I do make the distinction between hit record commerce and everyday music commerce.
Firstly you have to define recoup.
Is recoup (1) paying everyone for everything toward the project at professional rates, or is it (2) covering the bare minimum financial outlay ie the cold hard cash laid down using favours and mates rates to make a recording and manufacturing it into some kind of end product.In my experience over a 25 year period, up until aprox ten years ago it was indeed possible to recoup cash outlay on a fairly consistent basis, but no one really made any money for their time. That is a sustainable scenario. In the last 15 years we've seen the belt tighten but we've also seen costs of recording and manufacturing come down to meet with the reduced income over time, take up the slack so for a bit, till we hit maybe 8 years ago and it approached the line.
As we hit filesharing peak we've hit a scenario where we're seeing the possibility of close to zero income, which will not cover the base costs of doing it at all, so it completely changes the ball game. Now an artist is faced with the decision, "I want to do my music but it will cost me personally to do so", ie on top of devoting their talent and time for nothing they will now be paying for other people to consume their music be it a partial subsidy or footing the whole bill.
So no, not same as usual. Something has really changed, the tourniquet has tightened to below the crucial point and an artist is faced with a different decision to consider ie "do I really want to do this recording cos it will hurt me in my own pocket". I know it's been a while since you've been out there on the street balancing books doing these things but it's a definite change that I've seen bands have to consider.There are always people who will bite that bitter pill cos they believe in some outside possibility of recoup, or those that are so hopelessly in love with their own music they just go ahead anyway.
As you say, someone has to cover the shortfalls, and in the past it's often been a record label.
that's the main change and I'm guessing why you personally sit on the sidelines. Why would anyone in their right minds put money into a corrupted game that is not supported by the actual enforcement of the laws that protect it. So its up to the artists to take the increased risk. I've seen big indie labels requiring artists to cover the costs of cd production, and most expect the artist to present a finished recording without any financial input from the label.
It is a myth to imply that all of a sudden, because of some ogre of file sharing this has changed and an industry has been destroyed
it might look like a myth from the sundeck of a beach front bali apartment, but it's misleading to package the issue like that. Filesharing is an important portion of the picture, but it is not the whole picture.
Filesharing is responsible for changing people's perception of IP as a commodity that you pay for. In peoples minds it's not hurting anyone if just me does it, it's normal, not crime. So no, not a sudden change but a gradual erosion. As wrong as it is to black and whitely say filesharing is doing it all by itself, it's wrong to say filesharing plays no part,that's the myth part of it.Adam Holt, Jerry Wise, Tim Murdoch, Chris Caddick and the others have quietly let slip away, often hidden from their corporate masters
My heroes of that period aren't the people who misappropriated their employers money but those that fronted their own, indie indie indie. Brian Wafer, Roger Shepherd, that guy at propeller, ripper, John Doe, michael alexander, sausage records, jayrem, and the multitude of people who did it by themselves.
(maybe it's me but I'm having trouble actually finding much NZ music on the p2p networks).
I put links up for a site or 2 that offer full currently available albums of some quite left field stuff, but as I said the filesharing in by itself is not solely responsible. It's the erosion of respect for ip that is facilitated by unaddressed copyright infringement, in my opinion. Not everyone is p2p-ing, but many many are not paying for it in some other way, as a trickle down from mates who do p2p or rip, burn. but its a victimless crime right?
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Actually gradually a lot has changed from the 80's and 90s when you were on the street directly hawking records Simon.
How about in the last 15 minutes when I got off a fairly extensive Skype call talking thru issues and marketing with an act's label and management. Or over the last four years since I released a number one single in NZ. Seriously Rob, don't be so bloody arrogant.
it might look like a myth from the sundeck of a beach front bali apartment, but it's misleading to package the issue like that. Filesharing is an important portion of the picture, but it is not the whole picture.
As above. I would argue that I probably spend more time talking to and have communication with people who are directly involved with the day to day nuts and bolts of the recording industry all over the world now than I have in decades. So please, give me a break. Performance revenues are up, unit sales are up and more records are being made than ever before, all of which say that you can tout impending disaster as much as you like but only for those who refuse to adapt.
My heroes of that period aren't the people who misappropriated their employers money but those that fronted their own, indie indie indie. Brian Wafer, Roger Shepherd, that guy at propeller, ripper, John Doe, michael alexander, sausage records, jayrem, and the multitude of people who did it by themselves.
And yet I can see several names in that list who wouldn't have survived or existed at all if it wasn't for the deep pockets of those you disparage as having "misappropriated their employers money".
In my experience over a 25 year period, up until aprox ten years ago it was indeed possible to recoup cash outlay on a fairly consistent basis, but no one really made any money for their time.
I'm guessing that 90% of the acts who released records in NZ over that period would be keen to know how it was done...you know a $40,000 album (which is very low on the average budget) artwork, promo of $20k, two $10,000 videos (less NZ on Air) , tour support and so on, which would've been a minimum on, say, a Flying Nun release from about 1996. All of which needed to be covered from an album which likely sold around 5-6000 copies (few sold more than that, most sold far less).
The return to the act was about $4 per unit if they're lucky (less deductions), so it would've returned a wacking profit of..well you work it out.
You hoped like hell that Australia or somewhere else offshore would pick it up and offset the shortfall. And more and more they did, but it was still only a few. Or that healthy sync deal.
And before you start throwing figures around, I'm talking about records that people intended to sell to more than a few mates at gigs and in the local indie store.
Why do I do this....................
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Courtesy of the always well informed Nige Horrocks
The central evil in the universe today is people's obsession with the internet. Or at least, I think so.
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The central evil in the universe today is people's obsession with the internet. Or at least, I think so.
Ah, the heady days of 1995! I wonder what Kim would say now?
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Thinking about old stuff, the Grauniad has a rogue's gallery of anti-piracy warnings:
Last week, the British film industry started its latest cinema campaign. But the touchy-feely new ads are in stark contrast to the hectoring, scare tactics of yesteryear. We looked through the archives to give you a video retrospective of 15 years' of anti-piracy campaigns.
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