Why do we pay for music?

[aviat0rn4]

Never really questioned it until now.. Well, I guess singing is a form of entertainment, and the songs can be compared to boxed disc reruns of a particular show we want to watch over and over and over again.

Also, if you don't want to pay for music, then don't pay for music. Just listen to them on youtube or something, but then again you don't probably want to pay for the internet too, now do you?

[Sideways&Smiling]

Originally Posted by aviat0rn4

Never really questioned it until now.. Well, I guess singing is a form of entertainment, and the songs can be compared to boxed disc reruns of a particular show we want to watch over and over and over again.

lol you know there is WAY more to music than just "singing" right? Maybe if you're focusing only on pop music where the artists are marketed pretty faces who sing songs they didn't write... but not in most forms of music.

Composition, songwriting & story-telling skills, poetry, melody, harmony, instrument phrasing, instrument improvisation, unique key changes and chord progressions, speed, technicality, virtuosity in general, tastefulness, emotional connection, production quality, tracking quality (in both playing and gear used), mix quality, mastering quality, instrument tone and sound design aesthetics, overall artistic vision.... All of this goes into music. Music can be extremely detailed and intricate. It does not have to be throw away pop songs over generic dubstep.

[rice_classic]

Wow, 4 pages in one day!

This shouldn't be a thread about paying the artist, or supporting an artist, or the artist's right to make money with music. Not at all. It's about why some thing exists for one person, but doesn't exist for another like why some artists get to benefit from licensing while others don't, why some get to make something once and sit back and get rich from it while others don't. It's also about the industry, an antiquated model steeped in greed and corruption and in the age of the internet should be only a small fraction of its bloviated self.

A lot of people here are artists or musicians and others are appreciators who do like to support their artist but when they're buying music or paying to go to a concert, they're shelling out loads of money that the artist never sees and are forced to also support a "corruption" that they don't agree with. You may say pirating is stealing, others may say it's a form avoiding giving money to a corrupt, antiquated and broken industry. (seriously, who here actually likes ticketmaster?)

My 3 primary points at this point while my opinion is still forming:

-Licensing entertainment in a digital world for personal consumption is a defunct concept. IMHO

-Licensing content for commercial use makes complete sense: music in movies, commercials, TV etc because someone is using the content for profit.

-Artists should still have their content digitally available but the monetary exchange should be voluntary AND 100% of the money should all go to the artist. No different than the guy playing in the street. I can listen for free because he's playing in public but it's voluntary for me to contribute. The internet, to many people, is "in public" just digitally.


How about an example from another world?

"My band wants to make lots of money but we come from a planet of humanoids (like this one) where society feels that to continually make money we have to "continually work". Therefore we make popular music and it's available to everyone to enjoy because it promotes the band and our concerts and tours where we make our money by continually performing. We have 2 guys in the group that are shy, they don't like to perform so they write our songs and design our commercial goods (clothing, logos etc). All the guys share equally in the proceeds from the performances, commercial sales and commercial licensing. But the music for personal entertainment is free. We are rich, but we continually work for our riches. Our society only adopted the licensing model for commercial applications or the commercial use of IP, not for personal entertainment. "

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by Jyn

So when you interviewed for your job, did you tell your boss that you will just do it for free because you love to do it?*

Imagine an a job interview and this conversation takes place:

Job candidate: "Anything I create for the company while employed by the company that is chosen to be used by the company will pay me a 25% royalty of any an all profits measured by it's use on each and every use."

Hiring manager: "Uh, NEXT!"

[Sideways&Smiling]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Wow, 4 pages in one day!

This shouldn't be a thread about paying the artist, or supporting an artist, or the artist's right to make money with music. Not at all. It's about why some thing exists for one person, but doesn't exist for another like why some artists get to benefit from licensing while others don't, why some get to make something once and sit back and get rich from it while others don't. It's also about the industry, an antiquated model steeped in greed and corruption and in the age of the internet should be only a small fraction of its bloviated self.

A lot of people here are artists or musicians and others are appreciators who do like to support their artist but when they're buying music or paying to go to a concert, they're shelling out loads of money that the artist never sees and are forced to also support a "corruption" that they don't agree with. You may say pirating is stealing, others may say it's a form avoiding giving money to a corrupt, antiquated and broken industry. (seriously, who here actually likes ticketmaster?)

My 3 primary points at this point while my opinion is still forming:

-Licensing entertainment in a digital world for personal consumption is a defunct concept. IMHO

-Licensing content for commercial use makes complete sense: music in movies, commercials, TV etc because someone is using the content for profit.

-Artists should still have their content digitally available but the monetary exchange should be voluntary AND 100% of the money should all go to the artist. No different than the guy playing in the street. I can listen for free because he's playing in public but it's voluntary for me to contribute. The internet, to many people, is "in public" just digitally.


How about an example from another world?

"My band wants to make lots of money but we come from a planet of humanoids (like this one) where society feels that to continually make money we have to "continually work". Therefore we make popular music and it's available to everyone to enjoy because it promotes the band and our concerts and tours where we make our money by continually performing. We have 2 guys in the group that are shy, they don't like to perform so they write our songs and design our commercial goods (clothing, logos etc). All the guys share equally in the proceeds from the performances, commercial sales and commercial licensing. But the music for personal entertainment is free. We are rich, but we continually work for our riches. Our society only adopted the licensing model for commercial applications or the commercial use of IP, not for personal entertainment. "

I think you make some fundamental errors here.

1. Although many perceive the "music industry" to be evil, and there definitely are some large corporate record labels that have done some rather evil things, in general, record labels do a lot of positive things for many bands. They give them financial backing to allow them to work with talented producers and mixers, to pay for marketing buzz, to pay for touring. They help them with exposure.

"they're shelling out loads of money that the artist never sees": This is simply false. Depending on the band and what label they're on and how they distribute their music, you may actually be paying them directly in today's world, where more and more artists are going the DIY route as technology marches on and intelligent, creative people are discovering they can do more things on their own... and even for label-backed bands, ticket sales & merch sales are huge profit generators.

Not sure about your comment about Ticketmaster... Ticketmaster has literally nothing to do with paying or not paying artists for their work.

2. I don't really get your idea of "licensing"... you aren't licensing music. You are paying an artist for their creation in exchange for being able to enjoy that creation whenever you want.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Artists should still have their content digitally available but the monetary exchange should be voluntary AND 100% of the money should all go to the artist. No different than the guy playing in the street. I can listen for free because he's playing in public but it's voluntary for me to contribute. The internet, to many people, is "in public" just digitally.

The hole in your argument is you are assuming the person on the street and the recording artist are the same, they are not.

The person on the street is a single person producing a product, paid directly by the consumer.

A recording artist rarely, if ever, stands alone in the production of a song. All elements in the process need to be paid, no different than producing an automobile (which by the way there is plenty of artistic talents involved in, not all "art" is entertainment).

Also, the person playing on the street better be playing their own original music because if not, they are not standing alone and are cheating the original artist out of their due, basically claiming someone else's work as their own.

One other point, personal consumption is the vast majority of the market for entertainment, including music. Very little of it is put to commercial use except for personal consumption. So where do you draw the line, and what about the "starving artists" that don't want to "sell out"? How are they supposed to eat in your scenario?

[Jyn]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Imagine an a job interview and this conversation takes place:

Job candidate: "Anything I create for the company while employed by the company that is chosen to be used by the company will pay me a 25% royalty of any an all profits measured by it's use on each and every use."

Hiring manager: "Uh, NEXT!"

Well, depends on the job for which you're interviewing.

Measure the profits of a PowerPoint presentation. Measure the success of a taco put together. It's difficult, so therefore you are paid for the time you spend at the company.

Conversely, measure the results of a marketing campaign. Measure the success of a salesman. This can be done easily, therefore "royalty" is dispensed accordingly.

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by Sideways&Smiling

"they're shelling out loads of money that the artist never sees": This is simply false.

No it isn't.

Originally Posted by Sideways&Smiling

Not sure about your comment about Ticketmaster... Ticketmaster has literally nothing to do with paying or not paying artists for their work.

But it has a lot to do with how I support the artist, by watching them work (perform). It might cost me $100 to watch them work and TicketMaster saw $27 of that... just ticket master! And artists try to work around Ticketbastard but started getting shut out of venues because monopoly. Sorry but the music industry is often bullshit.

Originally Posted by Sideways&Smiling

2. I don't really get your idea of "licensing"... you aren't licensing music. You are paying an artist for their creation in exchange for being able to enjoy that creation whenever you want.

Yes, you are right, you don't get the idea of licensing.
That's exactly what being granted the permission for IP is called: Licensing. Whether it's for commercial use or personal consumption. Because I'm not a buying an object, what I'm really paying for is a license.

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

The hole in your argument is you are assuming the person on the street and the recording artist are the same, they are not.

The hole in your argument is that you're wrong. I've seen plenty of street musicians pedaling their own tunes. It's not that uncommon for a music career to start there.

Originally Posted by Sideways&Smiling

The person on the street is a single person producing a product, paid directly by the consumer.
A recording artist rarely, if ever, stands alone in the production of a song.

Ok, but still doesn't matter and as a consumer, nor is it the consumer's problem.

Originally Posted by Sideways&Smiling

So where do you draw the line, and what about the "starving artists" that don't want to "sell out"? How are they supposed to eat in your scenario?

-I don't know where I draw the line.. That's the point.
-For those that don't want to "sell out".. I say so what? Where is it stated that anyone who claims themselves as an "artist" has the right to an income?
-Let them starve. The world isn't obligated to feed them. The world owes nothing to anyone.

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by Jyn

Well, depends on the job for which you're interviewing.

Measure the profits of a PowerPoint presentation. Measure the success of a taco put together. It's difficult, so therefore you are paid for the time you spend at the company.

Conversely, measure the results of a marketing campaign. Measure the success of a salesman. This can be done easily, therefore "royalty" is dispensed accordingly.

All this I'm aware of, I was using hyperbole in that example deliberately and I should have anticipated this obvious (and justified) retort.

[Sideways&Smiling]

You misquoted me. Also, your responses are still wrong. :P

[rice_classic]

There should be a much better vehicle to allow artists to connect with people directly who want to use their music for personal projects or any scale of commercial use than as it exists today. There should be a much easier way for artists to "sell out", which IMHO is a positive thing.

A better way for folks like you and I to pay a reasonable amount to use a song(s) in a youtube video we make (just an example). I did a project last year and I found the audio I wanted from a Youtube user and I sent him a message asking for his permission which he granted and the music I used I pulled from an open license website where the usage license was open as long as I credit the artist in the work (which I did).

This is a phenomenon that is growing like wildfire and millions of videos from regular folks are hitting Youtube and Vimeo's servers everyday with songs of the users favorite artists embedded and guess what... The artists and the music companies are asking these video services to stop this, to take down the videos or even suspend accounts. ARE YOU SERIOUS?

What the artists and companies should be doing is sitting back and seeing how MASSIVE an opportunity this is and say.. "OK, how can we profit from this?"

Now if I want to use "Highway to Hell" by ACDC to put to some of my racing footage, I'd be happy to pay for that right to use it in my video, a video that I will make no money on.

BUT!
-There isn't a consumer friendly way to gain permission for this use.
-I'm sure the cost of that permission would be an economic barrier (too much money).

I think if I were to upload a video to Youtube that had 3 popular songs embedded in it, Youtube would ask me:
"You have ACDC, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash in your video you uploaded. If you are not using this video for any financial gain those permissions will cost: $1 per song (making the number up). If for financial gain then please refer to our section for those rights."

Then I spend $3 (1x3 songs) and voila!

Now I would be giving the artist money for exchange of using their IP and this is something that could be happening millions of times a day. Lots of opportunity, lots of money to be made but it isn't.. because the music industry is broken, grasping desperately to a crumbling, antiquated model... Just like the cable companies are doing now. But instead money flowing from my pockets to theirs... I use open-source music for any project I want to remain on the internet without worrying of getting a "take-down" message and my money stays in my pocket.


Internet democratizes commerce, in some cases it makes "middlemen" irrelevant and other cases it changes the role of the middleman entirely and it's reasons why the RIAA and MPAA are massive lobbying arms in congress. Even people can download their tunes for free, there's still massive amounts of $$$ out there but the way things are changing means more of that money would bypass countless and rapidly irrelevant middlemen sucking on the teet.

[Vracer111]

rice_classic....I think I finally get where you are coming from, misunderstood the initial post until now. Basically why AMV's are made, not done for profit but for entertainment value. That entertainment value can can generate hundreds of thousands to millions of views per video though (one the very well done ones) and they often use unique music. With the artist credited and linked to that could be a lot of exposure and potential for the music artist... It basically could be a nice symbiotic relationship, where you have a master level AMV maker using an artist's music with the proper permissions and giving much more exposure than the artist thinks is possible. Quite a few CD purchases for me have resulted from watching some AMV's on Youtube...

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

The hole in your argument is that you're wrong. I've seen plenty of street musicians pedaling their own tunes. It's not that uncommon for a music career to start there.

And you are, whether intentionally or unintentionally, missing my point.

1) I never said artists on the street could not be performing their own songs, only that if they are not, they are most likely not compensating the other artists that helped create the music they are using.

2) The difference between a street musician and a recording or performing artist, is the street musician is a one person/group self contained show, while a recording artist typically is not. A recording pays for everyone that touches it, not just a naked cowboy standing on a street corner with guitar in hand playing to the crowd. They are both legitimate methods of producing a product, and both need to be compensated if you wish to enjoy the fruits of their labor unless they specifically choose to give it to you for free.


Regardless, I've said my piece at this point. Good discussion. I agree with most of you last post above, so we aren't really that far off.

[rice_classic]

Interesting article from the Daily Beast and it looks like at least one artist recognizes "change" in a similar way that I do:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...z-s-tidal.html

Originally Posted by From article

“Smaller bands have a better opportunity in the music industry now than they’ve ever had, because you don’t need to have a record deal to have your music listened to worldwide,” Mumford says. “It’s democratized the music industry. So as much as it sucks, and they need to figure out how to represent people fairly financially, you’ve never been able to get your music listened to more easily.”

"democratized the music industry" I think I used those words exactly in some of my previous posts.

Originally Posted by From article

Adds Mumford, “What I’m not into is the tribalistic aspect of it—people trying to corner bits of the market, and put their face on it. That’s just commercial bullshit. We hire people to do that for us rather than having to do that ourselves. We just want to play music, and I don’t want to align myself with Spotify, Beats, Tidal, or whatever. We want people to listen to our music in their most comfortable way, and if they’re not up for paying for it, I don’t really care.”

My favorite comment was referring the owners of Tidal as "new school plutocrats."





And to @Vracer111 point:
This article was pretty interesting about Napster but the quote below stood out me in reference to this conversation.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/13/83...ears-ago-today


Emphasis mine

But while Napster flamed out in just two short years, the media / internet debate has relentlessly burned on ever since: Sony wanting a cut of Apple's iPod sales in addition to its iTunes revenue. The fight over music DRM, eventually won by Jobs himself, even while video DRM still lives on. Pandora wanting different rates than regular radio stations. YouTube building an empire on pirated video clips, getting sued by Viacom, and then revealing Viacom itself had been uploading many of those clips. The years-long march to Spotify launching in the United States. SOPA. PIPA. Artists turning their backs on Spotify to drop full albums exclusively on rival platforms like iTunes and Tidal. Apple buying Beats and negotiating for music exclusives, just like it did a decade ago. The endless haggling to put real TV service on the internet.

The first bolded part is exactly what I was talking about.. Find a profit-model that has a low enough barrier to entry in terms of cost and ease that it would remove the majority of the copyright concerns in individually created music videos and also legitimize that phenomenon at the same time.

The second bolded part is another example of the internet democratizing an industry. With fast enough internet speeds the cable industry model serves no purpose other than maintaining its empire because with a fast enough internet connection anything that is digitized can be delivered over that medium. The democratization of education isn't happening fast enough IMHO but that could be a whole other topic.