If File Sharing Is Killing The UK Music Industry... Why Is The UK Music Industry Growing?
from the damn-those-pesky-facts dept
Lily Allen, who last we saw was copying Techdirt to convince the world that copying was bad (it's bad!) and destroying the industry, has been trying to get some other UK musicians to speak up on her behalf as well. Singer James Blunt took the the UK's Times Online to speak out in support of Lily and kicking fans offline. His reasoning is quite puzzling, however:The world over, people are stealing music in its millions in the form of illegal file-sharing. It's easy to do, and has become accepted by many, but people need to know that it is destroying people's livelihoods and suffocating emerging British artists.Now, considering how long file sharing has been popular, you might think we'd be seeing some effect by now, right? Except that the music industry's own economists in the UK recently did a study where they noted that the music industry has been growing. That's because it's easier and cheaper to create, promote and distribute music -- and that's opened up many new avenues for making money. So how is it killing the industry? Only in the minds of a few who don't know the facts.
The music business is made up of thousands of jobbing musicians, producers, mixers and engineers creating and shaping popular music and culture, but illegal file-sharing is cutting off the income from their work. Without the revenue from established artists, record labels cannot fund emerging musicians. They'll just re-master the Beatles albums again, because they can't afford to put an amazing new band into a studio to record something that may surpass Sergeant Pepper.
Blunt goes on to support Peter Mandelson's plan to kick people off the internet for file sharing, without bothering to explain how that's likely to get people to want to keep giving money to musicians.
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Filed Under: file sharing, james blunt, lily allen, music, uk
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Mouthpieces
Grats on being a lemming!
Oh, and before Ms. Allen and Mr. Blunt go full on wiht their "war on fans" they may wish to check and see how well that strategy worked for Mr. Ulrich.
The Race to Obscurity is on!
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Re: Mouthpieces
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Does nobody understand how to live without credit (which is basically what a record label offers) anymore? You earn money and save up for the next piece of equipment or studio time or whatever else. If you aren't making the money by music alone, then you do something else to supplement your income. You build your band like you would any other business.
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Petition Starts Here:
Signed
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I'm not going to just buy a random CD I see in a store. I'll buy at a show, on the recommendation of a friend, or from a group I already like.
You want to know how to get started making money and playing gigs without selling CDs? Why don't you try making a recording on the cheap by asking to play at a local pub with an open mic night. Have a friend in the audience making a recording. give away all that music to as many people as will listen. If you are good you will be able to be invited to a paying gig. If you aren't you go practice or quit. No group is entitled to a career in music, but if you build a fan base you'll be able to make money assuming you have at least half a brain inside your head.
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It was the first time I ever heard Status Quo play live.
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Well (for me at least) a good 3/4 of his stuff resembles a cross between a whiny teenager not getting what he wants, and a cat thats just had his tom-parts (if thats a word) caught on the spike of the neighbours fence!...does this mean my cat (and any nearby angsty teenagers) can sue the pants off him?
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Same old story
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How artists can make music competing with free?
- Use the software that todays is like a studio in a PC and burn your own albums and put it to play everywhere.
- Create fans using services like "sellaband" or "slicethepie" that will find funds for that matter with your fans.
- Sign up with a label, copying on the internet has not diminish the capacity of anyone to sell anything if these is not true the iTunes store should never had happened, spotify should not be there, Hulu, netflix and others should not be able to be in the market but they are.
- Find a second job and make it as a hobby.
The only thing that changed from the radio era is that artists are in panic because the labels mislead them into it. People didn't pay for radio before and artists did well anyways, the same is with the internet people still will go buy stuff.
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Recreational Drugs...
Lily Allen might be an okay artist and the same can be said about Amy Winehouse. Michael Jackson was a Great Artist, yet he went down due to a lot of drug abuse. And I wonder why they're even using that poison.
Now, it could be that these artists choose for this themselves. But it's more likely that people related to those record labels are actually making it easier for these artists to become addicted. Why? Because it's easier to control someone when they are addicted! They're prepared to do anything just to satisfy their own addiction and record labels know this. I'm not going to suggest that record labels are turning artists into addicts on purpose. But I do know that addictions are very good for their business plans.
How does this relate to this story? Well, it's the double morale, of course. Certain artists are addicted to illegal drugs but are very open about this. Other artists are often visible in public, completely drunk or stoned, yet everyone considers them to be the perfect role models for our youth. And while Lily Allen did do something dubious by violating Techdirt's copyright to make her own point in protecting her own copyright, I think it's far worse when she displays herself again in public, drunk and half-naked, being photographed in a transparent dress with no underwear, for example. I have no problems with nudity so if that's what she wants to do, fine. But some people take offense of such behavior, especially in locations where such behavior is inappropriate. If you want to be nude, do like me and go to a nudist resort. If you're going to party, put on some underwear. And when you're protecting copyright, don't ignore someone else's copyrights!
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Internet filesharing is the new radio!
It is not only in the U.K. in the U.S. sales for digital content grew too, what really is declining is CD sales but lets be realists here you don't see anyone carrying a discman around anymore do you?
It will hurt the industry?
Maybe, those who like windows systems will suffer because there is no way to maintain windows and scale profits in a vertical manner, but it will destroy the industry? of course not and maybe the substitute for the windows system is tiered quality delivery systems. Music today is a bait as it was in the radio era performers didn't make any money from it in the U.S. until recently and fans are just fans that will take whatever they can get free or otherwise.
In the new digital age, I'm feeling more and more that a distinction between private behavior and commercial behavior must be done to make things clear. It's absurd to me that the law criminalizes a vast portion of the population and I don't feel the law reflects society in this instance and should be changed to reflect that. Sharing is not a commercial enterprise is what normal people do and are taught from birth to do and even instinctively, people are not after money when they do it, they want easy of use and filesharing was the most practical way to do it, I don't use it anymore and have been years since I last used any P2P system to listen to music in todays world I just go to youtube and search for the songs I would want to hear but recently I'm using Jamendo because it forces the artist to use a liberal license to play the songs there. I changed the way I listen to music because of all of this, today I look for liberal licenses or else I don't even bother to listen anymore.
I'm an annoyed costumer that will not buy anything that comes with ridiculous licenses anymore and feel that the law is not right and should be changed to reflect and say in no uncertain terms that there is a limit to what copyright holders can ask from society. I would like the law to say that private non-commercial actions are not passive to be included in the rights that copyright give to people. This is the public domain being invaded by commercial interests that are encroaching on our rights and should not be tolerated and even if things calm down I still want to see change.
The parallel here is that when the software industry got obnoxious people created a new system and it will happen to music if you start annoying people. They just will ignore those people and find new ways to get what they want and this means hopefully more people will start using services like Jamendo that force artist to use liberal licenses instead of letting them threat everybody.
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Most (would be) professional musicians will struggle regardless of the copyright/piracy/business model regime. The reason is simple. The supply of willing amateurs is effectively infinite so if the economic climate became more favourable to musicians all that would happen is that a few more would enter the profession and the balance would be restored.
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There used to be a time when an artist made art cos they liked doing it, they even suffered for it and barely made a living in most cases.
I wonder how much money this wanker Blunt made and why he thinks it's not enough. Same goes for sport figures and models and actors. They should get paid a modest hourly wage for the actual job they do and that is it, non of this $100 million to star in a movie or sign a music contract. If you think that is somehow unfair, join the unemployment line, your talents are not unique and you will be easily replaced.
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Filesharing
Even so, in any industry, if all non-mainstream avenues are suppressed, the mainstream stagnates. Despite all the nonsense to the contrary, ANY company would rather simply keep producing the same-old, same-old rather than risk something new.
So, without file sharing (or other freedoms the founding fathers attempted to put in the Constitution) we end up with these choices, essentially:
The Beatles, or The Beatles, or The Beatles - nothing else.
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people like free stuff, but people also like to buy. people look at these two aspects as opposing but they are actually very similar and can be applied simotaneously. people will buy things that are free (offer money/value for something of value to them)if what the product is necessary, good, or of high quality. people will also buy things that are scarce which provides a limited value on a product. i think people like to call these freemiums, free preemiums, but i think it's closer to a paypal system or a barter system. these new models/old ideas that have to be revisited are cross combinations that need to be applied to these old dying models from these industries. the days of gouging consumers (even if consumers are also at fault for buying into bs advertising) is almost over. it will reappear in a new format but not right now because there is a wave of change that is against the traditional, or what these artists or industries know and have preached, regurgitated and meomrized as the traditional. things are changing and i for one thing it's about time that people just embrace the differences.
people will buy things from you if you are a new artist if you know what you are doing. you can build a community. you can market yourself. you can depend on friends and family to keep your name in the public. you can make valuable connections to get your name out there. the best way to get people to support you though is to hone whatever craft you have and then make it known that you are here. showcase yourself and your talent. be good. don't be afraid to be bad because time will help with improvement, but you cannot rely on just simple talent alone in these days. you have to play shows. you have to tour. you have to create limited merchandise or products of interest with value for your fans. you have to be approachable and be communicative. you have to be able to provide free products to garner interest and a following and then entice your fans into buying from you because you are worth their money. you don't need to be manipulative the way you go from free to premium and move to freemiums, but you need to make sure that you have a plan of not being free and bootleg forever. you have to be a professional bootleg, meaning you need to be aware that you will have free products in the market but you will also be charging for products. you have to have a plan to be scalable. you have to have a short term, mid term, long term plan (s).
i think that although the challenges are harder if it's just you doing everything for yourself and your brand or business, it's not without failt, but that the way that things are changing is actually in the favour of artists to be even more creative. i think this is an example of the survival of species and darwin's heirarchyy theory. the people with the know how's will survive this before new models are clacified and implemented. i think it's entirely possible to do it the way mike and others have been advising. what's sad is that these industries, paper industry, entertainment industry, seem to like holding on to the old way even though they know and are aware of what is going on around them. people like lily allen would do better if they would think up of interesting ways to engage their fans and provide products of value so that consumers like me will buy. i have always been a thinking consumer and i don't buy on impulse. i don't spend a lot of money but that doesn't mean i don't spend any money. i buy cd's sometimes from band i like and i buy merch from bands i like. i support local artists and i attend local shows. what i don't appreciate is being makreted to like i'm a bot that doesn't know anything and will buy the shit lying on the curbside. i'm sorry that the internet and consumers are cutting so deeply into all these established industries but i always thought a time will come, and i for one as an artist am glad it's here. it's a challegne i welcome gladly. people who cannot adapt should not be in this game of gaming systems and trying to create a profession out of passion. if you don't have passion and vision about your profession then maybe it would be better to be in another industry and not in entertainment or information. if seen musicians who have gone from being local to being national to being worldwide. it didn't take them a blink of the eye. it took lots and lots of hard work for many years to build that fan base. it's not impossible. some of these comments make it seem like the world is ending because of the internet and file sharing. people were sharing and ripping music even before napster, kazaa, limewire and all these other programs. i think it's an excuse really and i hope people just get over that part and maybe look to solutions because laying blame and whining is not cool.
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Filesharing
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