Dear Rock Stars: Please Stop Claiming You're Just Interested In Helping Up-And-Coming Artists
from the you're-not dept
Remember a few months ago when we noted that all the heads of the major Hollywood studios had changed their tune, in the light of reports of yet another record box office year, to start claiming that movie piracy was harming indie movie producers, even as many of them had learned to embrace the internet to do quite well for themselves? It seems the same basic thing has been happening in the music business as well. We've already noted how folks like Bono and Paul McCartney have been heard complaining to the press about how piracy was harming up-and-coming musicians (noting they couldn't really complain given their success).However, Steve Lawson, whose thoughts on the music industry we've discussed in the past, has penned something of an open letter to all these rock stars, noting that the up-and-coming musicians don't need their help:
So, dear Rock Stars -- the problem here is not with the internet. It's not with how it 'hurts' the little people. WE LOVE IT! It's you. You and your expectations of wealth-beyond-measure are screwed. And I don't care.Shane Richmond, who pointed Lawson's post out to me, notes that (of course) some will respond (as they always do, every time we post an example of a success story) that musicians like Lawson are "outliers" and successes on the margin. But, Richmond, notes, the true outliers are the folks like Bono and McCartney:
Here's a headline for you -- in the 3 weeks since I made 'Behind Every Word' available for free download, I've sold more CDs and downloads that in any one month since 6 months after it first came out.
This a four year old album. I've done no gigs in that time, I've taken out no ads, I've not given away a single bit of physical anything that cost me money. I've just talked about it, and invited people to listen to it. And guess what? They listened, and those who really liked it THEN PAID. And they paid more for the 'free' download they they do on iTunes.
I couldn't possibly have done it without 'free music', without the internet, without sharing, without streaming. Nor could I have done it within the insanely restrictive copyright terms of a standard recording contract.
Steve -- and the growing number of artists like him -- will probably be dismissed as outliers taking a path that works for a lucky few but not for everyone. The thing is, that's true of the record industry too. A lucky few artists get rich while the majority are hoping just to break even before they have to give up their dreams and go and get a proper job.Indeed. This is the very point that we've been trying to make so long. So many of the artists that we highlight as success stories would never have been successful at all without the internet and embracing what it allows. Because the old system was entirely about outliers. The traditional recording business was a lottery ticket. A tiny few made it. And everyone else failed. With what technology allows today, plenty of musicians will fail to make a living. It's no guarantee that anyone can be a success. But there are much greater opportunities, and (the best part) musicians have more control and say in how their careers go, giving them a greater chance to actually be successful on their own terms, not the terms of four large (but shrinking) companies, and the very small number of rock stars they helped succeed in the past.
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Filed Under: bono, business models, musicians, rock stars
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Video Embedding ENABLED
Enabling of video embedding and free downloads may be synoymous.
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Best point yet
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This is a hoot! As been said a million times, the biggest obstacle facing any up-and-coming artist is obscurity. The internet helps to solve that problem by allowing bands to have access to the world. (They still have to create music that's worth listening to or no one will bother listening.)
So the copyright industry has argued in the past, "Oh sure, P2P helps up-and-coming artists in helping build fan bases, but it hurts established artists because fans will simply download rather than buy."
Now they're arguing the opposite. That, for some bizarre reason, the internet hurts up-and-coming musicians while leaving successful musicians unharmed.
It's almost as if the copyright industry does not care whether its arguments are valid or accurate. They're just throwing them out regardless of whether they stick.
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You know the music industry is desperate when their shills are using the same arguments as "the pirates." Oh and about lumping "the copyright industry" as one group isn't realistic? Google how "the copyright industry" feels about this, and see how many DIFFERENT sources say the SAME crap (like what Mike has mentioned above), then come back and tell us this is silly.
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You seem to think that arguments can be correct depending on who spoke them. You're wrong. It does not matter who spoke the argument, if the argument fails, it fails regardless. Whether one person made it or a million people made it.
And I never claimed that anyone contradicted themselves. I realize that there is more than one person defending the copyright industry's various government granted monopolies. My point is that the arguments are all over the fricken place. But that's because they're not concerned with being right. They'll simply do or say anything to keep those cash-cow monopolies.
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Actually, Bono goes a step further in his Op-ed. Not only does he fail to explain his motivation but he leaves out any facts to back up his position, apparently they should be clear already.
"A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators"
It's horrible to see people readily agree with a guy who claims his argument is a forgone conclusion while arguing against the actions of millions of people.
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Actually in this case I think we're talking about four companies. Could be millions of statements though, you may be right about that part.
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Welcome to the modern day chicken and egg problem.
As more and more unknown bands put stuff on the internet (videos, music, etc), the more the noise level grows and the less chance anyone has to stand out. It is actually a self defeating concept, similar to having a shopping mall with nothing but coffee shops and spatula stores. While both coffee and spatulas are useful and people want them, nobody has the time or desire to wade through many coffee shops or spatula stores to get the best price or find the best product.
Now they're arguing the opposite. That, for some bizarre reason, the internet hurts up-and-coming musicians while leaving successful musicians unharmed.
it's actually sort of obvious, no? Even as the noise level rises, the existing well known stars still stick up above the crowd. Trent Reznor could release an album of bowel movement noises, and get more downloads than your average garage band can. Trent is above the noise (and making his own) and the garage band is just lost in the noise.
What record labels, radio stations, and the like have done for us in the past is to narrow the field enough that we didn't have to go wading through the noise to find something we like. They dealt with the noise and extracted some interesting stuff for us.
I understand that some people like the noise, and like to go fishing. It's just not something you might do while you are listening to tunes at work, or when you are snowboarding and getting your freestyle freak on.
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Also, radio stations are immoral thieving pirates who are leeching off the artists. Get your arguments straight.
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Stop it, my sides are splitting. I hope you meant to be funny because I was laughing so much at this point I didn't read any further.
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From the beginning of time people have speculated on "information Overload". At any point in history,looking forward always seems like it'll be a mess of too much information and too many things going on to be possibly dealt with.
But this has never happened and never will, nor is it a self defeating concept. With more information comes better filters. From explicit products like Google search or Last.fm that provide helpful suggestions and search tools using a mixture of popularity and relevance, so too do humans themselves change their behaviours, or should I say their own filters, alongside the usual network effects that this entails from people sharing music with close friends (who might generally trust their taste and recommendations more). Any artist who strikes a chord (ba dum chsh) will inevitably be shared out with strong recommendation, who will then gain better footing from search products, from there getting further and further.
Do you realise how much noise there already is?
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If you are an artist, YOU MUST MAKE ART THAT PEOPLE WANT TO BUY.
And, by the way, the noise argument fails because you included one assumption but excluded its corollary--which is as more bands become connected through the internet, more potential fans are too.
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I found the "we tell you what to like" service somewhat useful while growing up in the 70's in the country, in a town with 1 bar and two country cover bands, without Internet.
Today I prefer the choices I get from any of the myriad computerized record company executives available to the masses. Maybe its because I tell the 'bots what I like... not the other way around.
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The "new" music business (you know, the one you can't sell music in) requires that the artists are performing almost constantly, attempting to make a living. One of the requirements of this is to have enough fans in enough places that you can play enough gigs to make that living. That requires a certain amount of critical mass.
Now, if you are fighting with literally hundreds of thousands of other acts who all have access to the same internet distribution, the same home made music videos, the same t-shirt maker, the obligatory mysapce and facebook page, etc, then you end up with too much material and nobody has enough time to filter through it.
So what happens? instead of record labels telling you what is good, you rely on websites, promoters, programming directors on web radio stations, complicated playlist algos, and all sorts of other things. No matter what, since you don't have the time to figure it out yourself, you are still relying on someone else.
In the end, I just think there will be too much noise (too many bands on essentially an equal footing), and no real way for very many of them to differentiate and break out widely.
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The people cannot determine what is good art for themselves.
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You rely on reputation, word of mouth, etc. Many, many bands have built up a massive cult following before ever signing to a major label (everyone from Metallica to Arctic Monkeys).
Here's the real problem: to make it in this new era, you have to be GOOD. Not a model who won a glorified karaoke contest. Not a band who a label signed because they're a bit like current popular band X and they want to cash in. You actually have to have something to offer, and word of mouth should take care of a lot of the work.
Programming directors on radio station? Great if you want mediocre crap, this new system should help the ones with actual talent rise to the top. It's typical of your corporate thinking that you can't see that this is a very good thing.
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Except that if you need a coffee you just go into the nearest one that looks reasonable. That way plenty of coffee shops make a living.
The record labels just used to pick at random anyway and often got it badly wrong:
"We don't like their sound, groups playing guitars are on the way out..."
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Sorry, but you fail, I'm not taking your stinky bait.
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You truly are the voice of reason!
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Go to bed little boy.
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Like my bedtime.
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It's just stink troll bait, and I for one am not biting.
FOAD fool.
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Did you just tell me to fuck off and die?
Stay classy, TAM.
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Personal anecdote: About 12 years ago I discovered a band called Symphony X, thanks to the internet. I also could only buy their cd as an import from Germany (also, thanks to the net). After flipping through the booklet I find they are from NEW JERSEY! Over the years since then I have found so many great bands all over the world who've been utterly ignored by major labels. No, I don't expect the music I like to be popular enough to attract major label attention. But I don't need the major label machine to deliver the music to me either.
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Outliers?
In the past, musicians would give their demo tapes FOR FREE to the record labels to try and get noticed. Now they do the same thing, but they can go to regular people instead of the middle man.
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And that's one reason the labels are terrified. And here's the other one.
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