How Being More Open, Human And Awesome Can Save Anyone Worried About Making Money In Entertainment
from the make-it-happen dept
I've been pretty busy traveling and appearing at various conferences over the last month, including Midem, where I released our latest research report, The Sky is Rising!. I did so with a quick ten-minute presentation about both the state of the industry... as well as the fact that the challenges for anyone in the entertainment industry can be met by being more open, more human and (most of all) more awesome:So it was nice to see so many people at Midem respond positively to my "totally positive" message about where some key opportunities were, by having them focus on how being more awesome to fans and treating them as human really has amazing results.
Separately, while I was at Midem I also did a much more technical "Midem Academy" session that was designed to be a hands-on interactive discussion about specific strategies for alternative business models that don't rely on copyright. That session was 50 minutes long and didn't have the same "entertainment" value, as I was told I had to use their limited Powerpoint format, rather than do my typical style (as seen above). Still, I quite enjoyed that discussion, and ended up spending almost as much time as we spent in the session talking to people and answering questions after the session. For some reason a lot of people were shy to ask questions to the whole group, but wanted to chat afterwards.
Finally, a couple weeks before that, I was in Washington DC for the Congressional Internet Caucus' State of the Net event, where there was a panel discussion/debate over SOPA, which was recently put online as well. That panel has myself and Steve Crocker (head of ICANN) talking about problems with SOPA/PIPA... and the MPAA's Paul Brigner and the US Chamber of Commerce's Steve Tepp defending SOPA. The panel may seem out-of-date, but it actually took place the day before the mass internet blackouts that effectively killed the bills. So, when this discussion happened, the bills (even in reduced form, without DNS issues) were still very much alive. At this point, the debate might be more interesting in a historical context, rather than a present one:
Either way, it was great to meet many Techdirt community members around the globe at these various events as well, and I hope to see more of you at future events.
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Filed Under: awesome, human, louis ck, midem, open, sky is rising, techdirt feature
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That probably won't convince the old guard about stuff, but maybe the next leader will finally understand and change the business model.
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Hello? Yes, hang on.
Hey AC, it's Irony on the phone, they want to speak to you.
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Says it all right there. You spew nothing but crap. Couldn't have said it better myself.
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Wishful thinking like having to sue to get your contractually-obliged royalties?
Wishful thinking like IP having a dual-purpose of protecting the artists and the public?
Supporting illegal activites like drug-dealing, prostitution and assault?
Because the first three have all been reported upon and corroborated, and the last one Hollywood does on a regular basis.
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They signed stupid contracts, blame their lawyers and agents, not the film maker.
"Wishful thinking like having to sue to get your contractually-obliged royalties?"
Ever notice is takes these people years to even wake up and realize they MIGHT have some due? Hmmmm
"Supporting illegal activites like drug-dealing, prostitution and assault?"
Would you like to state specific cases, or are you just slandering the industry as a whole?
None of these of course have anything to do with Mike's propaganda style speech. You know what the rapid fire images are for? They are there to make it so you don't have time to think about the content, because you are too busy try to assimilate things in two streams at the same time. The images actually get in your way of anything beyond superficial understanding, which makes it more likely that you will have a favorable view of the presenter. Basically, your brain stops thinking, and just absorbs.
It's why when, limited to a more normal presentation format, Mike's deal pretty much falls apart. When people actually listen to the words and try to think about the ideas, they realize he is battier than a dark cave.
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As for the rapid fire images argument, it would make sense if you were actually looking at them. His "propaganda" as you put it assumes you're actually viewing the presentation and not listening. Run the video in a different tab and see if there's any difference.
If you still don't understand his argument, chances are you weren't willing to listen or understand the other side to begin with.
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The presentation was given WITH the slides. Later, without the visual tricks (and depending only on a limited powerpoint display) his discussion didn't go over nearly as well.
Basically, when people start concentrating on the idea and not the presentation, the suddenly come up with a whole bunch more reasons NOT to agree.
I have taken the time to understand the other side. It comes down to something sort of like Reagan's Voodoo Economics. A wonderful theory that some support, but which shows little if any practical application. It "works" at various times if you either zoom in on a single item, or stand so far back that you cannot tell what is really causing the good.
It all comes back to "the best business model wins", and that the "new business model" people only have a hope (small one) when the incumbents are hobbled by widespread piracy.
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...which somehow absolves the film 'maker' of any wrongdoing in framing the contracts...
'Ever notice is takes these people years to even wake up and realize they MIGHT have some due? Hmmmm'
'Would you like to state specific cases, or are you just slandering the industry as a whole?'
...or just, like you, keep your head stuck firmly in the sand where you can't read headlines from the last 50 years or so...
'they realize he is battier than a dark cave'
...keep those lights switched off dude, or perhaps just stay in your fifteenth cubicle on the left in the basement at MPAA...
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IDIOT. I don't work for the MPAA (or anyone in the movie or music industry).
That pretty much made the rest of your comments look ignorante.
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You're clearly not against them.
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You know, what is the most impressive is that you truly seem to believe the crap you spew.
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hahahahaha...
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hahahahaha...
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That's even more impressive, because he believes it like it was true. Steve is intentionally convoluting counterfeiting items that affect people's health with copyright infringement, which has ZERO impact on users lives (ie: people who download the material).
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Sheer Awsomeness
Nigel
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Re: Sheer Awsomeness
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Third video
He sums it all up by saying the difference between lying and bullshitting, (and, hence why bullshitting is so much more powerful) is that people who bullshit truly believe to a degree that what they are talking about is true.
You can see that attitude in so many politicians (especialy with all the recent news surrounding SOPA)and even in how some of the people in that third video try to defend SOPA.
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Re: Third video
No explaination of why the general refrain is that Hollywood sucks, or Hollywood has it all wrong, and yet the most pirated, most in demand, most searched for, and more desired movie content is generally from Hollywood.
No explaination of why "more content" in and of itself is a good thing, especially when much of that content appears to be remixes of existing content.
No explaination of why concert ticket price increases seem to be the driving force for higher live revenues, rather than actual tickets sold.
No explanation of why all of the biggest music tours are big name bands, and why none of the "new business model" bands seem to be even making a dent.
Just happy cherry picked factoids, presented in a non-stop barrage that leaves little time for thinking, little time for consideration. There have been a few politicians good at this in the past, the most notable from the middle of Europe around WW2. He had all the facts on his side too, right?
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Please show how those factoids are cherry picked. People already know that you're full of it. Obviously, you haven't read the "Sky is Rising" report, nor any of the other case studies that have been pointed to on this site that actually debunk your shill argument. So by all means... Prove what you think are cherry picked facts.
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Mike claims "more content", but really - is there more content, or just more of the same content repeated over and over? It would be like at the time of the invention of the printing press, saying "we now have many more new books" when in fact what you have is many more copies of the same book. Yes, the accompishment of the printing press is impressive, but don't attribute to it what it does not do.
Mike claims "higher income", but fails to address the issues of significantly higher concert ticket costs, or that more and more of that money in the last decade has been going to a smaller and smaller number of artists on tour.
No explanation of why, with all the "new tools" and "new business models" that people are still knocking themselves out for "Hollywood" entertainment. I don't see a rush on Nina Paley videos, do you?
So... there you go. Start from there.
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Fast forward a decade.
Old media = horse and buggy. Slow, overpriced, can't deliver what their customers want.
New innovators = ? They are still hanging out in their garages making things. But the new markets will be huge!
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Madonna shows... Staples Center in LA:
PREMIER LEVEL SEATING
US $176.25 - US $368.00
LOWER LEVEL LOGE
US $93.25 - US $368.00
FLOOR LEVEL SEATING
US $176.25 - US $368.00
UPPER LEVEL SEATING
US $47.00 - US $176.25
---
For reference, the girlie tour 1993, example:
The three concerts at Madison Square Garden attracted 43,353 concertgoers and grossed US$2,020,000. (average of $46.59 per ticket)
Drowned Tour, 2001:
New York Madison Square Garden 79,401 / 79,401 (100%) $9,297,105[43] (or $117 per ticket - double the price in less than a decade!)
Sticky and Sweet Tour (2008-2009), same venue:
Madison Square Garden New York City 61,586 / 61,586 (100%) $11,527,375 (average of $187.17 per ticket)!
Eek! Almost double again in less than 8 years. The price is more than 4 times higher in 15 years...
Now, can you think of what that would do to the overall sales of "live" music? Dollarwise, things are exploding. Actual "butt in the seats"? Nada.
So I feel there is cherry picking of facts, because what you have appears to be more a concentration of wealth in a small group of performers, and no real change at the bottom end - except now it's harder to sell recorded music, which use to be a source of income.
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1993 43 353 butts in seats
2001 (2 yrs after Napster and 2yrs after price fixing investigation) 79 401 buts in seats
2009 61 586 butts in seats
Considering 2009 and 2001 are both have more butts in seats than 1993 and price was up, so more revenue?
"Nada" ? I think not. You can't even cherry pick your own facts. Madonna's live concerts increased almost double. The 2008/2009 tour drop of 17 500 butts in seats can easily be accounted for the... oh what was it... FINANCIAL COLLAPSE of 2008! Given prices were $187 per ticket, that's impressive she attracted 61 586 fans in NYC to attend her concert.
The people at the bottom have always been suffering, arguable worse because the labels keep their debt ratio higher than the average home owner in Vancouver, BC.
Add to that those at the bottom have less creative control... you quickly see how life has always been shitty for them.
Labels are run by businessmen. They invest and promote what will bring home huge revenues. They don't risk it on the little guys. They don't invest in the little guys either.
According to a reliable source with Universal Music Canada, there's no A&R folks at Universal Canada. There's no investment in their clients (artists). And the reliable source does not even have any promotion by his label. They treat him like a cash cow. So why he signed again with them a few years ago is beyond me.
He has problems seeing past the "destruction" he sees by calling people in his phone book who are all "hurting" because of "piracy." But has not read any studies, but likely has been "informed" by Universal.
Funny thing, he doesn't even know that he was employing Mike's ideas of CwF and RtB and that's what was enabling 3x the ticket sales as the CD sales.
Once he stopped doing that (in the last year or so) he stopped following the ideas of CwF and RtB and wound up with lower ticket sales, lower website visits, and lower music sales.
He has his reasons, which are irrelevant here, but to the point, Mike is NOT cherry picking. You are, and you even proved yourself wrong.
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1993 may have been 3 shows at that venue. 2001 may have been 4 or 5 shows. 2009 may have been 4 shows.
What is key is that on each of these tours, Madonna did about the same number of shows total for the tour (39 in 1993, 47 in 2001... 2008/09 was 85, but it took 14 months to do in 4 legs. The 30 shows in north america is compatible to the 28 shows done there in 2003).
Since she isn't doing more shows in North America, she has on some tours done more in a single venue than others.
As for "financial collapse", let's be clear here. 3 years later, the US isn't in much better shape, and her ticket prices have DOUBLED for that venue. Don't you find that a little weird?
All of your label attacks are nice, but again way off the mark. We are trying to figure out why Mike claims the industry is vibrant, yet it can be shown that the increases in live performance income appear to be concentrated in a very few places, suggesting not vibrancy but rather massive stagnation. The rich get richer.
Why doesn't Mike address the issue?
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Another, for the general price increase, is related to artists (or labels - can't be sure) hire out companies to buy up tickets at normal prices and resell at higher prices. This was in the news a few years back, very sick and greedy!
Mike is not referring to the "industry" he's referring to the entire industry! More Indie groups have had much more success and earnings and chances to be heard than ever before.
The major label industry started consolidating around the same time as the price fixing and Napster. A lot of companies were (and still are) consolidating, which means lay-offs.
Rather than say "it was a combination of things" the "industry" simply blamed Napster and piracy. Rather than expose the demographics of CD purchases (old vs new) they blame piracy. Every time a new medium comes out, people update their collections, which leads to a false-sense of revenue for new artists. It's replacement of worn out records or melted/garbled cassettes.
And all the while new acts, new film makers, new journalists (freelance), new authors, etc... are all enjoying the broken-down restrictions that used to be in place by the gate-keepers of the legacy content industry.
Mike has addressed these points already. If you define the "industry" as the legacy content folks, yes sales are down, jobs are down, but what you fail to account for is the increase from the indies and non-legacy content folks. That's why the numbers show the industry as a whole, not the legacy content industry, is growing.
It's all in the report, have a read, it isn't that long.
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[citation needed].
For all of the arm waving and ranting, I have not seen any grand indication that the indie movement today is seeing any more success than it has in the past.
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Every time an example of independents succeeding due to exposure and "piracy" idiots like you continue to insist no one pirates independent.
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Let us take this apart. First, there are now more performers in the entertainment industry. We have a 43.2% growth rate in indie content from 1998 to 2008. So no, the content is not being repeated. There is new content based on older stuff, I'm sure. Within the statistics are gamers who play old games and post up on Youtube for a living, musicians that are making it work, and indie directors that have no affiliation with the industry. Further, we now have an explosion of writers that are self sustained without the need for book deals. So the argument that we have more repeated content is not adding up to reality.
Mike claims "higher income", but fails to address the issues of significantly higher concert ticket costs, or that more and more of that money in the last decade has been going to a smaller and smaller number of artists on tour.
More indie artists = more artists that take advantage of other methods of payment. You seem focused on the higher ticket costs. This is rather misleading in determining the success of indie artists. For one thing, some artists don't perform onstage. But as I'm showing above, there are now more artists that can make a living without contracts. So there is truth in saying that these artists have higher incomes. They aren't paying exorbitant sums to a record label that doesn't care about them anyway. Most artists aren't actively enslaving themselves for bank loans.
Also, I'm not seeing where a large amount of money is going to smaller numbers of artists on tour. I'm seeing the pie is getting bigger and artists are diversifying.
No explanation of why, with all the "new tools" and "new business models" that people are still knocking themselves out for "Hollywood" entertainment. I don't see a rush on Nina Paley videos, do you?
Nina Paley seems to be doing just fine. So is Jamendo, Dmusic, and all of the artists that haven't become a part of the major record labels.
And seeing as how Kickstarter has funded a number of new business models, it may be time to think outside of just the majors. They're shrinking more and more into irrelevance as the days go by.
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Since it didn't come up in my post. &(^#@
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first lesson: Techdirt is not a quotable source for facts. It's an opinion blog. Either quote the original source, or give up. We are discussing here that Mike is cherry picking facts, so pointing to his cherry picked facts as the truth is just not going to work out for you. Dig deeper, go back and look at his sources, compare, and you will see how the numbers got picked.
" We have a 43.2% growth rate in indie content from 1998 to 2008"
As well we should. The costs to produce content are way down, and many are willing to put all of their spare time in to creating content. Sadly, much of the creativity out there is in the remix area, so it's hard to say how much really new stuff is out there, and how much is a reworking of someone else's work product.
Moreover, the numbers are meaningless if they don't add up to results. Mike was all up and excited a year or so ago when the number of "released" movies doubled. What he didn't want to talk about was that movie sales (dollars) are essentially flat, and ticket sales are dropping rapidly. Only massive increases in ticket prices have allowed the industry to stay at it's current level of income. So for the hundreds of indie films that got a release, they may have seen some income they might not have seen before, but overall, the industry isn't any strong, there isn't any more pie to distribute.
"Also, I'm not seeing where a large amount of money is going to smaller numbers of artists on tour. I'm seeing the pie is getting bigger and artists are diversifying."
Where are you seeing this? I am not seeing it. There seems to be a minor upswing in income on the second level (below the mega acts), but again seems to be more related to increased venue ticket prices, and not in any other way.
I am not seeing anything that suggests indie acts are driving live venue income. It seems to be top down. Do you have anything (aside from links to Techdirt) that supports your claims?
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Sadly, much of the creativity out there is in the remix area, so it's hard to say how much really new stuff is out there, and how much is a reworking of someone else's work product.
No... The increase is in the entertainment industry overall. You're picking out of just the music industry. That makes no sense in the broader view of the entertainment industry.
Mike was all up and excited a year or so ago when the number of "released" movies doubled. What he didn't want to talk about was that movie sales (dollars) are essentially flat, and ticket sales are dropping rapidly. Only massive increases in ticket prices have allowed the industry to stay at it's current level of income.
The number of release movies did double, and I remember even further back that the market increased when the movie theaters stopped having six month release windows. Further, the big net losses were movies that sucked.
In regards to the industry, you might want to explain how that has anything to do with your other ramblings. It's entirely offbase when movies such as Iron Sky or Girl with a Dragon Tattoo have come out in other areas and only come into the US for the Grammys at the end of the year.
Where are you seeing this? I am not seeing it. There seems to be a minor upswing in income on the second level (below the mega acts), but again seems to be more related to increased venue ticket prices, and not in any other way.
You seem overly concerned with concerts, ignoring other venues that artists have as I explained. There are some artists that make a living with just a Youtube presence. Some work for magazines. Others have a livestream audience. The pie and the options have gotten far larger than just concert sales.
I am not seeing anything that suggests indie acts are driving live venue income.
This sentence proves it. You're cherry picking data to make a stronger argument for the business methods of the RIAA. Instead of actually understanding that the choices have gotten more diverse for artists in how they make money, you instead use this time to say the only thing that matters is live venue income. That's not how all artists in the music industry make money. Neither is saying all game makers work for Valve or EA and ignoring the indies that make games on the Xbox or PSN. People can make a living on Spotify, Kickstart their own careers, or find ways for people to pay them through direct donations without ever going to a concert venue. So where is your evidence that the old way of doing things is creating more success for more artists?
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As for money? Do you think artists are owed a living? They aren't, you know. Despite this, many ARE making a living through Spotify, Kickstarter, concerts, etc.
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You are see-though and kinda pathetic.
Offer us real discussion and we build a skyscraper.
Post stupid, arrogant, unsubstantiated, "factoids" (i.e. opinion) and we wallow in more muck.
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Can't get to overseas websites?
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Re: Can't get to overseas websites?
Megaupload's deal took YEARS to bring charges, and will take many more years to sort out. Most piracy is not done on such a grand (or arrogant) scale. The laws are not setup to deal with that sort of thing.
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Who knows the most about the legislation?
I think the most interesting thing is who seemed to know the most about the bill, its contents, evolution, what's covered, what isn't. Steve Tepp, a lawyer representing US business interests was obviously well informed, and certainly had his talking points well rehearsed.
Now maybe he's the only one on the panel that read the bill, but more likely he's he's the only one that actually had a hand in writing the bill, and dealing with the backlash. I've got your "open process" right here, Mr. Tepp.
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Awesome
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Joe Rogan and Louis CK proved there is another way.
It has been 100% successful, to the massive annoyance of the mentally damaged miaa and riaa. Just proves that two guys can have a higher intelligence than two copyright troll organizations and their mentally damaged supporters added together.
Time for the both the miaa and riaa to go away, time for the performers to get the money instead of fat parasites on bloated salaries.
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Emo crap: the protection of copyright law is all people need, not to be "awesome" in the eyes of freeloading thieves.
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