I highly doubt any of your musician friends sell recorded music directly to fans. They'll be selling copies of it.
You can persist in conflating music=copy, but it will handicap your perception of the critical distinction (as it is evidently doing so).
An author sells their novel to a book publisher. The publisher sells copies of it: books.
An author could sell books (copies of their novel) directly to people who wanted to read it, but they wouldn't be selling their novel, they'd be selling copies.
The author COULD try selling the novel to their fans (and this has been tried in the past - qv Stephen King & The Plant). And then those fans could read the manuscript, make their own PDF copies, or even print their own books (via Lulu say). Those fans could also sell copies too.
However, when an author simply sells PDF copies of their novel online, they aren't selling their novel, they're selling copies of it.
Similarly, when a musician sells CDs or MP3 downloads of their music via their website, they aren't selling their music, they're selling copies of it.
You might think I'm splitting hairs, but you cannot understand the business of selling intellectual work until you recognise the difference between the work and a copy, between something that takes a human considerable time and effort, and something a computer can do in a microsecond.
To sell copies you need a monopoly. There isn't one (any more).
To sell music you don't need a monopoly.
No. Either you're selling music or you're selling copies. Copies are certainly a way of delivering music, but you've got to know whether you're selling the music or the copy.
A musician doesn't spend yonks in a recording studio and sell the recording of their music to a publisher as a digital master on a DVD-ROM for $10 (the cost of the copy). If the musician has any clue they'll add quite a few more zeroes to their price.
So, musicians are quite able to tell the difference between selling music and selling copies. They either sell the music for $10,000 as a session musician, or they make a deal with a label to get a $5,000 advance on a 1% royalty on sale of copies (protected from competition by monopoly), and hope the label can sell a million copies via iTunes for $1.
Alternatively, the musician can do a deal with iTunes themselves and try and sell say 20,000 copies.
They can even try selling CDs at $2 each and hope they sell 20,000.
However, I can count on my fingers the number of musicians who've sold their music to their fans (instead of to a label), e.g. at $10 each to 1,000 fans. Note that although the music may be delivered to those fans via CD or BitTorrent, the fans are buying the music - not copies. Once the music has been purchased, copies can be freely sold or given away.
The problem with selling copies is that anyone can now make them for nothing. Copyright is no longer effective as a monopoly to prevent this. However, if you sell music instead of copies, you don't need a monopoly such as copyright because no-one else can make your music (unless perhaps you produce formulaic musak for elevators).
So, very few musicians are considering the business model of selling their music to their fans. Most think music=copy, and that selling music=selling copies.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hard to find music-related scarcities
Copyright is also a non-issue with fans. They own the copies and music in their collections and freely give it away or sell it as they wish.
So, now that we've agreed copyright is a non-issue to the people that matter (artists, their audience and fans), we can focus on the business between them.
There are two prices. The price a musician is prepared to sell their music for, and the price a fan is prepared to buy it for. If a musician gives away their music then obviously price doesn't come into it. However, that doesn't mean a musician can't sell their music once they've build up a fan base through giving it away.
That you think 'most artists give it away' would only affect the market price of music if music was a homogenous commodity, like elevator musak that hotels might shop around for.
Is that the way you think of music? As pulp/content/musak? If it is then there's not much point in continuing the discussion. You can only conclude as you have done that no-one ever need consider buying musak again because it seems as if there are always people giving it away.
Here's another way you could try to escape that grievous notion of what music is. You could consider that music is advertising on the part of musicians. In other words every mp3 file is an advert for the musician. Because it's an advert, that's why it seems free (indeed is sometimes worth paying a radio to play). However, it isn't free, it's been paid for by those fans who bought it, bought the product they heard the previous adverts advertise.
Every published work of art is an advert to encourage the artist's audience to purchase the next work of art. Being an advert, the artist encourages their fans to share it, copy it, play it, remix it, anything to promote the artist and build up their fan base. They do not prosecute their fans for promoting them, for file-sharing. They invite their fans to patronise them to commission them to produce more great music.
It's a bit of a paradigm shift and red pill/blue pill thing, but it's up to you which to take. If you want to understand the old copyright business model and why such things as DRM, DMCA and ACTA are necessary then you believe in copyright, you believe that copyright is vital and to be protected and respected at all costs. If you want to understand new non-copyright based business models then you must forget about copyright, believe that it doesn't exist.
You can't look on the other side of the paradigm shift with an unshifted mind.
Chuck, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't give away 5 years' work to the public without being assured it would be worth my while.
I may write articles that I publish on my blog without assurance of payment in exchange, but for 5 years' work I'd want some serious spondulicks.
However, I don't believe it is ethical to prosecute people for copying, sharing, text-to-speeching, annotating, or enacting the writing I sell or give to them.
Bear in mind that copyright is not a right to compensation (no such thing), but the stripping from the public of their natural right to copy.
Copyright is a right that was suspended from the public in the 18th century and reserved as a privilege to be exploited by printers. It is pretended that this is in the public's interest, but that's an unsurprising pretext given how lucrative it is to the printers that lobbied for it (and useful to the state interested in a controlled press).
Anyway, I'd readily agree with you that it's highly unethical to strip anyone of their natural rights. Given copyright does this, it's a good reason to abolish it, let alone the fact that it's no longer effective.
So, if we're both agreed that we should be ethical, and not be so silly as to work for 5 years for nothing, then assuming there is a market for our work, we need to find some ethical way of exchanging our work for the money of those in the market for it.
Once we've been paid, once our work is published in exchange, then obviously we'll be delighted the more widely our work is read, shared, used in schools, reprinted, etc.
One musician can only undercut another musician if you consider music as a substitutable commodity.
If one person on a road charged N pennies for sacks of horse manure, and another person gave sacks away for nothing, they would undercut the price of the other.
However, music is not like horse manure - well, not all of it.
I don't think fans 'have gotten used to free' music, but they have got used to free copies (don't forget the radio and home taping). Frankly, musicians should pay people to audition them - never mind free. Even the labels recognised this wrt payola. What people expect is to not have to pay to audition music, but they don't mind paying the going rate for high quality copies, e.g. vinyl/acetate discs. When the copy costs nothing to make, then people expect the going rate to be nothing. NB no-one expects the production of music to be free. And it's only expected to be given away by new/undiscovered artists (for promotional purposes). Just as people might expect new acts to play for free in a pub, they expect artists with large fan bases to have a high ticket price for concerts.
So really, not much has changed except the cost of making copies (and the ability of copyright to prevent people making their own).
Very little has changed concerning the value of music or the cost of making it.
Of course if you equate 'music=copy' then you're going to delude yourself into taking a long walk off a short pier - "can't sell copies=can't sell music".
It sounds like you're adopting the publisher's perspective in treating 'music' as 'content', that it's all pulp and soma, indistinguishable, substitutable, lowest-common-denominator MTV filler.
Try thinking of it this way (pre/post copyright):
All published music has either been paid for or is a promotional 'loss leader'.
All published music belongs to the public, is freely re-distributable, and free to be remixed, incorporated, improved, etc.
The production of music is labour intensive, expensive and highly valued by those who appreciate it.
Those who appreciate a musician's music will pay the musician to produce it.
None of those statements conflicts with any other. However, someone indoctrinated by copyright cannot reconcile them. To them it seems as if all music is free. Moreover, given all music is homogeneous dross, no-one will ever be inclined to pay anyone to produce any more because too many new musicians are churning it out as a promotional loss-leader to build their fan base. They believe the market is irrecoverably saturated and will remain that way.
So clearly, there must be a flaw in such thinking.
The answer is that music is not a mildly variegated pacifier to be packaged and sold for consumption by the masses, but highly eclectic/diverse/heterogeneous and highly valued by respective audiences.
Music is not a commodity except in the eyes of the publishing industry that needs something to fill the boxes it shifts - boxes it has a monopoly over (box=copy).
Music is simply a label. It is a mistake to infer homogeneity from the label, e.g. as in 'water' or 'grass'. You could as well infer that no-one need ever pay for any software ever again because so much 'software' is now given away for free. It's all highly diverse and of interest only to respectively diverse and specialised audiences.
Compare the newspaper industry. Newspaper publishers aren't in the business of producing news, but shifting containers of it (newspapers). It's the journalist who's in the news production business, and they're fine - always a market for news. It's the printers producing copies of it that are going under. That's why they think a paywall is the answer, because it's selling a look-see in the box which is almost as good as selling the box. They can't recognise the fact that the fundamental market is for news, not for boxes of it. People bought the boxes because they wanted what was in them. The news was free in the box, but the boxes cost money. And now the news is freely redistributed and no-one needs any boxes, but people still need the news to be produced. The crazy thing is hardly anyone is trying to sell news production to the people who want it. They're madly focussed on selling boxes or look-sees of 'news as content'.
"So what scenarios am I missing by including all forms of music sales (live, recorded, lessons, session work, private events) in one category?"
Your breakdown of music sales into 'live, recorded, lessons, session work, private events' seems reasonable to me.
My suspicion is that you believe selling recorded music involves selling copies. All the other forms of 'music sales' aren't affected by file-sharing. However, for recorded music the tradition has been for the artist to sell it to a label, and for the label to produce and sell monopoly protected copies. This particular business model (relying as it does on an unnatural 18th century privilege) has finally met its nemesis in the form of the public and its widespread use of digital communications technology.
I don't make my living in music, but I was intending to make a living developing a p2p based massive multiplayer game - file-sharing, but of 3D scenery rather than music. So, I had two problems: a hostile legal environment and a need for a business model that didn't rely upon control over copying. I need a solution as much as any musician or movie maker.
The public is now able to perform every function of the publisher, and without charge - except for one. That missing function is to pay the artist to publish their work so the public can have it, distribute it, consequently promote the artist, and build upon it.
And so I've developed the Contingency Market: an online exchange that enables the members of an artist's audience interested in encouraging their further work to make thousands or millions of micro-contracts. So instead of contracting with a label, the artist contracts with their fans (their true customers). Thus a thousand fans can say "If you record a new single and publish it I will pay you $10". And no, I don't demand a cut of that - I get paid independently, on the same basis: those who want further enhancements of the system micro-contract with me to produce them.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How to put a new spin on what people are already doing
Did the government just steal a trillion dollars from the taxpayer while I wasn't looking?
If audiences will be struggling so will artists. That means artists will be even more keen to get paid rather than give their work away.
Either way, I really don't think disposable income has any bearing on business models. It might have a bearing on charity, but that's not a business model.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How to put a new spin on what people are already doing
Ok, so let's qualify 'shortage of fans' into 'shortage of fans able to pay anything'.
For such a situation you don't need a business model that can withstand file-sharing, you need to give up hope of ever making any money at all.
However, I know there are some who feel a tax is thus the answer, to extract money from those fans through force. As in "If you enjoy our music, you must pay us money".
Forcing money from people is the logical next step for the unscrupulous - once suspending people's liberty has run out of steam.
The question is are you a publisher into extracting money from people via any means, or are you a musician willing to offer your music at whatever price a FREE MARKET will bear?
I bet you'd put 'selling copies - CDs, etc.' under '0 degrees' rather than '1 degree'.
Selling copies is of course 'selling stuff related to your music'.
Similarly the printed score is not the composition, but a copy of it. Mozart would sell a composition for a bag of gold, but a printer would sell a copy of the score for a silver coin.
Don't let the corruption of the language that conflates copy=music corrupt your thinking.
Too many people think 'sell your music'='sell copies'.
That linguistic conflation has been caused by copyright. Deprogram your brain of this insidious bug.
The market for copies has ended. The market for music continues.
Suzanne, you've become blinded by copyright into being unable to recognise the difference between creative work and a copy. A copy is not the work, it's a copy. Copies cost next to nothing in comparison. Intellectual work is LABOUR.
A musician can produce or perform music and give it away - a free concert or promotional sampler perhaps. Alternatively they can sell tickets, and if they sell enough, they can exchange the ticket revenue for a performance of music. However, this is nothing to do with copies. Even though their fans can make copies for nothing, those fans cannot make the musician perform at the concert unless they pay them money.
Similarly, you cannot make a musician record a studio performance for nothing. Once they've sold such a recording to their fans who've paid for it, sure, THEN you can make copies for nothing. You can make copies for nothing because it takes next to zero work and material resources to produce a copy. That's why copies are free. The copy is free - NOT the music.
That's why if musicians focussed on selling the music (what they're good at making) instead of selling copies (what their record label and fans are good at making) then they wouldn't get so upset at the fact that their fans had taken back their liberty to make and share copies.
Hence the business model I evangelise: Money for Art, Liberty for People (MfA+LfP).
It's not charity. It's an exchange: art for money, money for art. It's also ethical as it restores the people's cultural liberty, their natural right to copy (as suspended by Queen Anne in 1710 for the benefit of the press).
If you can get all the music you want without paying anything then that's brilliant. However, if you're anything like me you will come across the odd few artists whose music you like so much, you just can't get enough of it. In such a case you may well join their other fans in persuading them to produce more and sooner rather than later. And I think you'll find money can be more persuasive than begging.
Copyright itself is a sword of Damocles that even artists convince themselves they should covet.
So when I say "Why do you want the power to sue your fans for promoting you or singing your songs?"
They always deny wanting to sue their fans. They just want the power to.
So, similarly, all publishers want the power to sue people who quote them without permission.
But they will deny wanting to sue bloggers.
It's like people who want a gun to shoot burglars.
They will deny wanting to shoot the neighbour's kids.
Weapons are seductive.
Copyright is an unnatural weapon created in the 18th century when such unethical devices weren't so repugnant. No-one needs it. We'd all be far better off without it.
Trademark is about authorship (identity of manufacturer), and authorship constitutes a natural monopoly.
If Fred makes a vase then only Fred can truthfully claim that he made the vase. The government doesn't grant him this monopoly. Nature imbues him with it. The government is supposed to protect Fred's natural (aka moral) right to identify himself as the maker of the vase, and thus to deny anyone else from making false claims (identifying someone else as maker of Fred's vases, or identifying Fred as the maker of vases he didn't make).
Fred can mark his vases with a unique symbol or name to indicate his authorship, to identify himself as the manufacturer.
Trademark law is about a government regulated registry of such marks to avoid the same symbol being used in the same trading context (by different manufacturers) such that authorship risks becoming confused (in the marketplace). So, there is a small element of government granted monopoly in that the manufacturer who first registers a particular mark for a particular product in a particular context is able to prevent others using that mark where that risks confusing the identity of the product's manufacturer.
The problem with trademark is that holders overreach its purpose to prevent confusion and deceit, and attempt to claim exclusive use of their mark in all contexts. For that reason trademark law needs reforming, possibly even abolition.
Even so, even without the trademark registry, it should still be prohibited to deceive people (intentionally or through negligence) as to the identity of a product's manufacturer.
Branding of cattle with unique symbols is similar, though concerns the identity of the breeder or owner rather than the manufacturer.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A gap between creation and proliferation
Absolutely Mike, and this has been true since time immemorial.
You do not buy a basket from a basket seller because you recognise they need financial support. You buy a basket because you want a fricking basket, and you and the seller agree as to what it's worth exchanging your good money for.
To buy something or simply a warm feeling, because you want to financially support someone is known as charity. Despite the conclusions of many despairing artists, charity is not a business model.
If someone doesn't think your music is worth any significant amount of their money in exchange, then they are not a customer. If you're lucky, it's someone who's willing to spend 3 minutes of their precious time auditioning you on the off-chance that they might like your music.
NB I still don't think Suzanne's twigged the difference between buying music and buying CDs (copies of music). Copies are a convenience and worth pennies. Frankly, in addition to selling CDs in posh cases (even for a few bucks), I'd provide a wifi access point and details of how people can download MP3 files or the CD ISO from the local fileserver - for free. Might as well also provide USB sockets for people to obtain just the MP3 files (selling memory sticks if folk don't have 'em). This is an easy thing to do and saves people the hassle of firing up their file-sharing software when they get home and waiting half an hour. Far better to help people not yet your customers to further audition your music and share it with their friends (or strangers), and then create far better goodwill to win future customers (who want to buy your music - not copies).
Re: Re: Re: Re: A gap between creation and proliferation
Let us assume you do have one or more favourite artists. Let us assume you might have the inclination to persuade them to produce more music. However, let's assume that you've long since lost any urge to persuade record labels to produce copies given you can now make all your own copies for nothing.
Of course, you can't make the music of your favourite artists yourself (only they can), so you still have to persuade them to make it for you - and they want paying.
Doesn't that sound like the idea opportunity for an artist to make a deal with you and every other one of their fans?
The artist can offer to write a new song, or record another cover, in exchange for $10,000 from their 1,000 true fans such as yourself. You all just stump up $10 each, and then when the artist delivers their end of the bargain you do the exchange.
Everyone's happy. Art for money, money for art.
And then the artist is heavily, virally promoted when that recording they just sold to their fans for ten grand is freely and LEGALLY shared on umpteen file-sharing networks.
The next time they try this they have 10x as many true fans.
A more direct mechanism for artists and the public to exchange the publication of art for money is precisely what I'm working on (contingencymarket). Unfortunately, very few believe it's either possible or needed, so there's little funding on the horizon.
Mike, illegitimi non carborundum as they say. When the incumbent dinosaurs are criticising the mammals' small and fragile bodies, they're unconsciously signalling alarm at their agility and warm blooded fecundity.
Nothing loses the old school more sleep than the nightmare of disintermediation.
I have similar troubles persuading people of the validity of 'my' business model: "money for art, liberty for people", or MfA+LfP in your shorthand. It's a tad further away from adoption than yours - but compatible nevertheless.
May there be ever more criticism at how preposterous and unbusinesslike it is for artists to connect with fans directly, ignoring their privileges of copyright and the vast exploitation and licensing revenues that labels and societies could collect for them.
Suzanne, do you not have any favourite artists? Could you see yourself have even the slightest inclination to persuade them to produce some more music?
Remember, copies are free. It's the music that takes work, and needs paying for.
Why, only just the other day in response to a suggestion that copyright should only apply to commercial use (whatever that is), I suggested that a better, ethical distinction is not commercial/non-commercial, but corporation/individual.
It's not unethical to subject corporations to copyright, but it is unethical to subject individuals to it. This is because corporations, being artificial entities, don't have such a thing as a natural right to liberty.
Here are examples of how things would work in each case:
Commercial/non-commercial
Individuals and corporations can file-share or stream music with impunity as long as no money changes hands.
Individuals are sued when they sell their MP3 player without having first deleted its contents.
Corporate/Individual
Copyright applies to corporations as usual, in all cases, whether commercial or non-commercial.
Individuals are never sued for copyright infringement, even if money changes hands, e.g. when selling full MP3 players, or as indie artists singing covers at a concert in exchange for a share of ticket sales. The labels of signed artists would have to pay a license fee, etc.
Ultimately, even if copyright applied only to corporations it would still be culturally detrimental.
However, for an interim compromise, a corporate/individual demarcation would be far better than a commercial/non-commercial one.
It would be an even better distinction for Creative Commons to adopt than NC, given most CC users seem to think NC means 'big nasty publishing corporations' can't exploit their work, but nice, little guys can (if they ask politely). It actually means the little guy will ignore the NC work, whereas the corporation will exploit it without a second thought given the copyright holder has zero litigation budget.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'll keep posting examples.
You can persist in conflating music=copy, but it will handicap your perception of the critical distinction (as it is evidently doing so).
An author sells their novel to a book publisher. The publisher sells copies of it: books.
An author could sell books (copies of their novel) directly to people who wanted to read it, but they wouldn't be selling their novel, they'd be selling copies.
The author COULD try selling the novel to their fans (and this has been tried in the past - qv Stephen King & The Plant). And then those fans could read the manuscript, make their own PDF copies, or even print their own books (via Lulu say). Those fans could also sell copies too.
However, when an author simply sells PDF copies of their novel online, they aren't selling their novel, they're selling copies of it.
Similarly, when a musician sells CDs or MP3 downloads of their music via their website, they aren't selling their music, they're selling copies of it.
You might think I'm splitting hairs, but you cannot understand the business of selling intellectual work until you recognise the difference between the work and a copy, between something that takes a human considerable time and effort, and something a computer can do in a microsecond.
To sell copies you need a monopoly. There isn't one (any more).
To sell music you don't need a monopoly.
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Music is free
A musician doesn't spend yonks in a recording studio and sell the recording of their music to a publisher as a digital master on a DVD-ROM for $10 (the cost of the copy). If the musician has any clue they'll add quite a few more zeroes to their price.
So, musicians are quite able to tell the difference between selling music and selling copies. They either sell the music for $10,000 as a session musician, or they make a deal with a label to get a $5,000 advance on a 1% royalty on sale of copies (protected from competition by monopoly), and hope the label can sell a million copies via iTunes for $1.
Alternatively, the musician can do a deal with iTunes themselves and try and sell say 20,000 copies.
They can even try selling CDs at $2 each and hope they sell 20,000.
However, I can count on my fingers the number of musicians who've sold their music to their fans (instead of to a label), e.g. at $10 each to 1,000 fans. Note that although the music may be delivered to those fans via CD or BitTorrent, the fans are buying the music - not copies. Once the music has been purchased, copies can be freely sold or given away.
The problem with selling copies is that anyone can now make them for nothing. Copyright is no longer effective as a monopoly to prevent this. However, if you sell music instead of copies, you don't need a monopoly such as copyright because no-one else can make your music (unless perhaps you produce formulaic musak for elevators).
So, very few musicians are considering the business model of selling their music to their fans. Most think music=copy, and that selling music=selling copies.
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hard to find music-related scarcities
So, now that we've agreed copyright is a non-issue to the people that matter (artists, their audience and fans), we can focus on the business between them.
There are two prices. The price a musician is prepared to sell their music for, and the price a fan is prepared to buy it for. If a musician gives away their music then obviously price doesn't come into it. However, that doesn't mean a musician can't sell their music once they've build up a fan base through giving it away.
That you think 'most artists give it away' would only affect the market price of music if music was a homogenous commodity, like elevator musak that hotels might shop around for.
Is that the way you think of music? As pulp/content/musak? If it is then there's not much point in continuing the discussion. You can only conclude as you have done that no-one ever need consider buying musak again because it seems as if there are always people giving it away.
Here's another way you could try to escape that grievous notion of what music is. You could consider that music is advertising on the part of musicians. In other words every mp3 file is an advert for the musician. Because it's an advert, that's why it seems free (indeed is sometimes worth paying a radio to play). However, it isn't free, it's been paid for by those fans who bought it, bought the product they heard the previous adverts advertise.
Every published work of art is an advert to encourage the artist's audience to purchase the next work of art. Being an advert, the artist encourages their fans to share it, copy it, play it, remix it, anything to promote the artist and build up their fan base. They do not prosecute their fans for promoting them, for file-sharing. They invite their fans to patronise them to commission them to produce more great music.
It's a bit of a paradigm shift and red pill/blue pill thing, but it's up to you which to take. If you want to understand the old copyright business model and why such things as DRM, DMCA and ACTA are necessary then you believe in copyright, you believe that copyright is vital and to be protected and respected at all costs. If you want to understand new non-copyright based business models then you must forget about copyright, believe that it doesn't exist.
You can't look on the other side of the paradigm shift with an unshifted mind.
On the post: CBC: When We Said Blogs Would Need Permission To Quote Us, We Didn't Really Mean It
Re: Re: Copyright itself is a sword of Damocles
I may write articles that I publish on my blog without assurance of payment in exchange, but for 5 years' work I'd want some serious spondulicks.
However, I don't believe it is ethical to prosecute people for copying, sharing, text-to-speeching, annotating, or enacting the writing I sell or give to them.
Bear in mind that copyright is not a right to compensation (no such thing), but the stripping from the public of their natural right to copy.
Copyright is a right that was suspended from the public in the 18th century and reserved as a privilege to be exploited by printers. It is pretended that this is in the public's interest, but that's an unsurprising pretext given how lucrative it is to the printers that lobbied for it (and useful to the state interested in a controlled press).
Anyway, I'd readily agree with you that it's highly unethical to strip anyone of their natural rights. Given copyright does this, it's a good reason to abolish it, let alone the fact that it's no longer effective.
So, if we're both agreed that we should be ethical, and not be so silly as to work for 5 years for nothing, then assuming there is a market for our work, we need to find some ethical way of exchanging our work for the money of those in the market for it.
Once we've been paid, once our work is published in exchange, then obviously we'll be delighted the more widely our work is read, shared, used in schools, reprinted, etc.
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Re: Re: Hard to find music-related scarcities
If one person on a road charged N pennies for sacks of horse manure, and another person gave sacks away for nothing, they would undercut the price of the other.
However, music is not like horse manure - well, not all of it.
I don't think fans 'have gotten used to free' music, but they have got used to free copies (don't forget the radio and home taping). Frankly, musicians should pay people to audition them - never mind free. Even the labels recognised this wrt payola. What people expect is to not have to pay to audition music, but they don't mind paying the going rate for high quality copies, e.g. vinyl/acetate discs. When the copy costs nothing to make, then people expect the going rate to be nothing. NB no-one expects the production of music to be free. And it's only expected to be given away by new/undiscovered artists (for promotional purposes). Just as people might expect new acts to play for free in a pub, they expect artists with large fan bases to have a high ticket price for concerts.
So really, not much has changed except the cost of making copies (and the ability of copyright to prevent people making their own).
Very little has changed concerning the value of music or the cost of making it.
Of course if you equate 'music=copy' then you're going to delude yourself into taking a long walk off a short pier - "can't sell copies=can't sell music".
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Re: Re: Music is free
Try thinking of it this way (pre/post copyright):
None of those statements conflicts with any other. However, someone indoctrinated by copyright cannot reconcile them. To them it seems as if all music is free. Moreover, given all music is homogeneous dross, no-one will ever be inclined to pay anyone to produce any more because too many new musicians are churning it out as a promotional loss-leader to build their fan base. They believe the market is irrecoverably saturated and will remain that way.
So clearly, there must be a flaw in such thinking.
The answer is that music is not a mildly variegated pacifier to be packaged and sold for consumption by the masses, but highly eclectic/diverse/heterogeneous and highly valued by respective audiences.
Music is not a commodity except in the eyes of the publishing industry that needs something to fill the boxes it shifts - boxes it has a monopoly over (box=copy).
Music is simply a label. It is a mistake to infer homogeneity from the label, e.g. as in 'water' or 'grass'. You could as well infer that no-one need ever pay for any software ever again because so much 'software' is now given away for free. It's all highly diverse and of interest only to respectively diverse and specialised audiences.
Compare the newspaper industry. Newspaper publishers aren't in the business of producing news, but shifting containers of it (newspapers). It's the journalist who's in the news production business, and they're fine - always a market for news. It's the printers producing copies of it that are going under. That's why they think a paywall is the answer, because it's selling a look-see in the box which is almost as good as selling the box. They can't recognise the fact that the fundamental market is for news, not for boxes of it. People bought the boxes because they wanted what was in them. The news was free in the box, but the boxes cost money. And now the news is freely redistributed and no-one needs any boxes, but people still need the news to be produced. The crazy thing is hardly anyone is trying to sell news production to the people who want it. They're madly focussed on selling boxes or look-sees of 'news as content'.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'll keep posting examples.
Your breakdown of music sales into 'live, recorded, lessons, session work, private events' seems reasonable to me.
My suspicion is that you believe selling recorded music involves selling copies. All the other forms of 'music sales' aren't affected by file-sharing. However, for recorded music the tradition has been for the artist to sell it to a label, and for the label to produce and sell monopoly protected copies. This particular business model (relying as it does on an unnatural 18th century privilege) has finally met its nemesis in the form of the public and its widespread use of digital communications technology.
I don't make my living in music, but I was intending to make a living developing a p2p based massive multiplayer game - file-sharing, but of 3D scenery rather than music. So, I had two problems: a hostile legal environment and a need for a business model that didn't rely upon control over copying. I need a solution as much as any musician or movie maker.
The public is now able to perform every function of the publisher, and without charge - except for one. That missing function is to pay the artist to publish their work so the public can have it, distribute it, consequently promote the artist, and build upon it.
And so I've developed the Contingency Market: an online exchange that enables the members of an artist's audience interested in encouraging their further work to make thousands or millions of micro-contracts. So instead of contracting with a label, the artist contracts with their fans (their true customers). Thus a thousand fans can say "If you record a new single and publish it I will pay you $10". And no, I don't demand a cut of that - I get paid independently, on the same basis: those who want further enhancements of the system micro-contract with me to produce them.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How to put a new spin on what people are already doing
If audiences will be struggling so will artists. That means artists will be even more keen to get paid rather than give their work away.
Either way, I really don't think disposable income has any bearing on business models. It might have a bearing on charity, but that's not a business model.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How to put a new spin on what people are already doing
For such a situation you don't need a business model that can withstand file-sharing, you need to give up hope of ever making any money at all.
However, I know there are some who feel a tax is thus the answer, to extract money from those fans through force. As in "If you enjoy our music, you must pay us money".
Forcing money from people is the logical next step for the unscrupulous - once suspending people's liberty has run out of steam.
The question is are you a publisher into extracting money from people via any means, or are you a musician willing to offer your music at whatever price a FREE MARKET will bear?
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: I'll keep posting examples.
Selling copies is of course 'selling stuff related to your music'.
Similarly the printed score is not the composition, but a copy of it. Mozart would sell a composition for a bag of gold, but a printer would sell a copy of the score for a silver coin.
Don't let the corruption of the language that conflates copy=music corrupt your thinking.
Too many people think 'sell your music'='sell copies'.
That linguistic conflation has been caused by copyright. Deprogram your brain of this insidious bug.
The market for copies has ended. The market for music continues.
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Music is free
A musician can produce or perform music and give it away - a free concert or promotional sampler perhaps. Alternatively they can sell tickets, and if they sell enough, they can exchange the ticket revenue for a performance of music. However, this is nothing to do with copies. Even though their fans can make copies for nothing, those fans cannot make the musician perform at the concert unless they pay them money.
Similarly, you cannot make a musician record a studio performance for nothing. Once they've sold such a recording to their fans who've paid for it, sure, THEN you can make copies for nothing. You can make copies for nothing because it takes next to zero work and material resources to produce a copy. That's why copies are free. The copy is free - NOT the music.
That's why if musicians focussed on selling the music (what they're good at making) instead of selling copies (what their record label and fans are good at making) then they wouldn't get so upset at the fact that their fans had taken back their liberty to make and share copies.
Hence the business model I evangelise: Money for Art, Liberty for People (MfA+LfP).
It's not charity. It's an exchange: art for money, money for art. It's also ethical as it restores the people's cultural liberty, their natural right to copy (as suspended by Queen Anne in 1710 for the benefit of the press).
If you can get all the music you want without paying anything then that's brilliant. However, if you're anything like me you will come across the odd few artists whose music you like so much, you just can't get enough of it. In such a case you may well join their other fans in persuading them to produce more and sooner rather than later. And I think you'll find money can be more persuasive than begging.
I'll let Mike explain CwF+RtB.
On the post: CBC: When We Said Blogs Would Need Permission To Quote Us, We Didn't Really Mean It
Copyright itself is a sword of Damocles
So when I say "Why do you want the power to sue your fans for promoting you or singing your songs?"
They always deny wanting to sue their fans. They just want the power to.
So, similarly, all publishers want the power to sue people who quote them without permission.
But they will deny wanting to sue bloggers.
It's like people who want a gun to shoot burglars.
They will deny wanting to shoot the neighbour's kids.
Weapons are seductive.
Copyright is an unnatural weapon created in the 18th century when such unethical devices weren't so repugnant. No-one needs it. We'd all be far better off without it.
Abolish copyright.
On the post: Billboard Gets Snarky; Not A Believer In CwF + RtB
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If Fred makes a vase then only Fred can truthfully claim that he made the vase. The government doesn't grant him this monopoly. Nature imbues him with it. The government is supposed to protect Fred's natural (aka moral) right to identify himself as the maker of the vase, and thus to deny anyone else from making false claims (identifying someone else as maker of Fred's vases, or identifying Fred as the maker of vases he didn't make).
Fred can mark his vases with a unique symbol or name to indicate his authorship, to identify himself as the manufacturer.
Trademark law is about a government regulated registry of such marks to avoid the same symbol being used in the same trading context (by different manufacturers) such that authorship risks becoming confused (in the marketplace). So, there is a small element of government granted monopoly in that the manufacturer who first registers a particular mark for a particular product in a particular context is able to prevent others using that mark where that risks confusing the identity of the product's manufacturer.
The problem with trademark is that holders overreach its purpose to prevent confusion and deceit, and attempt to claim exclusive use of their mark in all contexts. For that reason trademark law needs reforming, possibly even abolition.
Even so, even without the trademark registry, it should still be prohibited to deceive people (intentionally or through negligence) as to the identity of a product's manufacturer.
Branding of cattle with unique symbols is similar, though concerns the identity of the breeder or owner rather than the manufacturer.
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A gap between creation and proliferation
You do not buy a basket from a basket seller because you recognise they need financial support. You buy a basket because you want a fricking basket, and you and the seller agree as to what it's worth exchanging your good money for.
To buy something or simply a warm feeling, because you want to financially support someone is known as charity. Despite the conclusions of many despairing artists, charity is not a business model.
If someone doesn't think your music is worth any significant amount of their money in exchange, then they are not a customer. If you're lucky, it's someone who's willing to spend 3 minutes of their precious time auditioning you on the off-chance that they might like your music.
NB I still don't think Suzanne's twigged the difference between buying music and buying CDs (copies of music). Copies are a convenience and worth pennies. Frankly, in addition to selling CDs in posh cases (even for a few bucks), I'd provide a wifi access point and details of how people can download MP3 files or the CD ISO from the local fileserver - for free. Might as well also provide USB sockets for people to obtain just the MP3 files (selling memory sticks if folk don't have 'em). This is an easy thing to do and saves people the hassle of firing up their file-sharing software when they get home and waiting half an hour. Far better to help people not yet your customers to further audition your music and share it with their friends (or strangers), and then create far better goodwill to win future customers (who want to buy your music - not copies).
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How to put a new spin on what people are already doing
Let's imagine a desert island of a hundred shipwrecked lute players (each of whom loves lute music).
Each lutist may have as many as 99 fans.
So, that could be an island with 100 lutists and a total fan count of 9900.
On an island with a million lutists, there could be a total fan count of 999,999,000,000.
So, don't forget that one person can be a fan of many artists.
I think you'll find that however many good musicians there on this planet, they won't have a shortage of fans.
The ones with a shortage of fans are bad musicians.
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Re: Re: Re: A gap between creation and proliferation
Of course, you can't make the music of your favourite artists yourself (only they can), so you still have to persuade them to make it for you - and they want paying.
Doesn't that sound like the idea opportunity for an artist to make a deal with you and every other one of their fans?
The artist can offer to write a new song, or record another cover, in exchange for $10,000 from their 1,000 true fans such as yourself. You all just stump up $10 each, and then when the artist delivers their end of the bargain you do the exchange.
Everyone's happy. Art for money, money for art.
And then the artist is heavily, virally promoted when that recording they just sold to their fans for ten grand is freely and LEGALLY shared on umpteen file-sharing networks.
The next time they try this they have 10x as many true fans.
On the post: Has The Recording Industry Reached The Bargaining Stage Of Grief?
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On the post: Billboard Gets Snarky; Not A Believer In CwF + RtB
CwF+RtB & MfA+LfP
Nothing loses the old school more sleep than the nightmare of disintermediation.
I have similar troubles persuading people of the validity of 'my' business model: "money for art, liberty for people", or MfA+LfP in your shorthand. It's a tad further away from adoption than yours - but compatible nevertheless.
May there be ever more criticism at how preposterous and unbusinesslike it is for artists to connect with fans directly, ignoring their privileges of copyright and the vast exploitation and licensing revenues that labels and societies could collect for them.
On the post: Ten Good Reasons To Buy
Re: Re: A gap between creation and proliferation
Remember, copies are free. It's the music that takes work, and needs paying for.
On the post: Can You Fairly Distinguish Commercial vs. Non-Commercial Use In Copyright?
Corporate/non-corporate is a better distinction
Why, only just the other day in response to a suggestion that copyright should only apply to commercial use (whatever that is), I suggested that a better, ethical distinction is not commercial/non-commercial, but corporation/individual.
It's not unethical to subject corporations to copyright, but it is unethical to subject individuals to it. This is because corporations, being artificial entities, don't have such a thing as a natural right to liberty.
Here are examples of how things would work in each case:
Commercial/non-commercial- Individuals and corporations can file-share or stream music with impunity as long as no money changes hands.
- Individuals are sued when they sell their MP3 player without having first deleted its contents.
Corporate/IndividualUltimately, even if copyright applied only to corporations it would still be culturally detrimental.
However, for an interim compromise, a corporate/individual demarcation would be far better than a commercial/non-commercial one.
It would be an even better distinction for Creative Commons to adopt than NC, given most CC users seem to think NC means 'big nasty publishing corporations' can't exploit their work, but nice, little guys can (if they ask politely). It actually means the little guy will ignore the NC work, whereas the corporation will exploit it without a second thought given the copyright holder has zero litigation budget.
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