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43 Comments
- adamfalkofske, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31It's ridiculous that the studios can make so much money while they don't even compose the music. Why do these artists put up with it? Viva la eMusica!
- kevxross, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25Oh don't worry, they shall feel the wrath of the noodly appendages.
- NeoPlatonist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23The RIAA and the MPAA are huge examples of the weakness of our legal system. Their lawsuits are terrorist acts with lawyers instead of bombs and boxcutters. When a corporation files more than 100 identical lawsuits they should be forced to go to trial and pay the defendant's legal team as much as their own no matter the outcome. As it stands, the right to trail by jury is severely abridged.
- gwalbridge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18RAmen.
- Schelske, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Actually, the whole thing with the RIAA and the record labels is that they are in panic mode. If you know the details of what's happened in the past five years in digital music, then you've learned that they are no longer necessary. It's true. I'm a musician. I have a touring band with my first CD out. We sell songs on the iTunes music store and discs on CDBaby.com. We have no distributor beyond this, no record label besides ourselves, and we sell enough product to be happy. Social networking sites are a better distribution tool than SONY or BMG. Local groups of fans do better promotion than any record company ever would for a small band. You only get their big dollars if they think they can get strong radio play with you - but radio play is losing ground too.
In the Portland area I personally know an ever increasing number of independent musicians that are making a real living without giving any piece of the pie to record labels. How can they do it? Because the record labels soak you. As an indie I own all my own song rights, I own all the intellectual property. At CDBaby I get $11.00 for every CD I sell. Through a distributor I would only get about $1.75, and that's if I owned all the song rights myself. As ITMS as an indie I get $0.68 per song track downloaded. Through a distributor I would only get about $0.03 - again if I owned the rights to the song.
I might not have access to the huge crowds and to Walmart that I would get through a record company / distributor, but I don't need 'em. Here's why. If my goal is to support myself, I can do so selling a lot less product as an indie than as a record-label artist. Here's some hypothetical numbers that show what I mean: Let's say I want to make $2500/month. That's a pretty good monthly paycheck for a musician. If we're talking about product sales alone (no concert tix, no appearances, no studio work, etc.) the difference is amazing.
As an indie I can make $2500 by selling 227 CDs or 3,700 downloads. As a record label artist, I would have to sell 1428 CDs or 83,333 downloads to make exactly the same amount of money. The industry average for CDs sold at a live event is 8% coverage. That means that if 8% of the audience who comes to see you buys a CD, you are selling at average level. We usually sell about 15% coverage at our shows. So, in order to sell 227 CDs, I need to play in front of 1513 people over the course of a month. Not unreasonable for an indie band. That's 5 really good gigs. As a record-label artist, I would need to play in front of 9520 people in that same month. Now, top-line acts can do that no problem with the promotional support they get from their label, but everyone else? I don't know a single local band that's signed with a label that can pull gigs like that except when they are on a major tour -- but that usually lasts for three months, and the great money you made for those three months has to last you all year.
Sorry for the long post, but I just had to point this stuff out. The RIAA is irrelevant and record-labels, if they don't find a new business plan are going to find themselves abandoned over and over by artists who look at the bottom line and realize that the label itself is holding them back from their dream. Now, if your dream is to be famous, record labels can do that. But if your dream is to make a daily living off your music (which is what 90% of the musicians I know want), record labels are actually keeping that from happening.
Make music. Share your passion. Own your song rights. And come home to your family at the end of the day with enough money to support them. It's possible, and a lot of us are doing it without them, and we'll never go back. - Koushiro, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15In this day and age of digital music and distribution, there is no need for anything like MTV or the RIAA. Your band doesn't have to sell a 100 million albums to be successful anymore. If you make enough to live comfortably and pay your costs then that is more then good enough for an honest majority of people.
- Jeffrey903, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12The point is that the wholesale cost of a song is around 70 cents, but the RIAA sues people for $150,000 PER SONG shared. The defendants are saying that this amount should be no more than $7 per song, which is a much more reasonable amount.
- geekee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11The argument probably goes something like:
If you're suing me for uploading music, I need to know how much you make per download to assess damages fairly. - llbbl, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12RIAA makes me want to believe in Hell because if such a place did exist I know they would be sent there
- Yez70, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9When the risk to produce an album can easily be under $50,000, yet the potential profits from a star can be in the billions - the record companies are still ***** the industry raw.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Weird Al already disclosed this. Thanks Al :)
- EntangledPhysx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I believe the whole "dont buy their music" or "dont buy their products" DON'T work... why? Because no matter how many of us who are "in the know" about what these corporations/companies are doing, and no matter how many of us boycott their products/services, there will ALWAYS be a huge number of idiots out there who can't think for them selves, or those who just don't know what is going on, and they will continue to blindly support these evil industries/companies. And the number of those people are vastly more then us. Pisses me off, too.
- Fenix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7They're "...going to burn in a very special level of Hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater."
-Shepherd Book - blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5They should have to pay legal fees if the defendant wins. However how you can argue that a plantiff should have to pay the legal fees of the defendant when the plantiff is in the right and wins I don't know.
- drmangrum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@blapierre
The criminal intent is that they fix the prices. There is no free market. Due to the trend of people getting their music online, record labels have seen a marked drop in their bottom lines. They use the legal system to make money. If the wholesale cost of a song is roughly 70 cents, and ~13 songs per cd, thats $9.10.
This isnt the production cost, they have their profit built into that already. Last time I bought a CD, it costs me nearly $20. Thats more than 100% mark-up. MORE than enough room for a free market environment to see stiffer competition. It's the same thing with DVD's, gasoline, and the cable company.
In the free market your SUPPOSED to price wars, better service, better value. Last time I checked, buying a CD just got you the disc, some crappy cover art, and if your lucky, some pictures if you load it into your computer. Of course, you don't know what other software is being loaded if you put it in your computer.
I would like to see a lawyer ballsy enough to file a class action lawsuit with all these industries. I'm all for a company for making a profit, but they should do so fairly. - pabster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A good point has been made.
It is now possible with an Artist producing and distributing their albums DIRECT to the consumer for them to be quite successful, without needing to sell millions of copies of albums.
For the simple, let us look at it this way. If I sell 1 million albums and the greedy bastards known as labels give me $750,000 (generous, some make less than that) against, say, me selling 200,000 albums directly but making $1 million dollars.
I say the hell with the labels, and the hell with the greedy bastards at the RIAA. Many artists have begun to jump ship and I see this trend continuing. God speed to them all! - blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5They aren't suing for the value of the song. They are suing for the maximum amount allowable per work by copyright law.
- tyho, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The RIAA are criminal in their intent. I really hope this information is disclosed and the fact that the damages they allegedly suffer are minimal. This would actually end all these silly lawsuits if it was no longer lucrative to pursue them.
- m3th0dm4n, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Hence, I don't buy their music.
- xXShadowstormXx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Somebody needs to sue them for the greedy morons that they are.
.02. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As much as I'd like my favorite artists to get my money, well ***** the RIAA, I'm drowning in their greed, I'm gonna get my fix from torrent. Nice clean DRM-uninfested music. Till things change, the record companies are not gonna get one damn CENT from me.
- williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The RIAA is a mafia, a cartel, and a cancer on society.
Anyone having anything to do with the RIAA is a criminal douchebag. If you know a lawyer who has worked for them, find who their clients are and call them all and destroy that firm's business. Make their family social outcasts and make sure they mistreated at every possible opportunity.
Working with the RIAA is like working with the Klan or neo-Nazi groups. It should not be tolerated by good people. - thedonquixote, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Heh heh, has everyone seen the tracert on thepiratebay.org
go to your start menu, then click run, then type "cmd" (no quotes). You'll get a comman prompt with the default directory path. Type "cd C:" (again no quotes). Now type "tracert thepiratebay.org" (no quotes). Then let the command run. Read what it says for the final result...
you are going to laugh your asses off!! - SelfAbortion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://www.indiecentre.com/info/article.cfm?CategoryID=0&ArticleID=25
This Steve Albini article should be posted in just about any thread regarding the music industry and independent musicians. - MScrip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Awesome read! Do you have a website? I'd love to hear a sample of your music!
- mdfrake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As a good man Chuck D once said, "Fight the power!"
- dstew74, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Love the Bender quote.
- Sunsetter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Could someone just put an end to the RIAA and all of their nonsense already. I don't think anything good has really ever come from their actions, in my opinion anyway.
- irchs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Surely http://www.tunecore.com gives you a rough estimate on how much the labels actually get from each download.
Jan - Schelske, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's an amazing article. And just underscores my point. An indie band with a good website, attention to social networking, a fair booking agent, and a CDbaby.com membership is actually doing better financially than the hypothetical band in the article. They may not be as famous, but they are playing, selling CDs and downloads, and making more actual cash at the end of the day than the record-label artist.
- seithon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And then you forget to link yourself in the post :D
Seriously interesting to know, but where's the band page ?:) - MisteR2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@blapierre
"Instead try to persuade people to your side instead of attacking companies who are acting within the law."
And therein lies the problem. The law. The same one which has been twisted by the RIAA and friends.
Here's an example. I'll let you do the rest of the research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act - lippe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I guess honestly, if I want to support an artist...I want to support *them* and their *music*. I know this includes everything that goes along with it such as recording, promoting, and equipment. None the less, I do not want big CEOs getting the major chunk of change out of what I was paying the artist. More still, I do not want to be paying for the label's releases that haven't covered their recording costs. I don't want to pay for Joe Shome to be nice and happy after he released a crap album where Jane Smith released one of the better albums of the year [in personal taste], and that's who I want to give my money to. In the end, it really doesn't matter what the RIAA wants. The smart consumers will realize how rediculous it is, and they will lose sales.
The quotes about their sales going down in the past few years is part their fault and the other part is no one's. Their economy, to be honest at least where I live and around here, has been in the dumps. It's livable, but it seems that things are just not sitting right in the pocket currently. The plastic is getting heavy, and all I seem to have is change. Then, when I have the chance to buy a CD, the RIAA wants to only allow me to listen to it on a CD player? How is this possible? I want to listen to it on my iRiver. In their vision, they would allow me to only rip the CD once (or twice), and then only port it to one player. I also have a Zune that I got for Christmas. What if I want it there as well? Oh boy! Wireless transfer of music. 3 days or 3 plays. Consumers see this, and are stepping back a bit.
Keep screwing up RIAA. We would love for you to ruin yourselves and make yourselves look like fools. - Schelske, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sorry for not posting links. I hate to come across as spamming, you know. The band site is being re-developed with more current info this month, but you can see my stuff at both CDBaby (The greatest independent CD Store and artist resource ever!) at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/schelske, and on the iTunes music store, search for Marc Alan Schelske. Thanks for asking!
- lippe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Niice.
- dvsbastard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I can clearly understand the RIAA's wish to protect information regarding wholesale pricing.
HOWEVER, I can more so understand the general publics wish to know what this figure is too (as I am sure we all feel that they are not only ripping us off, but the artists which they so "fervently" claim to protect too)... - blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Why do you care if some people feel it is in their best interest to purchase music from them? What harm is it doing to you? Absolutely none. Instead try to persuade people to your side instead of attacking companies who are acting within the law.
- Nar1117, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Its a bad problem... Music artists need the studios to produce the music and get it out to the public, and the studios that dont cost as much dont attract the bigger record labels as much, or at all even, so if an artist goes there to record, he/she/they wont have much of a chance of getting their music out there.
And then once the artist gets out there, which is so extremely rare, they start getting deals all over the place, so now they can afford the bigger studios. Its the music industry for ya... - 4NDr01D, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2it's still a bigger cut then if the artist sold direct
- blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1I don't see how they are "criminal in their intent". They are merely defending their intellectual property. If they don't defend it then they lose their rights to it. The answer is simple, just don't do business with them.
- lokier, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3could "Music Business" contend as an oxymoron?
- geekee, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5No it's not. They're taking all the risk. You think all those failed bands pay back their studio time, not to mention marketing costs? Learn something about business before making stupid comments.
- blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2Since when is it anyone else's business (besides maybe the stockholders) to know the breakdown of prices? I don't see anyone trying to get steel manufacturers to divulge how much they markup their steel. Music companies can markup prices all they want and not tell you exactly how much. Why do you care? JUST DON'T BUY THEIR MUSIC!
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