In Defense of Free Music: A Generational, Ethical High Road Over the Industry’s Corruption and Exploitation
Note: This was posted as a response to David Lowery’s Letter to Emily White, which was in response to her article “I Never Owned Any Music to Begin With”. White is an intern at NPR’s All Songs Considered, Lowery is a contributor for The Trichordist, a technology and ethics blog.
As a musician and huge music fan, your emotional plea for our generation to renounce Free Culture so that musicians can make a living was indeed stirring. But beyond the choir you’re preaching to, we both know it’s falling on deaf ears. Asking today’s music consumers to kindly start paying for recorded music again because it’s the ethical thing to do isn’t only unviable — it’s not the ethical thing to do anymore. Free Culture is an ethic, and I think I can speak for my generation when I say we believe it to be the high ground over the way the music industry used to be run.
Your heart is clearly in the right place. But unlike you, I think most of us, our generation included, have a deep, unwavering motivation to compensate the musicians who enrich our lives. Here’s the crux of our disagreement: You claim listeners aren’t paying as much for access to music anymore because they’re unethical and no longer find it important to compensate artists. You and many others make this accusation over and over again without providing any clear evidence other than unconvincing anecdotes.
I believe the opposite can be clearly proven: Today’s musicians are held in higher esteem by listeners than ever before, and it’s the industry that has lost their respect (and money), due to a history of unethical behavior. The first point is proven by the sheer unprecedented volume of music now being consumed. The latter point is proven by even a casual glance into the history of the music industry.
Should listeners feel guilty for having free access to music? Of course not. It’s the best thing ever to happen to a music lover. Sometimes I wonder if all the Free Culture-haters are just jealous that they had to pay $20 per CD. You realize that price point had nothing to do with compensating artists, right? That ridiculous number was the product of illegal price fixing, obscene recoupments, payola, unethical ‘breakage’ fees and keeping statutory royalty rates for artists low, to name just a few reasons. Meanwhile, our generation experiences the ecstasy of free or near-free access to the global jukebox.
Should musicians feel threatened by listeners accessing their music for free? Only if their entire business model is based on forcing their fans (and potential fans) to pay for access to music. This is a model that our generation is using technology to reject. The exposure granted by free access to music is exactly what most musicians are after. Free exposure is only a lost profit opportunity for the minority of musicians who succeeded in the pre-digital record business paradigm. Most of the time musicians didn’t profit beyond statutory royalties anyway, because they could never recoup the cost of marketing and advertising. Now good music goes viral for free, and even generates ad revenue for the creator!
I’m going to level with you. You and many other Free Culture detractors are people from social circles with musicians that did well in the past but whose revenue dropped dramatically along with industry profits. I think the driver behind this blithely unrealistic “let’s go back to the way things were in the 90s” movement is pretty straightforward — you tasted profits from a business model that is no longer sustainable. You want your industry back.
We don’t.
Consider for a moment how were the profits of the “old” music industry won: By subjecting listeners and musicians — and indeed, our very culture — to a laundry list of horrendous commercial exploitation. Price fixing, payola, unpaid royalties, market monopolies, ticket surcharges, obscenely exploitative record contracts, manufactured popularity, censorship, perpetual copyright and destruction of fair use and the public domain… the list goes on and on. In short, the old way of doing things sucked and we don’t care if a few of that era’s successful artists no longer get mailbox money for music they recorded decades ago. We certainly don’t care if the record industry, which enabled these injustices, dies a slow, public death.
On the other side of the Free Culture argument, you have people like me: unsuccessful musicians and frustrated music fans. We are by far the majority, but our apathy is high. Critically, this does not translate into consumer apathy for compensating musicians. Quite the contrary, our apathy for corporations is driving a new appreciation for the original creators and producers of music, based on free access to recordings.
I believe my story is somewhat typical of the unsuccessful musician. After years of false starts and bad management I finally “made it” and got signed to an emerging indie. The advance was small, the recoupment high. But we had a great booking agent, nationwide tour support and opened for big bands in NYC. We got a sync license with MTV and some film placements. We had a high-powered manager and one of Britney Spears’s lawyers. Our friends were signed to Capitol, Sony began showing interest in us. We were on the cusp of making a living playing music. But while our fan base was rabid and widespread, it just wasn’t big enough. It wasn’t just a matter of “exposure” as most musicians whine. The business of the band didn’t scale, and eventually petered out. While I never quit playing music or trying to make a business of it, music became more of a hobby and I was now among the vast ranks of unsuccessful musicians.
Guess who was pissed (besides our band)? Our fans. Having supported us all those years, they now saw the apparatus of the music industry whittle away our faith in the business of our band to the point where we quit. It’s easy to look over this fact, but it’s critical not to: Music fans talk to musicians, and most musicians have historically not been happy with the way the industry worked. It wasn’t that we had bad music or bad management — our fan base just wouldn’t scale big enough to support our business team. I can see why those who succeeded in the past want to protect the old business model. It strongly favored the incumbents and built a nearly insurmountable barrier of entry that the average musician had little chance of scaling.
For both musicians and listeners, failure was the common narrative of the record industry. We sat and watched our friends write great music people loved, yet they were unable to make a living doing so, even and especially after they were signed. We saw the rare few musicians who truly made it big falter in the excesses of the industry, becoming drug addicts as the drive for manufactured popularity hollowed out the meaning of their music. Add to that the aforementioned widespread industry corruption. Factor in decades of consumers buying albums of mediocre music for one or two good singles. Pile on a digital distribution cost of near zero. Put a recording studio in every home with a computer. Lastly, drop the RIAA suing music fans for sharing music as the cherry on top, and there you have our generation’s hatred of paying for access to music.
If there is an ethical dilemma here, clearly it is your generation’s music industry, not our generation of listeners, that must bear the brunt of the blame.
I appreciate your statement that “on nearly every count [our] generation is much more ethical and fair than [your] generation”, but I don’t understand why you’d single out musician’s rights as something we specifically don’t respect. After such praise, a claim like that just seems silly.
Free Culture opponents often suggest technology somehow caused our generation’s desire for compensating musicians to evaporate. But it was clearly the corruption and ineptitude of the industry itself that is to blame for this negative attitude toward paying for music. Digital music technology provided the opportunity musicians and listeners have been waiting decades for — to balance the industry’s unchecked power, and maybe eke out a more sustainable living in the process.
Fans formerly had no apparatus to directly compensate artists. Now that they have tools like Kickstarter and Bandcamp, we’re seeing millions of dollars pouring directly into musician’s pockets. This represents a fraction of the so-called “lost value” of paid access to music, but given all the money and lobbyists the old industry has thrown at and against digital music innovation, it’s remarkable nonetheless.
That’s the thing about asking our generation to fix the record industry. We’re already doing it. We’re connecting artists directly to fans and bringing back patronage, a far less exploitative model that is emerging as the foundation of the new music career. We’re using crowdfunding to finance our work. We’re using digital tools to democratize distribution and licensing, with fairer publishing deals. Instead of basing our entire career on one album dropping or flopping huge, we’re ditching the LP in favor of a steady stream of singles, what fans really want. Apps are the new album. Production is going more lo-fi but is becoming more diverse and original in the process. These are the viable solutions I was talking about earlier. It’s all actually quite liberating because none of it involves being exploited by the music industry, and if it does, it’s certainly far less than in the past.
And yes, we’re selling T-shirts. I wouldn’t have to sell ‘em if I had a dollar for every time I heard, “your music is free, so what, you’re going to make a living selling T-shirts?” But the profit margin is good and they’re moving off the merch table like CDs used to. You have to realize that when the physical media that holds the music is no longer a profitable product, there are myriad replacements which tie the music to a physical product that can be profitably sold. The critical thing to realize here: the devaluation of the music recording increases the value of merch for the artist. Our fans are gonna spend $10 at our merch table anyway — should we sell them a T-shirt they will wear everywhere for a 150% markup, or should we sell them a CD they’ll burn and shelve for the statutory rate of 9.1 cents per song?
Besides selling recorded music, there are dozens of revenue streams for us to pursue. Many are accessible to musicians directly for the first time thanks to the democratizing effect of digital technology. For you to blame technology for unfair artist compensation is odd, for it was unethical industry dominance over the technology of vinyl, radio, cassettes, CDs and the overall apparatus of distribution that created the record business in the first place. The only difference with today’s technology is that the exploitation-crazy record business doesn’t yet have a stranglehold on it. Whether musicians succeed or fail is now up to the musicians and the fans themselves, not the industry.
So when you ask my generation to fix the music industry, we shrug our shoulders — but not out of apathy for music or musicians. We know the music industry sucked and can be better, so we’re not going to support the old way of doing things. We are at a crossroads. There will be a period of hardship and confusion. But don’t tell me we ethically don’t support artists. We listen to vastly more music than your generation ever did. We like, on average, a greater diversity of music than your generation ever did. And we’re still spending money, we’re just being attentive to where it’s going. We want to compensate the musicians, not the industry. It’s not only our choice, but our cause and our fight. The industry is throwing all the money, lobbyists and lawyers it can toward legally protecting its right to intermediate the direct fan-to-artist connection we have sought for decades and finally hold in our hands. We’re not going to allow Free Culture detractors to let that slip away just so they can collect royalties and recoup advances on music made in a bygone era.
We’d love to solve the music industry — really, we would — but we kind of need to save our culture first. Not incidentally, we believe artist compensation as critical to saving our culture. Pining for the old days when we enriched entertainment conglomerates instead of technology conglomerates? Who cares which industry is trying to co-opt our culture today, let’s take as much control as we can while technology affords us the opportunity.
I hear lots of crying about the traditions of the old business model, from the beauty of album art to the selling of millions of records. But you know what’s really sad? It will only be a few years before the entertainment conglomerates including the “Big 4″ record labels (or soon to be “Big 3″, how fair is that?) push back against the technology industry with a SOPA, PIPA or CISPA-like bill that passes into law. By then it will be too late and we’ll be crying over a lot more than our lost free access to music. Our culture may be lost in the unsustainable abyss of capitalism run amok if we the people lose too much control over technology during this critical transition.
I think I speak for most musicians when I say I’m going to make the best music I can until the day I die, and that money only determines how much time I can dedicate to that pursuit. There are way too many other musicians out there getting exposure for me to even entertain the argument that the current environment dissuades one from being a musician. I have a $1,000 studio in my basement that would have cost $100,000 a decade ago. I can make and distribute an album for free, and crowdfund a basic living doing nothing but music if I can generate at least 1,000 fans who spend $50/year with me on average (many $20 supporters and a few big backers). All I need to do is write a year’s worth of good music. With fifteen years as a musician under my belt I think I can manage.
(Not incidentally, I have other life skills I am employing to make my living, which is a very underrated issue in and of itself. What percentage of your income must be derived from music to be considered as “making a living playing music?” What about those whose non-music careers enable their music success, like website designers or audio engineers? If you manage a great music career, are you a successful musician or a successful manager? Furthermore, aren’t we all musicians? Most of us have the ability to make music but just don’t practice. Instrument and recording equipment sales are on the rise, so musicianship must be too. Everyone is already a DJ, how long before listeners are considered musicians? But that’s a subject for another article…)
It’s obvious this new music industry is crappy for scaling a band into a big blockbuster. But we are slowly getting over the rock star trip. The new music industry helps numerous smaller bands scale into moderate success. As the success stories mount, fans are starting to believe in supporting music again. Try to tell Amanda Palmer or her 24,883 fans who collectively raised $1.2 million dollars on Kickstarter that the old way of doing things was better. Then realize her story is becoming less of an exception with each passing day.
All this talk about not being able to make a living as a musician is nothing new at best. At worst, it’s dangerous, because it perpetuates the myth that only through charging access to music can one have a music career. It’s that myth that is keeping us from entering a new golden age in music. Emily White was simply telling us the truth. Come on, you know she would not have written the article if she didn’t care about compensating musicians. She works for freakin’ NPR on a show that regularly breaks new acts. It’s time to look inward and consider that Free Culture is our generation’s reaction to the ethical failings of your generation’s music industry.
So you got screwed by a label, became a “failed musician,” and now you see no point in anyone illegally downloading copywritten material. Your ignorance and selfishness is astounding. I could name you ten bands that bought their own recording equipment, recorded themselves, paid for mastering and cd production themselves, and still found their music on file sharing sites. So what the fuck does that have to do with the big bad record companies? Quit blaming your failures on people who want the option if deciding whether or not to charge for their music.
You’ve got to me kidding me.
First, I never said I got screwed by a label, only that it didn’t work out. I have no regrets or malice toward the label, they never screwed us. Nor am I a “failed musician” — I may not make my living playing music but I’m quite happy doing the other things I’m doing. I continue to make music that plenty of people like and that’s good enough for me.
I am probably the least ignorant person you’ll find in regards to digital music, been studying it and working in the field for ten years now. Nor am I selfish — I support the artists I’m fans of, and strongly support our local music scene.
And guess what? The last two records I made were paid for directly out of my pocket and given away for free, and the band made much more money selling merch and playing live shows than if we had charged for music and prohibited access and exposure to it.
Look, dude. Everyone has the option to decide whether or not to charge for their music. But technology means free or near-fre music is reality. What are you going to do, bitch and whine reality away? For every musician crying about lost royalties there’s a musician figuring out ways to make money in the new paradigm, who’s accepted reality. You’ve invented this idea that I’m a disgruntled musician to explain away your fears that I may be right — there’s nothing musicians can do to prevent free or near-free access to music. You are free to continue to charge for it, and certainly there are ways to do this that don’t involve downloading or streaming it (vinyl anyone?).
In five years you’ll still be crying into your ramen noodles while I’m using technology to bring my band’s exposure to new heights — and I’m not even a career musician. I’ll have accepted technology while you’ll be burning CDs and trying to sell them for $5. I have dedicated my life to fighting for musicians’ and listeners’ rights. This fight is bigger than just me. How about you take a look at inevitable reality and do something rather than wishing for a bygone era that sucked way more for the average musician than you or most of the Free Culture detractors would care to admit. We want patronage, not exploitation. Technology now makes it possible to support musicians with a mix of patronage, combined with the old traditional ways of making money (live, merch), but subtracting sale of physical or DRM-protected copies of recordings. Keep in mind here that artists almost never made their bread and butter money from royalties because they were always recouping, and statutory rates have been kept artificially low because the industry controlled the means of distribution and pretty much all the law surrounding artist compensation.
Please think a bit more about where I’m coming from before you get all emotional. I guess you might not be ready for this reality yet, but your kids are gonna love it.
@Rob
That “choice” argument doesn’t hold up as solidly as you want it to. People can choose to charge anything they want for things they control — but what copyright does is give one the right to take that choice away from others. If I invoke a state-supported monopoly to prevent *you* from sharing what you think deserves sharing, then phrasing that as “me choosing to charge for my music” is disingenuous. What it really would be is “me taking away your choice to share with other people”.
Defending people’s right to take away others’ freedom of choice is an odd place to invoke a freedom-of-choice argument.
You for some reason regard that monopoly privilege, copyright, as some kind of law of nature. It’s not. It’s not even that old. It was a regulatory experiment designed specifically to support *distributors* (not artists), and it is increasingly out of place in a world where the greatest friction in distribution is now the regulation itself, rather than the physical limitations originally invoked (three hundred years ago) to justify the regulation.
By the way, it’s “copyrighted” not “copywritten”.
Hi, I believe you are grossly misinformed, if you want stats about how badly the internet has effected musicians, the numbers are here:
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/why-arent-more-musicians-working-professionally/
I’m also not sure why you would support a system that pays everyone except the musician? To be sure, fans are not the enemy, but rather enterprise level companies exploiting artists rights illegally and paying them nothing:
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/artists-know-thy-enemy/
I find it hard to understand why you would advocate that the solution to one injustice (record labels) is an even greater injustice in commercial piracy?
I hope that helps. Thank you.
Unfortunately I believe you drank a little too much of the Trichordist Kool-Aid. The Internet has disrupted the music industry for the better of musicians. Artist compensation and consumption of music is on the rise (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120129/17272817580/sky-is-rising-entertainment-industry-is-large-growing-not-shrinking.shtml).
The “numbers” you reference miss a crucial point. You and Trichordist are bending the stats to serve your argument, but your conclusions are generally invalid. Here’s the thing you have to understand: there will be less “career musicians” making 50K+ a year and many more “part-time” musicians making a few K a year to support their craft and maybe eke out a little extra living money on top of that. That’s a bad thing for the old guard, built on a system in which the record industry controlled the means of production and distribution and thus ruthlessly exploited musicians. It’s bad for musicians who actually succeeded in this paradigm and now sit on their butts collecting “mailbox money” from music they made decades ago, while today’s struggling musicians get muscled out of the marketplace by their incumbency.
The fact is, there will be no artist making $1,000,000 but 1,000,000 artists will perform every night. This is the awesome world of music digital technology is opening for us, but in order to get there, we need to embrace the inevitability of free or near-free music and work to protect and develop revenue streams for musicians that aren’t directly tied to selling a physical or DRM-protected copy of a recorded work.
On the subject of Grooveshark, it’s important to point out that Grooveshark does pay artists, though the only people who have made deals with them have been independent artists and labels. They understand the future of music and won’t deal with the Big 4 record label cartel or the big indies that are forced out of business necessity to float in their wake. Too bad they’re way ahead of their time and will be sued out of existence, but realize that Spotify is just a less-fully-featured Grooveshark co-opted by the record business to preserve their bottom line, not the right of musicians to make money. You may have seen this infographic: http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/04/500x_online-music-infographic.jpg
I don’t believe Spotify can scale to the point where it’s profitable. They’re hemorrhaging money right now and they’re already approaching “free” as a price point. The whole business model of selling discrete music recordings is dying and can’t be saved. Doesn’t stop the industry from trying of course.
I will support anyone who endeavors to embrace the inevitable future of free music and is actually doing something to help artists, rather than deluding themselves that the record industry has the “best thing in mind” for artists. The technology industry is far more of a fair utility for making money on our music than the record business ever was. Musicians are losing ground with every day this ridiculous pining for the ways of the old music industry persist. We need to wake up to what’s happening and do what we can to develop musicians’ revenue capabilities in a post-mechanical royalties world. Trust me, it may sound crazy now but if you understand music and technology, you know it’s coming.
The injustice of the record business created the injustice of commercial piracy, less from corruptness than from ineptitude. And there is no such thing as “music piracy” anyway. He who lights his candle at mine does not lessen his flame but gets the same illumination I do. That’s music sharing. The distribution cost is near-zero, most of what you’re paying for is the recoupable marketing and advertising budget to the label, the paltry rest of it is split among creators after their managers and agents take their cut, the whole of which is just a small fraction of the real publishing profits because they accepted an advance. It’s just not a way of doing things that’s worth continuing, musicians can have it far better if they get the jump on free music technology. I’m disheartened by all the musicians willing to reject this idea out of hand because they fear leaving the safety of the old business model, but guess what? Success is not entitlement to future success. The record industry leads by example in this regard, feeling entitled, and this trickles down into musician’s brains like an ugly infection. We need to reject that kind of thinking and be progressive, or we will all be doomed to fail.
Actually I hate to say this but from what you have already said I think we might be doomed already.
The big problem I see is that there really is a big difference between someone who can do something as a career and someone who does it as a hobby. I don’t see how we are going to be able to have a “Led Zepplin” or “The Doors” if people can only do music maybe an hour or two a night and some weekends because they have at least one full time job.
Instead we will have a million Jonathan Coulton-s producing ok music that appeals to a small niche. Hooray.
I hear this argument a lot: that the ‘old’ music industry was necessary to generate superstar acts like Led Zeppelin or the Doors (two favorites of mine as well).
I don’t believe that by making the music industry more fair for the average musician and allowing them to make a living instead of concentrating all the wealth of the music economy at the top, we somehow make it impossible for new “legendary” acts to emerge.
Certainly a big reason they were superstars is the monumental advertising/marketing money spent on manufacturing its popularity. It’s also a cultural difference — the whole idea of rock stars and musicians as celebrities will need to recede as an economic reality, even as our culture clings to it. Scaling music to this point of popularity required the industry to become essentially corrupt, using payola to buy off radio stations, viciously exploiting artists through unfair contracts, fixing the price of media, etc…. Ultimately I think that’s a good thing that the “old way” of doing things is going away.
But let’s not confuse that promotion machine with the actual music. There is nothing preventing a new Led Zeppelin from writing incredible music. It will be far more difficult to scale that act into a multi-million dollar powerhouse. Who cares? All that means is that an entertainment conglomerate is raking it in. It’s not like Led Zeppelin would discontinue playing music if it wasn’t packing arenas with 20,000 people night after night. They still would have had an extremely dedicated fan base and would still be able to make a healthy living.
I watched something interesting when my friends in a band called Coheed and Cambria went from playing VFW halls to sold-out arenas. At the point which they were making the transition from three- to four-figure attendance venues, a “new breed” of fan showed up. They were clearly distinguishable from the “true fans”. They stood in the back 50% of the venue. Whether they were there for the music was secondary to the fact that they were there for the social aspect. That part is never going away, only the marketing machine that designated Coheed and Cambria the band of the moment.
I can understand how you could take my argument as saying that with free or near-free access to music, there will be less career musicians and more hobby musicians. This is most certainly true, but it does not spell doom because we’re talking proportionally here. If there are more hobby musicians, there will be more good music emerging, which in turn creates new career musicians. With a wider base of musicians in general, economies of scale will recede in favor of niche economies. This is not dwindling the money so much as moving it around to where it’s needed.
Look, when I was 15 I stood in front of the mirror playing guitar thinking I was going to be the next Kurt Cobain (alive, of course). Was that the driving force behind me choosing to spend my life playing music? Of course not! It was because I loved music, loved performing, loved recording and creating. Even if I had some sort of back-of-the-mind idea of being a rock star, most of us are pragmatic enough to realize that has more to do with circumstance and business than musical mastery.
I think the idea that musicians must dedicate 100% of their life to music and nothing else to be great musicians is patently false. Jay-Z is the example I use a lot: he’s clearly an incredibly talented musician, but just as much if not moreso a talented businessman. He may have spent his youth writing rhymes non-stop, but at some point he had to grow up and get a real job to get to the top. If you as a musician not that person, you better have that person on speed-dial, because without them no amount of great music is going to make you a ‘career musician’.
Back in the days of Led Zepplin, there was nothing quite like Led Zepplin. Today, if you’re Skrillex, you may be at the top of the heap, but there are hundreds of other acts that sound like you. Before you’d need a million-dollar studio to sound like Led Zepplin. Today you just need a laptop to sound like Skrillex. Before you’d need a million-dollar ad campaign to sell enough records to recoup your costs. Today, you can go viral on YouTube overnight for free. As a listener, I vastly prefer the world of music in which there is a nearly infinite amount of music to discover, rather than one band monopolizing the attention and money of the scene. As a musician, I vastly prefer the leveled playing field, it provides a much greater incentive for me to make music than a shot-in-the-dark at rock stardom.
None of this means there can’t be another Led Zeppelin. To say so means you’re admitting that the music industry manufactured the popularity of such rock stars (it did). But that’s not to say such popularity it can’t happen organically. We just haven’t had the technology or the connectivity or the audience until now. It certainly happens now in viral flashes. It’s always been hard to sustain a music career against the changing tastes of the masses. Now this is even moreso the case. But Skrillex is as good an example as any that the same rock stardom can happen relatively organically. He may not be your Led Zepplin, but to kids who like dubstep he’s a bona fide rock star.
Rock stars and good music don’t go hand in hand, so who cares if rock stars are more rare as long as good music is in abundance? Yes, there will be on average less time for musicians to pursue their craft if they have to find revenue sources outside of music. But the new paradigm will foster a base of musicians far more populous than ever before, and from that proliferation will come a great new movement of exciting new music from acts big and small.
I think that we agree more than we disagree. Because of this if I don’t specifically mention your point it is because I am in agreement. I am making this clear because people seem to get super hot about this super quick.
Also, unfortunately my primary expertise is literature and art(painting and sculpture), though my personal experience in music validates that.
I am not really interested in rock superstars either. If someone can produce music and have a salary of around $80,000 a year, just off of music then I will consider that enough. As an FYI, I get that number because the average salary in the US is around $50,000 a year so that amount will, in my estimation, be enough that someone will be able to do music around 8 hours a day, five days a week and be able to support themselves comfortably in most areas of the USA.
I will have to disagree in regards to your stance on hobby musicians. Though it is true there are some truly talented individuals that need less training and experience I think that, in almost all fields of endeavor, that experience working to develop one’s art is essential to really get good art.
Some examples. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote around 200 drafts of “The Great Gatsby”. Jackson Pollock worked 15 years to develop the style of painting that he became famous for. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing really took off once he was able to write professionally. I could give more examples from any field you would care to name but I hope you get my point. I think of music as at least as difficult as writing or art and therefore something that, except for rare cases of great or nonexistent potential, can and should be developed. Which is what I, as a listener/reader/viewer, want. I want talent that has been developed and refined over a span of time.
Because I’m a filthy moderate(I know, I bet you didn’t think people like us existed anymore!) I lean towards the idea of a balance between record companies and no support at all. A good example of what I have in mind is the band “Faun”. Faun is a neo-folk/pagan-y group out of Europe that have a pretty solid following in the US and Europe that are signed with a small label which provide them with some support. At the same time they sell their own merch and CDs and their music is available via iTunes(where you can buy singles for 99 cents each). The end result is that the members of the band all do music as their exclusive job and, to be frank, it really shows in the quality of their music.
I am a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule — that you must spend that much time, on average, to truly gain “mastery” of music. Our lo-fi, formulaic music culture doesn’t require such mastery — but the delicate balance of musicianship, songwriting ability, charisma, business sense, networking skill and work ethic it takes to succeed — that a serious time investment.
So I believe full-time musicians are essential. There just aren’t that many of them because we have a monopolized industry that caters to the incumbent elite. The ones that made money in that system now need to adapt pretty quickly, because one of their main revenue streams is drying up. This is not some sort of earth-shaking revelation, it’s obvious to anyone looking to the horizon. Besides, it’s not like this is the first time any industry saw a profit source evaporate due to technology enabling its obsolescence. Nor is it the first time the music industry in particular ducked its head in the sand of entitlement and denial.
Long story short, I see the potential of a new music industry with free or near-free access to music as completely eclipsing the old industry. The superstars and the career musicians will to some degree always be with us, but I think they ought to be marginalized if the payoff is allowing the “average” musician a greater chance to do something extraordinary. Such a system need not exist to the exclusion of superstars and career musicians, but would be enriched by a culture of music making.
Its truly a great challenge, and I’ll admit I’m not particularly passionate about politics or economics (though increasingly I am drawn into these topics, at least specifically their music context). Just saying, I’ve been mulling over how to balance the socialist vs. capitalist aspects of all this, and plenty of far greater minds than I have struggled with that question for a long freakin’ time.
Congratulations on your moderateness. I believe the moderate shall inherit the earth.
Actually, it’s masnick who’s bending the numbers.
Lowery has lost my respect (personally I used to be a huge Cracker fan back in the day) in that he skewed data about Spotify’s payouts (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120622/16193319442/myth-dispensing-whole-spotify-barely-pays-artists-story-is-bunk.shtml and http://www.spotidj.com/spotifyroyalties.htm) and used Emily White as a scapegoat for his aggravation towards piracy even though the only piracy she engaged in was downloading a few songs from Kazaa.
Throughout that entire post, Lowery sounds like a politician. He picks a side (musicians) to rally against the supposed threat of the media pirates. The only difference is that at least some politicians propose ideas to better a situation.
“we need to embrace the inevitability of free or near-free music and work to protect and develop revenue streams for musicians that aren’t directly tied to selling a physical or DRM-protected copy of a recorded work.”
So, here’s the thing about this debate that’s been really bothering me. Perhaps I missed the memo, but the Trichordist article/open letter/whatever was not advocating that you pay for physical or DRM-protected copies of a recorded work–merely that you pay for a copy of it. Every album that I have purchased online in recent years has been DRM-free. iTunes has no DRM. Amazon has no DRM. Bandcamp certainly doesn’t. But FC is framing it as if this is a debate about The Old Record Industry (with its physical CDs) versus the “new paradigm,” which strikes me as a false dichotomy.
I dislike buying albums from iTunes or Amazon, and I don’t like spending hours hunting down a record store that might have the album I want. I think Bandcamp is a great model–artists have the right to charge me whatever they want, they get 85-90 percent of what I give them, and I can stream it as many times as I want before I decide I want to download it.
Unfortunately, not every artist is using Bandcamp or some similar artist-friendly distribution network yet, and I don’t think that I should refuse to pay the artist for their work merely because I think that there is a new paradigm and they need to move with the times. Surely the artist should get some sort of say in this?
I also do not know what the artist’s contract looks like. I don’t know if they’re getting a dollar or ten dollars for the album I buy. I don’t know when they’ll be on tour next, or if I’ll be able to make their show next time they’re in town. And I don’t know the band’s ethical stance on giving their music away for free.
Maybe it’s just me failing to move with the new paradigm or whatever, but I want to respect the artist’s wishes for how to distribute their work. Moreover, I want to pay them for their work if I like it enough to download it. Who am I to decide that the means they’ve chosen for distribution aren’t good enough for me to pay for them?
You guys are too funny… Free Culture’s Epic Fail – If Free is Working, Why Fight Copyright?
http://thetrichordist.com/2013/01/09/free-cultures-epic-fail-if-free-is-working-why-fight-copyright/
Based on reading the title alone: Because copyright created a culture and a market in which free is challenged at every turn, in which free is positioned to fail and succeeds despite copyright. Nothing operates in a vacuum. Do you not acknowledge the well-documented negative effect copyright has had on creativity and innovation?
The implicit claim of the old industry is that without the old compensation model, insufficient new music will be created. This is trivially false. http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics
So you are saying that there is no valid argument against any form of new media at all?
What are some of the “dozens of revenue streams”? Selling T-shirts is not selling recorded music. I love recorded music– I can enjoy it anywhere, anytime. What a fabulous gift. I think musicians should be able to earn money from selling recorded music, and it doesn’t matter how old it is, it’s still their creation, and it’s a fabulous gift to be able to buy and enjoy music recorded decades ago. How do you sustain that if you see digital products as freebies? Digital distribution has greater value– it’s instant, as high-quality as you want, it opens the possibility of vast archives greater than any store could ever hold, and it’s very flexible, supporting multiple media and playback devices. When you move to a subsidy model it de-values the product.
Two examples of this are television and journalism. A kabillion channels and nothing is on…because the programming exists only to sell other stuff. Selling the actual programs is not where the money is. Journalism has crash-landed into the same problem. Once upon a time news publications were both advertiser-supported and subscriber-supported, and there was always tension between advertising and editorial. Having paid subscribers gave editorial some leverage. Now the balance has tipped almost entirely to advertisers, and the result is predictable– keeping advertisers happy is the only purpose of most news publications.
A lot of people handwave “give the recordings away to get people to my concerts.” Again, it’s throwing recorded music under the bus. You talk about scaling– live shows do not scale. They’re expensive, they’re inconvenient, and they’re inconsistent. Musicians are not machines, and have off nights. It’s a little disappointing to go to the trouble and expense of attending a live show on a bad night. Of course sometimes it’s pure magic. But it’s still no more “real” than a digital recording, which allows an artist to reach a many times larger audience with a performance they’re happy with.
The music industry is evil and corrupt, blah blah, no argument here– you’re not presenting a very clear picture of how musicians can make a living directly from their music, other than grinding out their lives on the road.
42 revenue streams: http://money.futureofmusic.org/40-revenue-streams/
Granted some include selling music, but there are plenty of others others.
I’m just so surprised at the number of people who agree with me that the “music industry is evil and corrupt” but then dismiss my argument because it’s “nothing new”. We need something new!
The current music paradigm, based on selling access to music, it awful for the majority of musicians. It benefits a select elite who reach the point where their music can be exploited for corporate profit. Honestly if folks did more research into how musicians actually get paid they’d see how unfairly the current system treats 95% of musicians. Simply because some musicians make livings the old way does not make it better.
Having worked in journalism I understand the issues you’re describing first-hand. I watched dozens of talented people’s careers go down the crapper because they wanted to cling to old business models. By the time they were ready to pivot it was too late. I’m trying to help musicians, listeners and the industry see what is inevitable. I’m ready to discuss new ways of musicians making money, but defending the inevitable future is growing tiresome.
[…] moonlights as a music industry blogger who’s been making waves lately with his article: In Defense of Free Music: A Generational, Ethical High Road Over the Industry’s Corruption and Exp…. Bassist/singer, Paul Heath, keeps busy as well- he’s a painting, illustrating, and designing […]
Hi Zac, thanks for your great letter. I have a few comments:
I wish you hadn’t used the term “consume” in relation to recorded music. It doesn’t apply here.
Minor typo: “Buy then it will be too late” — should be “by”.
Finally, the real issue at hand, the legitimate problem, is the ad-based profiting of sites that control the market online, i.e. YouTube. If we could get everyone to use Archive.org instead, then we’d really take control of things, but YouTube got a head start and has a near monopoly. I fear that what we really need is top-down government regulation of YouTube that gives content providers more control over things like what sort of advertising is shown, or more substantial regulation to minimize the whole monopolistic control that certain entities are gaining over internet access etc.
I’ve worked very hard (for FREE) on my recently-revised overview of all these issues here: http://blog.wolftune.com/2008/06/rational-view-of-copyright.html
And I’d be really grateful if you have a chance to look at that and provide any constructive criticism. You can use any of my content too, it’s all under a CC license!
I hate the term “consume” in relation to recorded music too, I know what you mean and I agree with the sentiment. But it does literally mean “to buy” so I believe it’s appropriate when referring to the actual sale of a product. Also useful to point out that’s the way the industry sees it, and that’s the way the current/dying business model is. I don’t mean to imply that using or listening to music is consumption, only that the transaction is.
I read and enjoyed your copyright article. Your Upton Sinclair quote really nails the negative feedback I’ve been getting: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
You bring up a lot of important points in your article, particularly that we need to protect the wealth of the middle class against corporate hegemony. Of course, that fight is clearly much larger than music.
A lot of folks paint Free Culture with a broad anarchist/socialist brush, but the truth is you and I are just as cognizant as anyone, if not moreso, of the need for profit to play a part in the… er… not “consumption” of music… but there needs to be some sort of value exchange there. The YouTube ad revenue sharing model certainly has its merits, and I think it’s preposterous these services can’t do a better job of tailoring ads to us (though they’re really trying).
In the larger social context of the 99% movement, I think we are rejecting the idea that copyright serves the best interests of musicians and listeners. It is clear to us now that the industry is stifling innovation and not allowing small music business entrepreneurs (a description which bands certainly fit) a chance to succeed, however modestly. It’s this modest-earning middle class we need to regain if we aren’t to slip into all-out nuclear war between the media industry elite and the unwashed masses of music listeners and creators that just want their culture back.
Thanks for this piece Zac. I have been struggling to find the right kind of rebuttal to Lowery’s post, but you did it beautifully. The truth is a hard thing to digest for some.
Thanks for the rebuttal Zac. As a music “consumer” I am learning a lot from reading all these articles, as well as the replies. I have to admit, I am conflicted. Wanting my favorite artist to become very successful, at the same time knowing that if it did happen I would no longer have the access that I have now, with them playing smaller venues and being very fan accessible. I have donated through kickstarter to help one of my favorite bands be able to put out new music, and am waiting anxiously for another artist to offer me the opportunity to help him too, if needed. There are so many VERY hard working artists out there. I know that there are some, that become well known from just one You Tube video going viral, and independent artists that do get radio play, but with the monopoly on even radio stations, is ridiculous. Another way, many have found to help promote a particular artist is to gift the music, whether through itunes, or Amazon. I will do whatever I can to help my favorite bands do as well as they can. Whether it be funding, gifting, or buying eps, or merch.
I like the argument against Lowery. It’s an interesting debate. I haven’t come away from any of the Trichordist stuff thinking he wants a return to the old ways. I think he was pointing out that most of the money is going to the new “Bigs” Amazon, Google, Apple etc. But, they are not sharing any of the costs for producing or manufacturing. And frankly the music biz is still full of that “laundry list of horrendous commercial exploitations.” Dickheads like Kim Dotcom should not be able to operate as freely as he has. It’s just wrong. I think if bands want to provide their music for free, that’s great. That is certainly an effective marketing strategy. But once those bands become established they should have the right to protect their intellectual property. I like your ideas and your spirit. But, Lowery is just making a clear time line of how we got from there to here. And he is suggesting maybe that we need a more equitable arrangement if we are going to have a sustainable, democratic model for the future. In fact, I think you and Lowery are of the same mind about this. He is your friend. You both share a common enemy.
Your article brings up some great points, but I have some disagreements with certain aspects of your argument. I feel like you are presenting an oversimplified and false choice between the “corrupt record industry” and “free culture”. Really, that’s my only choice? By framing your argument like this (and this is continued in your responses to many of the comments here) you are painting people who disagree with you regarding “free culture” as supporter of the old, legitimately flawed and corrupt model. This is simply false.
It is not contradictory to agree with you that the old model was in fact corrupt and bad for most musicians involved and at the same time view “free culture” as just a different sort of bad model as well.
Your optimism is admirable, and I say that in a very genuine way. I agree with much of what you discuss regarding the need to move into a different mindset or be left out to sea. Agreed- it’s frustrating to read many of the articles on The Trichordist for that reason- the ship has sailed. Your assertion that technology has already forced the change, so musicians need to step out of the old mindset is absolutely correct. The old model was terrible, no question about it. But the question remains, does recorded music have value? I’m not referring to a piece of plastic (CD or vinyl), I’m referring to the music itself.
It seems like articles such as yours want musicians to be all sorts of other thing that are really peripheral to the core of what they do. I love music. I make music. I happily buy music, typically vinyl or downloads, I haven’t purchased a CD in a long, long time and won’t be sad when they disappear, there are much better vehicles for recorded music. But, I could honestly care less about seeing live shows these days (I admit that most of that is due to the style of the music I enjoy and the relative scarcity of bands that perform it live so take that with a grain of salt) and I don’t really like wearing band t-shirts (it’s just not my style!). I also don’t want to get involved in special “fan membership” nonsense. I could care less about getting special tweets or exclusive videos from a particular artist because I’m crowdfunding them. I simply want music. I believe the artist should be compensated for what they are supposed to do, which is provide the listener with music to enjoy.
Obviously I’m fully aware that I *may* be in a minority here, but it still begs the question- why are we really pushing aside the actual source of value here, which is the music itself, in favor of these peripheral things? I mean, without good music all the rest is meaningless right? So rather than simply saying, since the old model was corrupt, we need a new model, and that’s going to be musicians selling what is essentially a brand, but the part that’s going to be free is the part that actually provides value for the entire enterprise. I dunno, that’s problematic for me. I want to pay for the music I listen to, period. I’m a fan, and I don’t want the rest of the nonsense. I’m not buying into a brand or an experience. I feel like a push toward that model both elevates musicians above what they really are by making them some sort of all around entertainment-spitting machine, and at the same time it denigrates the actual valuable item they produce, which is the music itself by saying that’s the thing that doesn’t really have any value.
I realize I’m free (pun intended) to purchase things like LP’s from bands and fund them through Bandcamp, both of which I am a strong supporter of (although upfront costs for a short run of vinyl can be prohibitive for some bands), but it’s ultimately up to the artist to determine whether or not to allow their music to be spread across the cloud. This used to be up to the record labels and the RIAA, and now you are saying it’s up to the listeners. I can’t help but point out that in both cases the unethical aspect was that in both the old model and the new model, it seems like the people who should be making the decisions about how their music is treated are conspicuously absent from consideration.
Again though, your article was a great counterpoint to Lowery’s, which unfortunately did come across as a bitter old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn. I don’t think he provides any better model to replace the old record company way either, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way that either of you have proposed.
Personally I’ll be damned if I can think of a good one either, though, so at least both of you are putting fuel for the conversation out there.
Just as a quick follow up since I posted this before reading some of your other articles- you do address a few of my issues in other sections of your site, so, cool. And I realize that I came across as a bit of an old man yelling at kids on his lawn myself, which wasn’t my intention! But even after reading a few of the other articles I think I can distill my waaay overly long post above into one point- I think it’s unfortunate that so many people who have very thoughtful and articulate ideas about the music industry, such as yourself, have just sort of taken it as a given that free music is the way of the future. I can’t help but feel like this point is still a legit point to debate.
Just because there indeed are other ways for musicians to make money that don’t involve profits from recorded music doesn’t mean that that truly is the best direction to go in. Saying something is inevitable doesn’t make it right. I realize that an appropriate response to that is a shrug and a comment to the effect that it’s simply the way it is, and like the Trichordist, I simply need to move on. Totally valid! I don’t have an answer to that, but I still feel like it’s an issue that hasn’t really been settled, and if it had, articles on both sides of the issue wouldn’t generate so much discussion
[…] Shaw moonlights as a music industry blogger who’s been making waves lately with his article In Defense of Free Music: A Generational, Ethical High Road Over the Industry’s Corruption and Exp…. Bassist/singer Paul Heath keeps busy as well. He paints, illustrates and designs under the […]
Hey Zac, thanks for the great letter and I applaud your response to some of the unbelievers of free culture.
I think that the old guard of music industry has given some musicians and artists the false pretense that music is about making money – a means to an end. I am sorely waiting for the day in which that means also becomes the end. I believe the rise of free culture, the internet and digital music technology brings light to the end of a long traveled and dark tunnel in which fat cats gorge on the wealth they have pick-pocketed from people far more talented than them. Look to producers of electronic music for inspiration – they are the ones who produce music primarily because that is what they enjoy doing. There are more types of electronic music now and more producers than there has ever been before and nearly everyday a new member joins their ranks. From my experience as a music journalist it seems these people are the real innovators. They dream up new patterns of sound every day, rapidly adding to the ongoing family tree of music and inspiring others to do so.
A fish rots from the head down, but innovation is built from the ground up.
Hey Zac: We should meet as I’m a Kingston local and passionate about making a decent living in music in the digital age. Kale should hook us up. I’ve always held that the promise of the internet was to bring artists directly to consumers bypassing the middleman and in the early nabster days I was new music ambassador for Fairtunes which became Musiclink. We had a “pay the artist” button you could push in a winamp player for people who were downloading free music and felt the urge to pay the artist something and they could make a Paypal payment of whatever they wanted to Musiclink that would go directly to the artists. The business model of Musiclink sending 75% to the artists was not enough to make the business work and it folded. I had approached Steve Jobs about putting a Musiclink button in the iTunes player which he rejected because they were working on something that would compensate the artists. 6 months later the Itunes Music Store was announced which was a far cry from promise of the internet with sweetheart deals made to the major labels of higher download percentages while indie’s could only get in through an independent onramp like CD Baby and net something like 40 cents on a 99 cent download. What I see missing in your argument (and apologies that I never had a chance to read the article you were responding to) is the basic respect for the value of music creators through paying them that has gone out of existence in the new age. I have made a decent living writing music for tv film and theater only because my forebears were there at the outset of the technologies of radio, film and tv to say “If we are using music we must pay the creator a royalty- duh” (Okay they wouldn’t have said “duh” back then but you get my gist). How do you see us making a just living through our craft? I have some ideas.
Peter, I look forward to meeting you as well. Musiclink sounds really cool, ahead of its time. And you certainly have my respect as a musician making a living — as a musician myself, I know how challenging that can be (even before access to music became free).
I understand why musicians believe that “the basic respect for the value of music creators through paying them has gone out of existence in the new age.” I hear versions of that grievance on an almost daily basis, almost always from someone who has made a living as a professional musician.
I happen to have a different perspective on this. Briefly (for me, anyway):
I see the purpose of creating music as creating social bonds and effecting changes in the individual. I don’t see the purpose of creating music as making money. I don’t think most musicians do. I think if copyright disappeared and everything was public domain and there were laws against musicians making money, great music would still be made.
That said, I do have immense respect for the basic principles of intellectual property law as rooted in moral and personal rights, social and cultural welfare. On a practical level, we can’t look at the purpose of music in a vacuum. People have to live. Cultures need economies in the 21st century or they die. There do need to be certain economic incentives for musicians to protect our rights and sustain our welfare. But I believe these principles have largely been corrupted (like many other things) through the influence of money, and corporate control over music law and technology. This is why I fight for a free culture and freer, fairer access to music. This is why I believe a culture of musician entrepreneurship and direct fan patronage is better than any business model built on exploitation of a copyright.
Will there be less professional musicians? Yes, but there will be many more musicians. Will there be less big, expensive studio albums? Yes, but there will be many more albums. Will fans spend less on average on music than they had in the past? Yes, but there will be more fans. Less indie labels, more boutiques and more diversity. Less booking agents, more direct booking and hence more live music. Paying less for access to music, but accessing it more frequently.
I think the bottom line is that nothing is black and white — but I believe the net benefit is there. We as individuals must group together to do the right thing for social welfare and wrest control over music law and technology from the corporate oligarchies who are running the business of music into the ground. It’s not the fans doing it. It’s not the fans disrespecting the artists. When a fan accesses a musician’s music for free, that’s the ultimate respect. Often, they’re risking being sued for over $100,000 just to listen to one song by your band!
We can also have a less abstract conversation about concrete ways musicians are making money and the business of music is growing. Licensing is booming and opportunities have never been more accessible. Live music is booming and bands are scalping their own tickets. Limited edition physical product like vinyl, T-shirts and posters are booming. Crowdfunding is becoming status quo, tipping is picking up steam. Sponsorships and endorsements are on the rise. Live streaming is blowing up. Apps are blowing up. Fan clubs (with dues) are gaining popularity.
When you look at all the new ways musicians are earning money (and the old ways that we’ve rediscovered), you can see it strongly favors the performer over the composer and recording artist. To me, this is a healthy rebalancing from the days of the recording artist completely dominating music. I think music performance is, in a sense, music at its most essential — after all, that’s what a recording captures and recreates. But it also rewards musicians who look at themselves as brands, businesses and entrepreneurs. It’s that sort of cultural shift that I’m trying to push, so that we can move past this idea that fans are somehow disrespecting artists by wanting to access their music freely. Music is becoming more of a service than a product. We musicians have to understand we’re headed into the service industry, and therefore no longer economically reliant on creative property.
You’re tagline is wrong, because music is not free, unless the copyright owner chooses it to be. That is fact. You should change it to, “We don’t want to pay for music, but we want musicians to keep making it, so we can steal it.” Seriously? If I get lots of people to say “plumbing is free” will that make it free? I don’t think so. Also, you might as well stop blaming “the record industry” because its days are numbered and most bands have given up on it. Many bands have turned to trying to sell direct to fan, but if the fan thinks “music is free” and won’t pay for a legit download, then the really talented musicians are going to find another way to make a living.
You’re confusing music with copyright. Music exists independently of copyright, and copyright grants the owner the right to control the sharing of their songs.
The fact that people are still talking about “stealing” music in 2013 is sad. Comparing music to plumbing is useless.
I understand why you’ve been led to believe that the fan thinks “music is free”, it’s just simply not true. Just because access to music is free doesn’t mean fans don’t value music. It’s the opposite! Study after study has show that fans who access music freely spend more money on the bands they love. Music has more value than ever, and if you don’t see that, you’re not looking in the right direction.
Direct-to-fan is more profitable than copyright exploitation! The average crowdfunding fan spends $25-$50 on an artist’s album, as opposed to major label artists who usually don’t even get paid, even for millions of records sold (see the excellent ‘Artifact’ documentary).
Most bands have given up? There is more music being made than ever before, being listened to with greater depth, diversity and frequency than ever before. Listeners are becoming even more like musicians with remixes, mashups, playlists. It’s a musical renaissance and you’re complaining about fans sharing music for free? Come on.
[…] Zac Shaw of Mediapocalypse has just written one of the best explanations — and justifications — of the Free Culture movement we’ve yet seen: In Defense of Free Music: A Generational, Ethical High Road Over the Industry’s Corruption and…. […]