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Rebutting The Free Music Argument Mar. 28th, 2005 Share on Facebook |
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Before I begin I wanted to say thanks to the dozens of people who have asked "where is your update?" and who also asked "Are you still alive?" I've been going through a lot of stuff in the past several months and have been working some crazy long hours, which eats into the time I would otherwise be spending updating my site. Thanks for your continued patience. I have been asked by several of my friends why it is that I don't want to work for labels or mainstream music marketing companies. After thinking about it for quite some time, the answer is complex, especially in light of recent industry changes. But I got a bit of a spur in my side when I recently read about several things which are going on in the Canadian industry which I'll outline here. I think my feeling isn't one of "I hate the mainstream music industry" (although that would not be difficult to side with.) It's more one of "I fail to understand why the mainstream music industry is still living in the late 90's." This speaks to both technological as well as creative changes in the industry which have taken place over the last several years. The List: The items I'm talking about are:
Regulatory Organizations: In Canada, we have an equivalent organization to pretty much any similar organization in the US. The key difference being that all of ours cater to specifically Canadian talent, copyright law, etc. Our version of the FCC (the Federal Communications Commission) is the CRTC (the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission.) Both of these organizations regulate broadcast limitations and requirements. Likewise, the US has the RIAA (Recording Industry Association) and Canada has the equivalent CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association.) They regulate the methods and laws surrounding the production of recorded music. Pretty much every country has their own versions of these organizations and they all act in approximately the same way. The CRIA And P2P: The CRIA recently posted several articles pertaining to what they call the "Free Music Myth". They talk about the rise of P2P file sharing, how this impacts sales, and how the sales impact in turn affects musicians. The RIAA has long made a similar correlation and published their findings claiming that P2P = starving artist. In the CRIA's article, the following passage caught my eye: People who accuse the music industry of not producing anything new should give some thought to how that impacts on new artists. Think of the bands - and there are many who didn't make it big with their first or second album. Artists and bands need time to flourish, and if their early sales are cannibalized on the internet, they may never get the chance to record the second album.My argument to this statement is that most artists in major label contracts today are literally never nurtured past their first album anyway. Maybe back in 1987 or so you would see an artist get signed, demo an album, release it, tour for it, build towards the second album, maybe have some mild success, etc. But today? Forget about it. Back then the norm was that it was natural for an artist to have a couple albums under their belt before they were expected to "hit it big." Nowadays: an artist isn't even signed anymore unless they can guarantee that they're capable of selling gold or platinum amounts of their first album. This is not something I'm making up, it's a legitimate methodology in most A&R departments today. Labels will meet with artists for months before signing them. They'll set them up with songwriters. The songs they create will be talked about internally and more songwriting and editing will take place. They'll only enter the studio once they have a reasonable amount of hit potential. P2P And Its Alleged Effect On Artists: The stance that the CRIA and the RIAA are taking is that file sharing and music downloads directly hurt artists. I have numerous arguments against that, and in fact: so do most artists. The average artist is mostly happy to have their music heard. The average artist is not usually looking for worldwide success. They mostly want to be able to make a living off their music via whatever means they have at their disposal. If that means giving some of it away (which it always has anyway, thanks to radio promos, instore performances, play copies, etc.) then that's the price they will pay. If it goes really well and they sell lots of copies, it was worth it in the end. But like I said: most artists are happy just to be heard. For that reason I think it's important to make a distinction between what I call "the two industries" but in reality is more like "the several industries." One industry is the "traditional" major label industry. The other (which is broader and multifacted) is the independent industry. I know I'm probably preaching to the converted but the indie industry stands to greatly benefit from file sharing in its numerous forms. Here's an example I tend to use a lot. Let's say that there's an artist named John, and John has been playing coffee houses lately. He's met with lots of positive response and managed to sell copies of a CD he made himself at home and burned for people to purchase. He sells these CD's for something like $8 let's say. In this mode: John stands to make a fixed rate per show at the coffee house (not huge but enough to make it worth his while) plus he gets - himself - $8 per cd that he sells, since he made it himself. It can look pretty good since printers are of reasonably good quality these days, and the CD can sound pretty good also if he's paired up with the right ears and assistants (or if he's decent at recording himself.) So let's say that a major label gets wind of his burgeoning success and signs him (or at least he agrees to do so after a lot of discussion.) Label maybe sends him across the country on a "Starbucks Tour", playing numerous coffee houses. Same result is seen in numerous cities. Label records a CD for him which he now owes to the label. He can sell a limited amount of those CD's and they're probably now $12 at his coffee house gigs, $18 at your local CD store (Tower, HMV, etc.) John makes a measly $0.50 from this new CD, all of which he very likely now owes back to the label. (At least until it makes the money back that the label put into it.) John makes less from the ones he sells at his coffee house shows. He's expending a huge amount of effort travelling all these miles to fulfill the tour, and he makes next to no money while doing so. The label pays for his cross-country tour, as well as the promotion of that tour. John owes the label thousands of dollars for this, because that's what he agreed to. Using P2P For Good: Now, there are two frames of mind at work here. One says that John could have made a decent living (or at the very least a good hobby) out of making his own CD's and playing coffee houses in his own city. That doing so would organically lead to somewhat larger shows, maybe a more elaborate recording, maybe the formation of a group to augment the performance. etc. This situation by its very nature means that John is his own label and production company. John could do this for a while and continue to have what most would consider a respectable music career. The other mindset says that John should be more ambitious and reach out to a wider and wider audience. That John would be considered a chump if he stays in his own city or region and wants to make his music himself and sell to his own little devoted audience. It further says that John could stand to make millions off his art if he goes for the bigger deal and the national exposure. I get the feeling lately that whenever possible and at all costs: the independent route is the one I think I would choose from now on. This past few years is the first time in my life that I've felt that way about it. My point here is this: In situation 1: John stands to gain, gain, gain from file sharing. He could even start the process himself. He could eventually track back the response if he decided to record some songs specifically for the purposes of P2P download. He might start seeing requests for these specific songs. He could then decide to stagger the recording efforts (since it's his baby) and make different versions of songs specifically for download purposes down the road. He might have numerous arrangements or mixes of one song, or live versions, and people would likely be asking for one or more of those. Additionally: John wouldn't have to create a set number of songs in any given time period. He could do one at a time and release them virtually instantaneously if he wanted to. This is a form of industry that supports the creative aspect much more than the fiscal one, but it can (if it's done correctly or innovatively enough) lead to a fiscal reward. I buy John's CD: he gets $8. And it's his. Or better yet: I don't buy John's CD but I see him live: he gets my money when I see him live. And when I buy his T-shirt, etc. And it's far far more than he would ever see if he were signed to the major label. That the recording industry continues to word the issue of file sharing in terms of it "hurting the artist" is baffling to me, since the major labels tend to do the most damage in terms of hurting artists. Labels will drop artists once they've failed to reach a certain sales plateau. They'll drop them even if their first album never gets released, and worse still: the label will own those recordings. The artist will not be able to do anything with those recordings. Additionally, the RIAA / CRIA are not there for the artists: they exist to represent record labels, period. Witness Fiona Apple, whose latest opus (Extraordinary Machine) is, as we speak, sitting on a shelf somewhere at Sony Music, awaiting some as-yet-undisclosed release date. It's been considered "completed" for two years now by Apple and her producer. Her fanbase has actually started a petition to please release this album. Ms. Apple is unfortunately between a rock and a hard place since the recording is not actually "hers", but is actually the property of Sony Music. This must be an extremely frustrating turn of events. I think that if I were in her situation I might even start writing my next album with the idea of it being so bad as to be dropped from Sony music, then write my next "real" album, which I would own, and distribute, and play live. Keeping in mind that Fiona Apple is not in the 10-million-selling club which Sony very much wishes to have all their artists in, and it begins to become clear that much more of her career is in her control if she leaves Sony rather than staying put. It's hypothetical but it could happen. P2P's Actual Effect: Here is my list of which elements which P2P file sharing does adversely affect.
Having said all of that: labels continue to follow the exact same practices they always have in terms of how they sign artists, how they record CD's, how they schedule singles hitting radio, and their overall marketing practices. If we take into account that major labels spend, on average, $80,000 - $100,000 for a typical music video, and that they also spend something in that range for the recording and mixing of a typical CD recording, you would think that no great event had shaken anything up. Most so-called music TV stations in the US don't even play videos anymore. (I read recently that Fuse TV - formerly MuchMusic US, a Canadian venture no less) was perceived to be a "breath of fresh air" simply because they actually play videos instead of game shows or reality TV shows.) I typically think of the average musician nowadays as being in one of those two camps, albeit very broadly. Not all artists wish to be playing in front of millions of people. Not all artists are gunning for chart success. Many artists would likely prefer that they could just make a living from their music, and have it be heard and appreciated by a loyal following, no matter what the size. The major label industry, in my opinion, no longer addresses these musicians. Regulation Of Content: Where the CRTC and the CRIA enter into this particular rant is when someone like our fictional artist John gets really excited about an existing US service like, say, Sirius or XM Radio (satellite radio) or in the UK: the BBC, which has more digital listeners than traditional radio listeners. Very quickly, John will discover that there is no plan in place in Canada to address either of these options. At least not without substantially making it suck in comparison to either of those examples. John would be forced to pitch his music solely to US-based stations, foregoing completely any hope of being heard in a Canadian version of these outlets. John's only real option for radio exposure is to be on a major label, promoted to a major radio station, period. Which means John has to foresake his existing creative mode and alter it in the hopes of selling millions of CD's and playing to tens of thousands of people at a time. he goes from writing his own music to writing "hits". That's if he hopes to play ball. The CRTC has a mandate that a certain percentage of the content being broadcast on any outlet consist of Canadian-produced artists, producers, songwriters, etc. In the case of recent hearings about Sirius / XM equivalents, they further mandated that a certain percentage of stations consist solely of Canadian content before they would even consider it as a viable broadcast outlet for consumers. This is ridiculous when you look at the numbers. In the US, Sirius boasts "over 120 channels" of content ranging from all-reggae to comedy to talk to indie / unsigned music, and on and on and on. Canada just does not have that kind of infrastructure in place. The main reason someone like yours truly would be interested in something like Sirius or XM is specifically because of those 120 channels. If it met the CRTC's requirements, we'd get a fraction of those US stations, with a comparitive number of quickly-created Canadian channels just to flesh it out. Ironically: this is what the existing digital cable landscape looks like today. Take a guess how many of these stations have a viewership anywhere near what they need to have to be successful. Take another guess how many people I know who watch any of these CanCon stations. Thanks, CRTC, for homogenizing and dumbing down our content in the name of national pride. My digital cable channel list features ersatz versions of MTV (MTV Canada), Discovery (Discovery Canada, which exists on regular cable as well,) The History Channel (History Canada, which is nowhere near the quality of the US version) and on from there. Instead of allowing HBO to exist in Canada, they instead allow several different broadcasters (notably Showcase, a "cutting edge" Canadian drama station) to pick and choose specific shows. We didn't get the Sopranos until it was well into its fifth season. Six Feet Under was on its third season by the time it was finally picked up by Showcase. Nobody in Canada is showing Deadwood, arguably the most talked-about HBO show since Sex In The City. All because a group of 75-year old regulators don't feel that a comparitive Canadian show was already in place. (ie: you can't have one without the other.) In the case of the History Channel, pretty much every time I turn it on they're playing stuff like "The Sound Of Music" (since it obviously touches on the historical aspects of Naziism in Germany during WWII) or more recently "The Birdman of Alcatraz" (I can think of no historical perspective on why this would be playing on the History channel.) Note that both of those are not Canadian productions. Why on earth do they appear on this channel?! I, as a taxpaying Canadian citizen and consumer of entertainment goods and services, demand better from the regulators of my media. By all means they should be promoting Canadian productions and Canadian talent. By all means it's in their best interests to ensure that someone growing up in Canada feels that they too can contribute to the process of creating entertainment which can compete with any entertainment product in the world. But how is showing the Sound of Music on the freakin' History channel going to instill this sentiment in the creative citizens of Canada? How is limiting the number of choices we have available to us going to inspire anyone to create the most compelling content they can possibly do? It won't, is my answer. What will acheive this is not further regulation. The answer may or may not be better funding for the arts in general, which on its own is a very lengthy argument. Not just via the government either. If I'm an independently wealthy person who wants to invest in a musician, I'll do it if I think they'll do well in the US. Period. Why would I care about Canadian radio with it's extremely limited range of genre choices? Not to mention the monopoly of ownership of stations. ClearChannel is facing similar accusations in the US, but at least the US used to have a huge amount of variety before ClearChannel decided they should own it all and change it to fit their weirdly evil plan of playing the same seven songs over and over again, in every city in America. A Semi-Conclusion: I have meandered again so I think I'll wrap it up for now. This series of conversation topics, if it comes up in Canada, is often hotly debated. One side is fiercly devoted to maintaining how things work in Canada. "We need to maintain our culture." I understand that. I just don't think the way things work right now will ever fulfill that. If anything it makes the content more homogenized, more the same, more boring. Nobody will feel the need to excel if they know that all they have to do is fulfill a percentage of Canadian content. Canada's TV and Film awards, The Genies, were just broadcast last week. I don't know anyone outside of Canada who's even heard of the Genies. For that matter: I don't know anyone in Canada who knew what they were, or which films were nominated, or why it was being broadcast at all. This is a horrendous situation for this country's culture. Especially in a city like Toronto, which now has one of the world's most renowned international film festivals, plays host to numerous US productions, and is host to a growing majority of film post production and studio facilities for other countries. We should be producing more content to compete in the international market. After 30+ years of the CRTC and the CRIA: I do not see it increasing either in volume or quality. If I were an artist and I knew my music had the potential of being directly marketed and compared alongside The Strokes, or The Libertines, or Björk, or Madonna, instead of merely Canadian versions thereof, I'd be much more interested in pursuing more creative avenues to do so. I'm not saying that that part of the equation doesn't exist, just that it is not the one that our regulators feel that you should follow. This conversation likely also applies to the likes of Australia, or the UK, or any non-American country. As always I welcome your feedback. |
