I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
Why? It's not like budding musicians haven't gained anything. The barrier to entry is effectively zero now. You can be a kid in San Diego recording bedroom tracks one day, and a couple of months later be a buzz worthy band called Wavves. You can control your music however you see fit, and you have a multitude of digital options to advertise and distribute your music on. But there's no real support system either, which is why many bands are forced to relentlessly tour, and why many new indie bands will have a very public meltdown halfway through their first or second one.
a low barrier to entry to a career with limited opportunities for monetization and a fairly low ceiling. i guess wedding bands and other giggers will probably continue to do fine.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
boston has a fairly vibrant music scene for a city its size. probably in part because of the sheer number of music schools in the area, there's a lots of original work, lots of venues, lots of bands. however, very very few of them ever "hit the big time" and get famous outside boston. most play in an amateur capacity with their pals in their 20s while holding down day jobs, then kind of give up when life starts ratcheting up the demands.
and, you know, that's probably okay. i've seen some great local acts and can walk a few blocks from my house any night of the week to see a new one. that's a fine music market as far as i (a casual music consumer) is concerned. it's not so bad!
and i believe that is basically the kind of market that we'd see without national-scope music industry supported by IP monetization & mass-marketing etc.
maybe that's okay, but it would represent a big shift.
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
Why? It's not like budding musicians haven't gained anything. The barrier to entry is effectively zero now. You can be a kid in San Diego recording bedroom tracks one day, and a couple of months later be a buzz worthy band called Wavves. You can control your music however you see fit, and you have a multitude of digital options to advertise and distribute your music on. But there's no real support system either, which is why many bands are forced to relentlessly tour, and why many new indie bands will have a very public meltdown halfway through their first or second one.
A low barrier to entry also has a downside in that now every doucher with an acoustic guitar and a shitty USB mic can post their songs to SoundCloud. The traditional system filters music through a variety of (biased, imperfect, only human) gatekeepers that function as a clumsy quality control. With more creators comes a much lower signal to noise ratio as far as quality is concerned, and it becomes much, much less likely that an artist of quality will capture the audience needed to go anywhere. Combined with limited monetization and a high time commitment to become a skilled musician, and you've got a recipe for a truly talented musician to just say "fuck it, I'm going to go get an engineering degree instead".
T. Swift thinks that giving her music away for free devalues the music in the eyes of her consumers. That's a fair opinion. But someone like Lil B gives 95% of his music away for free anyway. Or any number of other musicians who have their discographies up on Bandcamp and Soundcloud, free to stream anytime. I'm sure if you'd ask them, they'd say the extra exposure is more valuable than the income they'd get by hiding their music behind a paywall. The idea that an audio recording has an inherent value that must be respected is a little ridiculous.
Can I be an old man now and say music kinda sucks today?
It's like games. It's mostly shitty indie games that are pretty okay, I guess, and bland AAA titles most of which I ignore.
Music is much the same. Whereas it feels like fifteen years ago there were a ton of legit AAA titles across all genres, such that no matter my tastes I had a wide array of polished, high quality options. In both games and music.
To be fair to Pink Floyd though, they actually released albums, and any time I, and a lot of fans, listen to them, it's full album or nothing.
Indeed, but to me their stance is tantamount to Melville insisting I must read the chapter on cetology to fully enjoy Moby Dick. It's pompous to try and tell people how to consume your art. But it doesn't stop Floyd from insisting on it, and coming off like bitter old fogies when they do. To me what they're really saying is that they are a strong enough force in the industry that they don't need to sell singles and can force people to buy albums. Which inevitably leads us into a discussion over privilege and whether the few acts that were able to get rich in the system are being fair to every other failed artist who didn't when they preach about the value of music while insisting on selling it in specific ways.
with limited opportunities for monetization and a fairly low ceiling
Limited opportunities how? You can monetize anything now, and you can make your stuff fairly cheap. Tape releases, specialty vinyl, etc. Ultimately in today's world, you have to tour your ass off, but if you do the work there, I'm not sure there's a limit to how far you can take it. The other route is to become a hot producer, someone like Blood Diamonds, and probably pretty soon here Saint Pepsi. I'd argue you have way more opportunities now than you would have with a big label, who you signed on with and basically hoped to high hell didn't leave you high and dry in the marketing department.
T. Swift thinks that giving her music away for free devalues the music in the eyes of her consumers. That's a fair opinion. But someone like Lil B gives 95% of his music away for free anyway. Or any number of other musicians who have their discographies up on Bandcamp and Soundcloud, free to stream anytime. I'm sure if you'd ask them, they'd say the extra exposure is more valuable than the income they'd get by hiding their music behind a paywall. The idea that an audio recording has an inherent value that must be respected is a little ridiculous.
Inherent? No. But value? Yeah, not ridiculous at all.
A low barrier to entry also has a downside in that now every doucher with an acoustic guitar and a shitty USB mic can post their songs to SoundCloud
Yeah, but I don't mind that so much. More often than not you can find some downright amazing shit. As to artists of quality being lost in the noise, I just don't buy that. I think the great music will still rise to the top, though it may take awhile. It's worthwhile to point out though that my DIY aesthetic completely falls apart when it comes to the industry of people who make contemporary POP music. That is a different animal all together, and one of the only places I think big labels are valuable. But I would also argue that that industry isn't about making the individual artists rich, if anything the artists are practically replaceable. So much so that often they are abused by it, look at that awful lawsuit Kesha has against what Dr. Luke allegedly did to her.
A low barrier to entry also has a downside in that now every doucher with an acoustic guitar and a shitty USB mic can post their songs to SoundCloud
Yeah, but I don't mind that so much. More often than not you can find some downright amazing shit. As to artists of quality being lost in the noise, I just don't buy that. I think the great music will still rise to the top, though it may take awhile. It's worthwhile to point out though that my DIY aesthetic completely falls apart when it comes to the industry of people who make contemporary POP music. That is a different animal all together, and one of the only places I think big labels are valuable. But I would also argue that that industry isn't about making the individual artists rich, if anything the artists are practically replaceable. So much so that often they are abused by it, look at that awful lawsuit Kesha has against what Dr. Luke allegedly did to her.
Oh, pop music is a different and much uglier beast. You are correct about that. And while you and I may be willing to wade through the crap, most people who aren't diehard music people won't. There simply aren't enough diehards to generate the income necessary for an artist to not starve and pay the bills in the current system. Doubly so if you play music in a genre outside the mainstream.
boston has a fairly vibrant music scene for a city its size. probably in part because of the sheer number of music schools in the area, there's a lots of original work, lots of venues, lots of bands. however, very very few of them ever "hit the big time" and get famous outside boston. most play in an amateur capacity with their pals in their 20s while holding down day jobs, then kind of give up when life starts ratcheting up the demands.
and, you know, that's probably okay. i've seen some great local acts and can walk a few blocks from my house any night of the week to see a new one. that's a fine music market as far as i (a casual music consumer) is concerned. it's not so bad!
and i believe that is basically the kind of market that we'd see without national-scope music industry supported by IP monetization & mass-marketing etc.
maybe that's okay, but it would represent a big shift.
It's neither okay nor bad. Well, I guess I can render a moral judgement on it, like I disapprove of it being windy as I leave the house in the morning but that's a futile and empty gesture.
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
I think this view of the past is a little rosy. Yes, an individual album commanded a higher price in the 90s than it did now. However, getting that album on the market required going into business with a predatory record company who would force you to sign the contract from hell. Taylor Swift in the old days wouldn't be able to make financial decisions like this, because she wouldn't even have owned the rights to her own work. An unproven artist would have have had to sign away almost everything to get a contract, so that even if they were a success the record company would take the vast majority of the profits.
Now, artists have begun to own their work, and they have the tools to build an audience of fans who can pay them in a variety of ways. Sure, there's more competition, but despite that I think the landscape is better for starting artists than its been in a long time. It's easy to forget all of the shitty things that used to happen to the little guy when everything had to get approved by a large company in order to be distributed to the masses.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
I think this view of the past is a little rosy. Yes, an individual album commanded a higher price in the 90s than it did now. However, getting that album on the market required going into business with a predatory record company who would force you to sign the contract from hell. Taylor Swift in the old days wouldn't be able to make financial decisions like this, because she wouldn't even have owned the rights to her own work. An unproven artist would have have had to sign away almost everything to get a contract, so that even if they were a success the record company would take the vast majority of the profits.
Now, artists have begun to own their work, and they have the tools to build an audience of fans who can pay them in a variety of ways. Sure, there's more competition, but despite that I think the landscape is better for starting artists than its been in a long time. It's easy to forget all of the shitty things that used to happen to the little guy when everything had to get approved by a large company in order to be distributed to the masses.
if it were just the big producers going away then i'd probably agree
but this coupled with the combination of rampant piracy, diminished capacity to protect ip and ubiquity of small-fry free streaming services makes it hard to see where a musician is going to be able to draw a decent livelihood, long-term.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
I disagree.
I don't think you're crazy, but I think that if we examine the logic required to demonstrate that there is importance to that concept that we're probably going to run into some weird consequences or maxims that are divorced from their consequences.
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
I think this view of the past is a little rosy. Yes, an individual album commanded a higher price in the 90s than it did now. However, getting that album on the market required going into business with a predatory record company who would force you to sign the contract from hell. Taylor Swift in the old days wouldn't be able to make financial decisions like this, because she wouldn't even have owned the rights to her own work. An unproven artist would have have had to sign away almost everything to get a contract, so that even if they were a success the record company would take the vast majority of the profits.
Now, artists have begun to own their work, and they have the tools to build an audience of fans who can pay them in a variety of ways. Sure, there's more competition, but despite that I think the landscape is better for starting artists than its been in a long time. It's easy to forget all of the shitty things that used to happen to the little guy when everything had to get approved by a large company in order to be distributed to the masses.
if it were just the big producers going away then i'd probably agree
but this coupled with the combination of rampant piracy, diminished capacity to protect ip and ubiquity of small-fry free streaming services makes it hard to see where a musician is going to be able to draw a decent livelihood, long-term.
Can you explain why only musicians are entitled to those things if they're competing in an over saturated market? I'd wager not. And that your issue isn't with the treatment of artists but rather with how we treat people who can't make enough money to support themselves.
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
I think this view of the past is a little rosy. Yes, an individual album commanded a higher price in the 90s than it did now. However, getting that album on the market required going into business with a predatory record company who would force you to sign the contract from hell. Taylor Swift in the old days wouldn't be able to make financial decisions like this, because she wouldn't even have owned the rights to her own work. An unproven artist would have have had to sign away almost everything to get a contract, so that even if they were a success the record company would take the vast majority of the profits.
Now, artists have begun to own their work, and they have the tools to build an audience of fans who can pay them in a variety of ways. Sure, there's more competition, but despite that I think the landscape is better for starting artists than its been in a long time. It's easy to forget all of the shitty things that used to happen to the little guy when everything had to get approved by a large company in order to be distributed to the masses.
if it were just the big producers going away then i'd probably agree
but this coupled with the combination of rampant piracy, diminished capacity to protect ip and ubiquity of small-fry free streaming services makes it hard to see where a musician is going to be able to draw a decent livelihood, long-term.
Can you explain why only musicians are entitled to those things if they're competing in an over saturated market? I'd wager not. And that your issue isn't with the treatment of artists but rather with how we treat people who can't make enough money to support themselves.
So many issues would be solved with a guaranteed living wage.
3DS: 0963-0539-4405
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
I think this view of the past is a little rosy. Yes, an individual album commanded a higher price in the 90s than it did now. However, getting that album on the market required going into business with a predatory record company who would force you to sign the contract from hell. Taylor Swift in the old days wouldn't be able to make financial decisions like this, because she wouldn't even have owned the rights to her own work. An unproven artist would have have had to sign away almost everything to get a contract, so that even if they were a success the record company would take the vast majority of the profits.
Now, artists have begun to own their work, and they have the tools to build an audience of fans who can pay them in a variety of ways. Sure, there's more competition, but despite that I think the landscape is better for starting artists than its been in a long time. It's easy to forget all of the shitty things that used to happen to the little guy when everything had to get approved by a large company in order to be distributed to the masses.
if it were just the big producers going away then i'd probably agree
but this coupled with the combination of rampant piracy, diminished capacity to protect ip and ubiquity of small-fry free streaming services makes it hard to see where a musician is going to be able to draw a decent livelihood, long-term.
Can you explain why only musicians are entitled to those things if they're competing in an over saturated market? I'd wager not. And that your issue isn't with the treatment of artists but rather with how we treat people who can't make enough money to support themselves.
i'm not talking about competing in an oversaturated market, i'm talking about the market (money for creative content/ IP) just not really existing anymore.
i think probably we're talking about two different things.
but sure if the market is bar giggers or wedding singers i don't think that they're owed a livelihood for making music if there isn't public demand for it.
I guess maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like the idea of paying specifically for a discrete product is an important concept, and one that is dying in media.
For the person producing a work, that seems problematic.
In music it was a concept that had a healthy life between 1948 and 2002, but it was made and broken by technology. It's not some law of nature. Court jesters existed for longer than that. I hear a lot of hankering for the days when the musician could distill their output into a named whole that is then sold for the equivalent of $20 of my current earth monies. It seems to be aimed and me and mcdermotts of the world. People for whom this album held some status, and was a big deal, and they used to buy it. The argument is being made by people similarly aged, but there's this whole horde coming up after us who aren't us, didn't have that, and don't give a fuck. We barely give a fuck.
i certainly don't envy musicians in this brave new world.
I think this view of the past is a little rosy. Yes, an individual album commanded a higher price in the 90s than it did now. However, getting that album on the market required going into business with a predatory record company who would force you to sign the contract from hell. Taylor Swift in the old days wouldn't be able to make financial decisions like this, because she wouldn't even have owned the rights to her own work. An unproven artist would have have had to sign away almost everything to get a contract, so that even if they were a success the record company would take the vast majority of the profits.
Now, artists have begun to own their work, and they have the tools to build an audience of fans who can pay them in a variety of ways. Sure, there's more competition, but despite that I think the landscape is better for starting artists than its been in a long time. It's easy to forget all of the shitty things that used to happen to the little guy when everything had to get approved by a large company in order to be distributed to the masses.
if it were just the big producers going away then i'd probably agree
but this coupled with the combination of rampant piracy, diminished capacity to protect ip and ubiquity of small-fry free streaming services makes it hard to see where a musician is going to be able to draw a decent livelihood, long-term.
Can you explain why only musicians are entitled to those things if they're competing in an over saturated market? I'd wager not. And that your issue isn't with the treatment of artists but rather with how we treat people who can't make enough money to support themselves.
i'm not talking about competing in an oversaturated market, i'm talking about the market (money for creative content/ IP) just not really existing anymore.
i think probably we're talking about two different things.
but sure if the market is bar giggers or wedding singers i don't think that they're owed a livelihood for making music if there isn't public demand for it.
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
So what if fewer people, ultimately, can't support themselves solely by being musicians if the outcome is more music that's more diverse for even more people? Do you believe a person is entitled to being an independent artist full time?
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
So what if fewer people, ultimately, can't support themselves solely by being musicians if the outcome is more music that's more diverse for even more people? Do you believe a person is entitled to being an independent artist full time?
There are good arguments to be made that independent, full-time artists make more and better music than people who have to work a day job (and self-promote and do all the other tasks you have to do now). It's not about what artists are entitled to, it's about the public setting up an environment that will encourage the most, best music.
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
So what if fewer people, ultimately, can't support themselves solely by being musicians if the outcome is more music that's more diverse for even more people? Do you believe a person is entitled to being an independent artist full time?
There are good arguments to be made that independent, full-time artists make more and better music than people who have to work a day job (and self-promote and do all the other tasks you have to do now). It's not about what artists are entitled to, it's about the public setting up an environment that will encourage the most, best music.
And those artists will still exist. They've existed for centuries and will continue to. Only now next to them we have a wealth of people who can work a part time job and make music that full time artists aren't making because it's too risky or obscure. So I'm still not seeing the issue when more music is made by more people.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
So what if fewer people, ultimately, can't support themselves solely by being musicians if the outcome is more music that's more diverse for even more people? Do you believe a person is entitled to being an independent artist full time?
There are good arguments to be made that independent, full-time artists make more and better music than people who have to work a day job (and self-promote and do all the other tasks you have to do now). It's not about what artists are entitled to, it's about the public setting up an environment that will encourage the most, best music.
And those artists will still exist. They've existed for centuries and will continue to. Only now next to them we have a wealth of people who can work a part time job and make music that full time artists aren't making because it's too risky or obscure. So I'm still not seeing the issue when more music is made by more people.
Let's say there are 1000 musicians. The top 100 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time.
Now add 9000 musicians. You have 10,000 total. But only the top 50 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time, because many of the people that used to buy the other 50's stuff were satisfied with 9000 free niche/amateur musicians' work. The result is that there is a lot more music, but less "great" music overall.
(The solution to this scenario is not "get those 9000 people out of music", it's "how can we provide an income to more than 50 of them?")
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
So what if fewer people, ultimately, can't support themselves solely by being musicians if the outcome is more music that's more diverse for even more people? Do you believe a person is entitled to being an independent artist full time?
There are good arguments to be made that independent, full-time artists make more and better music than people who have to work a day job (and self-promote and do all the other tasks you have to do now). It's not about what artists are entitled to, it's about the public setting up an environment that will encourage the most, best music.
And those artists will still exist. They've existed for centuries and will continue to. Only now next to them we have a wealth of people who can work a part time job and make music that full time artists aren't making because it's too risky or obscure. So I'm still not seeing the issue when more music is made by more people.
Let's say there are 1000 musicians. The top 100 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time.
Now add 9000 musicians. You have 10,000 total. But only the top 50 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time, because many of the people that used to buy the other 50's stuff were satisfied with 9000 free niche/amateur musicians' work. The result is that there is a lot more music, but less "great" music overall.
(The solution to this scenario is not "get those 9000 people out of music", it's "how can we provide an income to more than 50 of them?")
Your issue isn't with the treatment of artists but rather with how we treat people who can't make enough money to support themselves.
Also your last statement is ludicrously subjective.
Why must we provide them with an income? If they are making music worth while, people will pay. Idk why musicians are a magical job divorced from market influence.
you could make the argument that artists of any kind shouldn't have to worry about market influence, because there isn't necessarily any overlap between what the market wants and what's a worthwhile contribution to human culture
i don't really know what a good solution to this would be, but it's worth considering. maybe it's an argument in favor of guaranteed basic income, so an artist won't have to support themself with non-art and also not have to worry about fickle public tastes
you could make the argument that artists of any kind shouldn't have to worry about market influence, because there isn't necessarily any overlap between what the market wants and what's a worthwhile contribution to human culture
i don't really know what a good solution to this would be, but it's worth considering. maybe it's an argument in favor of guaranteed basic income, so an artist won't have to support themself with non-art and also not have to worry about fickle public tastes
And this is something I'm absolutely for. If a person wants to be an artist they should have all the basic necessities and occasional luxuries any other hard working person enjoys. But I feel the same way about any person ever, not just artists.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited November 2014
I am feeling like there's a lot of conflation between the current system and money for creative content, mass market music and musical celebrities.
I would suggest that given the way markets work and given that people don't seem to be getting sick of music that any position that rests on "This is the only way that will produce the works I think are valuable to the degree I want" seems unlikely to be true. "The death of the current system = the death of me getting what I want" doesn't strike me as obvious on its face - it seems likely that there are other systems, though they may be better or worse.
Edit: the teal dear is: criticism of the current system is not being anti art or artist
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
So what if fewer people, ultimately, can't support themselves solely by being musicians if the outcome is more music that's more diverse for even more people? Do you believe a person is entitled to being an independent artist full time?
There are good arguments to be made that independent, full-time artists make more and better music than people who have to work a day job (and self-promote and do all the other tasks you have to do now). It's not about what artists are entitled to, it's about the public setting up an environment that will encourage the most, best music.
And those artists will still exist. They've existed for centuries and will continue to. Only now next to them we have a wealth of people who can work a part time job and make music that full time artists aren't making because it's too risky or obscure. So I'm still not seeing the issue when more music is made by more people.
Let's say there are 1000 musicians. The top 100 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time.
Now add 9000 musicians. You have 10,000 total. But only the top 50 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time, because many of the people that used to buy the other 50's stuff were satisfied with 9000 free niche/amateur musicians' work. The result is that there is a lot more music, but less "great" music overall.
(The solution to this scenario is not "get those 9000 people out of music", it's "how can we provide an income to more than 50 of them?")
I have three observations:
Firstly, you've expressed this is terms do "able to make a living and music full time" which already removes it from the frame of reference with which this thread began as the real world analogues to your top X make vastly, vastly I excess of a living wage.
The current systems don't reward great content, interesting content or artistically important content if you take a more objective, more technical definition of the word "great" or if you prefer, if you take critical historical perspective. Twilight outsells Tree of Life. Nickelback outsells ...I dunno Captain Beefheart*.
What is great is in another sense, entirely subjective - if we take "great" to mean "things I find satisfying and wish there were more of". I prefer Taylor Swift to the Beatles. Buckethead to Hendrix. Industrial, chip tunes and witch house to everything. I don't think I'd hesitate to press a button to erase The Beatles if it would give me another band of the kind I do like. In that sense, it's not even clear what is being argued. Certainly the current evidence would indicate that from my perspective my needs are served entirely by people who do music as a side project (I doubt most of them would have sufficient market presence to gather any significant revenues from sales alone).
* I have no idea what good examples would be because as will be seen my tastes are rather idiosyncratic and distort my ability to judge and general awareness.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I mean, can I become an artist tomorrow and have society pay me for my terrible efforts? I don't think anyone here would say that is ideal.
Providing artists a loving for making are assume we have a fool proof way of determining which artists will produce worthwhile art.
Thought experiment: the government establishes its own Spotify. Spotify.gov is freely available to any citizen user, can be joined and uploaded to by any citizen musician, and is supported by taxes. As with Spotify, Spotify.gov pays out to musicians on a per-play basis. Unlike Spotify, Spotify.gov pays enough so that more of the top musicians can earn a living--say, the top 20% most popular rather than the top 5%.
There might be problems with such a system, but it would improve the lot of musicians while not granting a minimum living wage to any jackass who picks up a guitar and claims to be a musician.
(Note: I'm for a living wage for everybody, but I consider that way more of a pipe dream than "Maybe we change the way IP works" or "Maybe we add price controls to streaming music services" or "Maybe the NEA expands its mandate and budget" or other solutions more specifically applicable to this actual situation, industry, and thread.)
I mean, can I become an artist tomorrow and have society pay me for my terrible efforts? I don't think anyone here would say that is ideal.
Providing artists a loving for making are assume we have a fool proof way of determining which artists will produce worthwhile art.
the idea was to give everyone a living wage, because it's the humane thing to do in a civilization where there just plain is not enough work for everyone, which has the nifty side effect of allowing artistically-inclined folks to work on their art fulltime
it's a society-wide thing, not a shitty local punk rock band saying "we're artists, so now you have to pay for our beer and weed"
I mean, can I become an artist tomorrow and have society pay me for my terrible efforts? I don't think anyone here would say that is ideal.
Providing artists a loving for making are assume we have a fool proof way of determining which artists will produce worthwhile art.
Thought experiment: the government establishes its own Spotify. Spotify.gov is freely available to any citizen user, can be joined and uploaded to by any citizen musician, and is supported by taxes. As with Spotify, Spotify.gov pays out to musicians on a per-play basis. Unlike Spotify, Spotify.gov pays enough so that more of the top musicians can earn a living--say, the top 20% most popular rather than the top 5%.
There might be problems with such a system, but it would improve the lot of musicians while not granting a minimum living wage to any jackass who picks up a guitar and claims to be a musician.
(Note: I'm for a living wage for everybody, but I consider that way more of a pipe dream than "Maybe we change the way IP works" or "Maybe we add price controls to streaming music services" or "Maybe the NEA expands its mandate and budget" or other solutions more specifically applicable to this actual situation, industry, and thread.)
this would be pretty fuckin' cool. i would really like to see the government take an active role like this in fostering creativity in its citizens
Why must we provide them with an income? If they are making music worth while, people will pay. Idk why musicians are a magical job divorced from market influence.
Because there aren't five thousand sites dedicated to stealing my work?
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I mean, can I become an artist tomorrow and have society pay me for my terrible efforts? I don't think anyone here would say that is ideal.
Providing artists a loving for making are assume we have a fool proof way of determining which artists will produce worthwhile art.
Thought experiment: the government establishes its own Spotify. Spotify.gov is freely available to any citizen user, can be joined and uploaded to by any citizen musician, and is supported by taxes. As with Spotify, Spotify.gov pays out to musicians on a per-play basis. Unlike Spotify, Spotify.gov pays enough so that more of the top musicians can earn a living--say, the top 20% most popular rather than the top 5%.
There might be problems with such a system, but it would improve the lot of musicians while not granting a minimum living wage to any jackass who picks up a guitar and claims to be a musician.
(Note: I'm for a living wage for everybody, but I consider that way more of a pipe dream than "Maybe we change the way IP works" or "Maybe we add price controls to streaming music services" or "Maybe the NEA expands its mandate and budget" or other solutions more specifically applicable to this actual situation, industry, and thread.)
Paying per play, but paying more hardly seems like an equitable solution. Payout tiers based upon total plays seems more workable.
As a thought experiment, if no other entities were involved - just spotify.gov and the artist - how should the top tier acts be remunerated? Would you be ok if the top tier income provided by spotify.gov were say, $300,000 per year for the likes of Taylor Swift or Jay-Z?
I mean, can I become an artist tomorrow and have society pay me for my terrible efforts? I don't think anyone here would say that is ideal.
Providing artists a loving for making are assume we have a fool proof way of determining which artists will produce worthwhile art.
the idea was to give everyone a living wage, because it's the humane thing to do in a civilization where there just plain is not enough work for everyone, which has the nifty side effect of allowing artistically-inclined folks to work on their art fulltime
it's a society-wide thing, not a shitty local punk rock band saying "we're artists, so now you have to pay for our beer and weed"
Yeah I misread that. I agree with you.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I mean, can I become an artist tomorrow and have society pay me for my terrible efforts? I don't think anyone here would say that is ideal.
Providing artists a loving for making are assume we have a fool proof way of determining which artists will produce worthwhile art.
Thought experiment: the government establishes its own Spotify. Spotify.gov is freely available to any citizen user, can be joined and uploaded to by any citizen musician, and is supported by taxes. As with Spotify, Spotify.gov pays out to musicians on a per-play basis. Unlike Spotify, Spotify.gov pays enough so that more of the top musicians can earn a living--say, the top 20% most popular rather than the top 5%.
There might be problems with such a system, but it would improve the lot of musicians while not granting a minimum living wage to any jackass who picks up a guitar and claims to be a musician.
(Note: I'm for a living wage for everybody, but I consider that way more of a pipe dream than "Maybe we change the way IP works" or "Maybe we add price controls to streaming music services" or "Maybe the NEA expands its mandate and budget" or other solutions more specifically applicable to this actual situation, industry, and thread.)
Paying per play, but paying more hardly seems like an equitable solution. Payout tiers based upon total plays seems more workable.
As a thought experiment, if no other entities were involved - just spotify.gov and the artist - how should the top tier acts be remunerated? Would you be ok if the top tier income provided by spotify.gov were say, $300,000 per year for the likes of Taylor Swift or Jay-Z?
It depends on what you mean by "Taylor Swift or Jay-Z." Uh, and "involved." In a real world application of the concept, Swift could choose not to put her songs on Spotify.gov, could seek other sources of income. It's possible Spotify.gov would not pay out much at all to someone who made a ton of money elsewhere or already, in order to keep the site fiscally sound and focused on its mission of fostering creativity that would otherwise have issues.
If by Swift or Jay-Z you mean whoever the top figures were on Spotify.gov, and if by "involved" you mean "if Spotify.gov was the only music source in the world," then you are essentially asking me what I would like the top of the music world to be paid, and I don't think that's a sensible question to applied to a tax-funded government program, hypothetical or not.
Top tier groups who were only on Spotify.gov would probably get half a million naturally and more for being willing to draw listeners into the program based on their exclusivity. (It's hard to price this stuff out because you have to account for band members, song writers, etc, but ballpark, that's 5 people with very nice lives at a relatively small cost to the government.)
Why must we provide them with an income? If they are making music worth while, people will pay. Idk why musicians are a magical job divorced from market influence.
We shouldn't be providing artists with an income - we should be discouraging those who would take income away from artists.
Specifically I'm talking about the ilk of Kim Dotcom who is quite happy for people to host music in his lockers, as this generates ad money for him and nothing for the artists. Hell, it's arguable that a lot of this began (and still continues) on Youtube, with people uploading entire songs with their own images (Anime Music Videos being a noted example). This isn't "market influence" as it pertains to any non-media market - it's not artists competing with other artists, it's artists competing with non-artists who are giving away the artists' content (Remixing and mash-ups is an entirely different story).
As consumers, we have tacitly (or sometimes explicitly) endorsed this practice because - hey, we get cheap content. But the result for artists is "give away the majority of your content, or it will be taken" - which is why the #1 piece of advice middle-class artist will give is "Give away free stuff". Not because it drives traffic to WorkingArtist.com (although it certainly does do that), but because it prevents traffic going to freedownloadstuff.se which is operated by someone who is happy to get every hit for their ads that they can. Spotify has negative margins, but deep pockets - in other markets we call that dumping and is illegal under competition laws, but since artists are agreeing to it (hey, 0.0000023% of something is better than 0.0000000%) consumers shrug our shoulders and ask where can we sign up for this great deal.
Support copyright, tell people whose business model relies on unremunerated content exactly where they can go. It may result in slightly more expensive content, but if we're willing to regulate, fight for unions, and prevent the exploitation of the working class in other markets, why not here?
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Why must we provide them with an income? If they are making music worth while, people will pay. Idk why musicians are a magical job divorced from market influence.
We shouldn't be providing artists with an income - we should be discouraging those who would take income away from artists.
Specifically I'm talking about the ilk of Kim Dotcom who is quite happy for people to host music in his lockers, as this generates ad money for him and nothing for the artists. Hell, it's arguable that a lot of this began (and still continues) on Youtube, with people uploading entire songs with their own images (Anime Music Videos being a noted example). This isn't "market influence" as it pertains to any non-media market - it's not artists competing with other artists, it's artists competing with non-artists who are giving away the artists' content (Remixing and mash-ups is an entirely different story).
As consumers, we have tacitly (or sometimes explicitly) endorsed this practice because - hey, we get cheap content. But the result for artists is "give away the majority of your content, or it will be taken" - which is why the #1 piece of advice middle-class artist will give is "Give away free stuff". Not because it drives traffic to WorkingArtist.com (although it certainly does do that), but because it prevents traffic going to freedownloadstuff.se which is operated by someone who is happy to get every hit for their ads that they can. Spotify has negative margins, but deep pockets - in other markets we call that dumping and is illegal under competition laws, but since artists are agreeing to it (hey, 0.0000023% of something is better than 0.0000000%) consumers shrug our shoulders and ask where can we sign up for this great deal.
Support copyright, tell people whose business model relies on unremunerated content exactly where they can go. It may result in slightly more expensive content, but if we're willing to regulate, fight for unions, and prevent the exploitation of the working class in other markets, why not here?
You're entirely wrong on Kim Dotcom. A not insignificant number of artists would specifically release their albums via megaupload as the pay for popularity system meant they made significant amounts of money.
You have some strange ideas about service providers and what is and isn't feasible so your styling of "being happy to have people host music in lockers" is more or less irrelevant.
What do you mean Spotify has negative margins? For the various possible contexts of reference you're either wrong or it's not remotely illegal regardless of who agrees to it (or is illegal regardless of who agrees to it).
Apothe0sis on
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Great ScottKing of Wishful ThinkingParagon City, RIRegistered Userregular
The music industry loves to suggest that if everyone doesn't give them more money that people will somehow decide to stop making music, because reasons. But people are making plenty of music under the current model and show no actual sign of stopping. Can you explain how we would get from A (Spotify/Netflix/Steam having massive libraries) to B (nobody making games/art/music)? Can you show me data that suggests we are progressing towards this dark fate?
Uh, it's really obvious. If I can't get paid for my music, then I need stop doing music and get a different job. Case closed.Furthermore, Steam is nothing like a streaming music service and has no business in this discussion.
people play music because they love playing music, not because there's money in it. there isn't any money in it at all for anyone but the topmost acts, like U2 and Springsteen and their ilk. if a musician can't make a living being a musician, he'll pick up a day job and continue to play music in his spare time.
thanks to the possibility of making professional-quality recordings without having to spend thousands of dollars on equipment and software, there's no better time in history to be a musician. the industry still has a purpose in distribution, but they're not required for pretty much any of the creative or technical stuff anymore
Right. But he'll do less. This is true for every kind of content producer. It's literally why we have things like copyright. Because the purpose of securing the ability for people who make art to profit off that art is to let them spend less time doing some other random job for food and give them more time to make that art.
Your hidden assumptions: 1) that part-time music is inferior to full-time music and 2) that music is a rare commodity that needs support to be in sufficient supply aren't compelling.
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a low barrier to entry to a career with limited opportunities for monetization and a fairly low ceiling. i guess wedding bands and other giggers will probably continue to do fine.
and, you know, that's probably okay. i've seen some great local acts and can walk a few blocks from my house any night of the week to see a new one. that's a fine music market as far as i (a casual music consumer) is concerned. it's not so bad!
and i believe that is basically the kind of market that we'd see without national-scope music industry supported by IP monetization & mass-marketing etc.
maybe that's okay, but it would represent a big shift.
A low barrier to entry also has a downside in that now every doucher with an acoustic guitar and a shitty USB mic can post their songs to SoundCloud. The traditional system filters music through a variety of (biased, imperfect, only human) gatekeepers that function as a clumsy quality control. With more creators comes a much lower signal to noise ratio as far as quality is concerned, and it becomes much, much less likely that an artist of quality will capture the audience needed to go anywhere. Combined with limited monetization and a high time commitment to become a skilled musician, and you've got a recipe for a truly talented musician to just say "fuck it, I'm going to go get an engineering degree instead".
It's like games. It's mostly shitty indie games that are pretty okay, I guess, and bland AAA titles most of which I ignore.
Music is much the same. Whereas it feels like fifteen years ago there were a ton of legit AAA titles across all genres, such that no matter my tastes I had a wide array of polished, high quality options. In both games and music.
Probably just nostalgia though.
Indeed, but to me their stance is tantamount to Melville insisting I must read the chapter on cetology to fully enjoy Moby Dick. It's pompous to try and tell people how to consume your art. But it doesn't stop Floyd from insisting on it, and coming off like bitter old fogies when they do. To me what they're really saying is that they are a strong enough force in the industry that they don't need to sell singles and can force people to buy albums. Which inevitably leads us into a discussion over privilege and whether the few acts that were able to get rich in the system are being fair to every other failed artist who didn't when they preach about the value of music while insisting on selling it in specific ways.
Limited opportunities how? You can monetize anything now, and you can make your stuff fairly cheap. Tape releases, specialty vinyl, etc. Ultimately in today's world, you have to tour your ass off, but if you do the work there, I'm not sure there's a limit to how far you can take it. The other route is to become a hot producer, someone like Blood Diamonds, and probably pretty soon here Saint Pepsi. I'd argue you have way more opportunities now than you would have with a big label, who you signed on with and basically hoped to high hell didn't leave you high and dry in the marketing department.
Inherent? No. But value? Yeah, not ridiculous at all.
Yeah, but I don't mind that so much. More often than not you can find some downright amazing shit. As to artists of quality being lost in the noise, I just don't buy that. I think the great music will still rise to the top, though it may take awhile. It's worthwhile to point out though that my DIY aesthetic completely falls apart when it comes to the industry of people who make contemporary POP music. That is a different animal all together, and one of the only places I think big labels are valuable. But I would also argue that that industry isn't about making the individual artists rich, if anything the artists are practically replaceable. So much so that often they are abused by it, look at that awful lawsuit Kesha has against what Dr. Luke allegedly did to her.
Oh, pop music is a different and much uglier beast. You are correct about that. And while you and I may be willing to wade through the crap, most people who aren't diehard music people won't. There simply aren't enough diehards to generate the income necessary for an artist to not starve and pay the bills in the current system. Doubly so if you play music in a genre outside the mainstream.
It's neither okay nor bad. Well, I guess I can render a moral judgement on it, like I disapprove of it being windy as I leave the house in the morning but that's a futile and empty gesture.
I think this view of the past is a little rosy. Yes, an individual album commanded a higher price in the 90s than it did now. However, getting that album on the market required going into business with a predatory record company who would force you to sign the contract from hell. Taylor Swift in the old days wouldn't be able to make financial decisions like this, because she wouldn't even have owned the rights to her own work. An unproven artist would have have had to sign away almost everything to get a contract, so that even if they were a success the record company would take the vast majority of the profits.
Now, artists have begun to own their work, and they have the tools to build an audience of fans who can pay them in a variety of ways. Sure, there's more competition, but despite that I think the landscape is better for starting artists than its been in a long time. It's easy to forget all of the shitty things that used to happen to the little guy when everything had to get approved by a large company in order to be distributed to the masses.
Not a significant one.
if it were just the big producers going away then i'd probably agree
but this coupled with the combination of rampant piracy, diminished capacity to protect ip and ubiquity of small-fry free streaming services makes it hard to see where a musician is going to be able to draw a decent livelihood, long-term.
I disagree.
I don't think you're crazy, but I think that if we examine the logic required to demonstrate that there is importance to that concept that we're probably going to run into some weird consequences or maxims that are divorced from their consequences.
Can you explain why only musicians are entitled to those things if they're competing in an over saturated market? I'd wager not. And that your issue isn't with the treatment of artists but rather with how we treat people who can't make enough money to support themselves.
So many issues would be solved with a guaranteed living wage.
3DS: 0963-0539-4405
i'm not talking about competing in an oversaturated market, i'm talking about the market (money for creative content/ IP) just not really existing anymore.
i think probably we're talking about two different things.
but sure if the market is bar giggers or wedding singers i don't think that they're owed a livelihood for making music if there isn't public demand for it.
Why do you believe the bolded? You yourself said music is more diversified. That's presumably not happening on zero cash.
Diversification doesn't mean more overall revenues in the industry. You have more opportunity than ever to self-publish your own traditional Albanian funk album...you can even get it on Spotify! But you may make dick-all off it. So it's a more diverse base of musicians sharing a smaller overall pie. That the pie is smaller overall is, IIRC, pretty well documented and uncontroversial.
Inequality is also huge now too. Few megastar acts, everybody else scrounging. People forget that the "long tail" is how Amazon or Spotify make money, it doesn't necessarily mean it's good to be in that long tail.
So what if fewer people, ultimately, can't support themselves solely by being musicians if the outcome is more music that's more diverse for even more people? Do you believe a person is entitled to being an independent artist full time?
There are good arguments to be made that independent, full-time artists make more and better music than people who have to work a day job (and self-promote and do all the other tasks you have to do now). It's not about what artists are entitled to, it's about the public setting up an environment that will encourage the most, best music.
And those artists will still exist. They've existed for centuries and will continue to. Only now next to them we have a wealth of people who can work a part time job and make music that full time artists aren't making because it's too risky or obscure. So I'm still not seeing the issue when more music is made by more people.
Let's say there are 1000 musicians. The top 100 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time.
Now add 9000 musicians. You have 10,000 total. But only the top 50 of them are able to make a living and make music full-time, because many of the people that used to buy the other 50's stuff were satisfied with 9000 free niche/amateur musicians' work. The result is that there is a lot more music, but less "great" music overall.
(The solution to this scenario is not "get those 9000 people out of music", it's "how can we provide an income to more than 50 of them?")
Your issue isn't with the treatment of artists but rather with how we treat people who can't make enough money to support themselves.
Also your last statement is ludicrously subjective.
i don't really know what a good solution to this would be, but it's worth considering. maybe it's an argument in favor of guaranteed basic income, so an artist won't have to support themself with non-art and also not have to worry about fickle public tastes
hitting hot metal with hammers
I would suggest that given the way markets work and given that people don't seem to be getting sick of music that any position that rests on "This is the only way that will produce the works I think are valuable to the degree I want" seems unlikely to be true. "The death of the current system = the death of me getting what I want" doesn't strike me as obvious on its face - it seems likely that there are other systems, though they may be better or worse.
Edit: the teal dear is: criticism of the current system is not being anti art or artist
Providing artists a loving for making are assume we have a fool proof way of determining which artists will produce worthwhile art.
I have three observations:
Firstly, you've expressed this is terms do "able to make a living and music full time" which already removes it from the frame of reference with which this thread began as the real world analogues to your top X make vastly, vastly I excess of a living wage.
The current systems don't reward great content, interesting content or artistically important content if you take a more objective, more technical definition of the word "great" or if you prefer, if you take critical historical perspective. Twilight outsells Tree of Life. Nickelback outsells ...I dunno Captain Beefheart*.
What is great is in another sense, entirely subjective - if we take "great" to mean "things I find satisfying and wish there were more of". I prefer Taylor Swift to the Beatles. Buckethead to Hendrix. Industrial, chip tunes and witch house to everything. I don't think I'd hesitate to press a button to erase The Beatles if it would give me another band of the kind I do like. In that sense, it's not even clear what is being argued. Certainly the current evidence would indicate that from my perspective my needs are served entirely by people who do music as a side project (I doubt most of them would have sufficient market presence to gather any significant revenues from sales alone).
* I have no idea what good examples would be because as will be seen my tastes are rather idiosyncratic and distort my ability to judge and general awareness.
Thought experiment: the government establishes its own Spotify. Spotify.gov is freely available to any citizen user, can be joined and uploaded to by any citizen musician, and is supported by taxes. As with Spotify, Spotify.gov pays out to musicians on a per-play basis. Unlike Spotify, Spotify.gov pays enough so that more of the top musicians can earn a living--say, the top 20% most popular rather than the top 5%.
There might be problems with such a system, but it would improve the lot of musicians while not granting a minimum living wage to any jackass who picks up a guitar and claims to be a musician.
(Note: I'm for a living wage for everybody, but I consider that way more of a pipe dream than "Maybe we change the way IP works" or "Maybe we add price controls to streaming music services" or "Maybe the NEA expands its mandate and budget" or other solutions more specifically applicable to this actual situation, industry, and thread.)
the idea was to give everyone a living wage, because it's the humane thing to do in a civilization where there just plain is not enough work for everyone, which has the nifty side effect of allowing artistically-inclined folks to work on their art fulltime
it's a society-wide thing, not a shitty local punk rock band saying "we're artists, so now you have to pay for our beer and weed"
hitting hot metal with hammers
this would be pretty fuckin' cool. i would really like to see the government take an active role like this in fostering creativity in its citizens
hitting hot metal with hammers
Because there aren't five thousand sites dedicated to stealing my work?
Paying per play, but paying more hardly seems like an equitable solution. Payout tiers based upon total plays seems more workable.
As a thought experiment, if no other entities were involved - just spotify.gov and the artist - how should the top tier acts be remunerated? Would you be ok if the top tier income provided by spotify.gov were say, $300,000 per year for the likes of Taylor Swift or Jay-Z?
Yeah I misread that. I agree with you.
It depends on what you mean by "Taylor Swift or Jay-Z." Uh, and "involved." In a real world application of the concept, Swift could choose not to put her songs on Spotify.gov, could seek other sources of income. It's possible Spotify.gov would not pay out much at all to someone who made a ton of money elsewhere or already, in order to keep the site fiscally sound and focused on its mission of fostering creativity that would otherwise have issues.
If by Swift or Jay-Z you mean whoever the top figures were on Spotify.gov, and if by "involved" you mean "if Spotify.gov was the only music source in the world," then you are essentially asking me what I would like the top of the music world to be paid, and I don't think that's a sensible question to applied to a tax-funded government program, hypothetical or not.
Top tier groups who were only on Spotify.gov would probably get half a million naturally and more for being willing to draw listeners into the program based on their exclusivity. (It's hard to price this stuff out because you have to account for band members, song writers, etc, but ballpark, that's 5 people with very nice lives at a relatively small cost to the government.)
Specifically I'm talking about the ilk of Kim Dotcom who is quite happy for people to host music in his lockers, as this generates ad money for him and nothing for the artists. Hell, it's arguable that a lot of this began (and still continues) on Youtube, with people uploading entire songs with their own images (Anime Music Videos being a noted example). This isn't "market influence" as it pertains to any non-media market - it's not artists competing with other artists, it's artists competing with non-artists who are giving away the artists' content (Remixing and mash-ups is an entirely different story).
As consumers, we have tacitly (or sometimes explicitly) endorsed this practice because - hey, we get cheap content. But the result for artists is "give away the majority of your content, or it will be taken" - which is why the #1 piece of advice middle-class artist will give is "Give away free stuff". Not because it drives traffic to WorkingArtist.com (although it certainly does do that), but because it prevents traffic going to freedownloadstuff.se which is operated by someone who is happy to get every hit for their ads that they can. Spotify has negative margins, but deep pockets - in other markets we call that dumping and is illegal under competition laws, but since artists are agreeing to it (hey, 0.0000023% of something is better than 0.0000000%) consumers shrug our shoulders and ask where can we sign up for this great deal.
Support copyright, tell people whose business model relies on unremunerated content exactly where they can go. It may result in slightly more expensive content, but if we're willing to regulate, fight for unions, and prevent the exploitation of the working class in other markets, why not here?
You have some strange ideas about service providers and what is and isn't feasible so your styling of "being happy to have people host music in lockers" is more or less irrelevant.
What do you mean Spotify has negative margins? For the various possible contexts of reference you're either wrong or it's not remotely illegal regardless of who agrees to it (or is illegal regardless of who agrees to it).
Your hidden assumptions: 1) that part-time music is inferior to full-time music and 2) that music is a rare commodity that needs support to be in sufficient supply aren't compelling.