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.
Uh, no those are both very safe assumptions. They are, again, a big part of why copyright exists in the first place. Artists that have more time to perfect their work become better artists.
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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?
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.)
Since we're talking about a government run Spotify-esque service to provide artists with a living wage without simply providing anyone who hangs out a shingle with a significant income (by tying it to number of plays). I think the question of how much the most popular artists should be paid is an eminently sensible one.
Swift made 2 million dollars via Spotify, if, as you describe, Spotify.gov were to provide a higher pay per play then it would be obviously of benefit to big name artists to take advantage of that. Except that I think that the government providing 2 million dollar revenues to an artist, let alone 10 million dollar revenues (the other figure being bandied about for Swift's potential earnings) in the name of providing a living wage to artists is rather perverse regardless of the number of plays their song gets. Hence w hy I brought up the idea of tiering and caps.
In a more general sense though I am trying to gauge the general consensus here so it's not just a question for Astaerath - do you think it would be morally outrageous if we could ensure that any artist considered to be of sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity were to receiving a liveable income (or even a high income in the case of very popular or very acclaimed artists) but that the economic, legal and social conditions made generating multi-million dollar pay days very unlikely.
If we lived in a world where being a pop star (or indeed any other celebrity) was just another job and not something for which you could expect to command a greater income than the President for would that be ok?
I put the caveat of "without anyone else being involved" in before to remove the confound of recording execs and record labels being rewarded greatly out of proportion to the artist which would probably strike people as unjust and exploitative.
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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.
Uh, no those are both very safe assumptions. They are, again, a big part of why copyright exists in the first place. Artists that have more time to perfect their work become better artists.
I am confused. We just had a nice long agreement that the vast majority of artists can't and won't make a living off their music. Not because of talent/ability but simply because there is a lot of competition and labels aren't the best.
Doesn't that invalidate the argument that "Artists that have more time..."? Other than Madonna and U2, they *don't* have that time so the point of copyright isn't terribly relevant.
The artists that won't/don't have that time will continue to create (for as many reasons as there are artists) and therefore we won't be in short supply, either.
As an additional point, most of the western world (at least) is in a brutal recession, so the amount of money that a music customer 1) wants to spend 2) needs to spend 3) will spend might all be different.
I'm unique. Just like everyone else.
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Great ScottKing of Wishful ThinkingParagon City, RIRegistered Userregular
Since we're talking about a government run Spotify-esque service to provide artists with a living wage without simply providing anyone who hangs out a shingle with a significant income (by tying it to number of plays). I think the question of how much the most popular artists should be paid is an eminently sensible one.
Swift made 2 million dollars via Spotify, if, as you describe, Spotify.gov were to provide a higher pay per play then it would be obviously of benefit to big name artists to take advantage of that. Except that I think that the government providing 2 million dollar revenues to an artist, let alone 10 million dollar revenues (the other figure being bandied about for Swift's potential earnings) in the name of providing a living wage to artists is rather perverse regardless of the number of plays their song gets. Hence w hy I brought up the idea of tiering and caps.
In a more general sense though I am trying to gauge the general consensus here so it's not just a question for Astaerath - do you think it would be morally outrageous if we could ensure that any artist considered to be of sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity were to receiving a liveable income (or even a high income in the case of very popular or very acclaimed artists) but that the economic, legal and social conditions made generating multi-million dollar pay days very unlikely.
If we lived in a world where being a pop star (or indeed any other celebrity) was just another job and not something for which you could expect to command a greater income than the President for would that be ok?
I put the caveat of "without anyone else being involved" in before to remove the confound of recording execs and record labels being rewarded greatly out of proportion to the artist which would probably strike people as unjust and exploitative.
This is an interesting idea, but problematic. For one, there is the issue of gaming the system; What does "very popular" actually mean? For another, I could see issues come up with musicians essentially being government employees. "Your popularity is down, but that's ok, we have a make-work contract to make a series of catchy tunes for the new NSA commercials."
I'm unique. Just like everyone else.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I am partly trying to tease out that the current trend of the thread of "Taylor Swift can't make 10 million dollars with Spotify" therefore "Artists can't get paid" skips over a lot of intermediate argumentation.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Since we're talking about a government run Spotify-esque service to provide artists with a living wage without simply providing anyone who hangs out a shingle with a significant income (by tying it to number of plays). I think the question of how much the most popular artists should be paid is an eminently sensible one.
Swift made 2 million dollars via Spotify, if, as you describe, Spotify.gov were to provide a higher pay per play then it would be obviously of benefit to big name artists to take advantage of that. Except that I think that the government providing 2 million dollar revenues to an artist, let alone 10 million dollar revenues (the other figure being bandied about for Swift's potential earnings) in the name of providing a living wage to artists is rather perverse regardless of the number of plays their song gets. Hence w hy I brought up the idea of tiering and caps.
In a more general sense though I am trying to gauge the general consensus here so it's not just a question for Astaerath - do you think it would be morally outrageous if we could ensure that any artist considered to be of sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity were to receiving a liveable income (or even a high income in the case of very popular or very acclaimed artists) but that the economic, legal and social conditions made generating multi-million dollar pay days very unlikely.
If we lived in a world where being a pop star (or indeed any other celebrity) was just another job and not something for which you could expect to command a greater income than the President for would that be ok?
I put the caveat of "without anyone else being involved" in before to remove the confound of recording execs and record labels being rewarded greatly out of proportion to the artist which would probably strike people as unjust and exploitative.
This is an interesting idea, but problematic. For one, there is the issue of gaming the system; What does "very popular" actually mean? For another, I could see issues come up with musicians essentially being government employees. "Your popularity is down, but that's ok, we have a make-work contract to make a series of catchy tunes for the new NSA commercials."
For a hypothetical example I'm trying to put you in mind of an idealised system to address what an appropriate remuneration would be.
Let's start with the ideal and then move toward the practical implications once we decide on what the goals should be.
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.
Uh, no those are both very safe assumptions. They are, again, a big part of why copyright exists in the first place. Artists that have more time to perfect their work become better artists.
I am confused. We just had a nice long agreement that the vast majority of artists can't and won't make a living off their music. Not because of talent/ability but simply because there is a lot of competition and labels aren't the best.
Doesn't that invalidate the argument that "Artists that have more time..."? Other than Madonna and U2, they *don't* have that time so the point of copyright isn't terribly relevant.
The artists that won't/don't have that time will continue to create (for as many reasons as there are artists) and therefore we won't be in short supply, either.
As an additional point, most of the western world (at least) is in a brutal recession, so the amount of money that a music customer 1) wants to spend 2) needs to spend 3) will spend might all be different.
Uh, no. The two aren't even related. I seriously have no idea why you think that's at all relevant.
The income from art lets artists devote more time to it. Some can even make enough to devote all their time to it. Alot of them tend to get alot more done that way. (writers are a great example of this phenomenon) And the more time they have to devote to it, the more and the better art that can be produced. This is, again, a big point of the whole idea of copyright.
You seem to be stuck on some rather silly idea that there is "enough" art.
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Great ScottKing of Wishful ThinkingParagon City, RIRegistered Userregular
Uh, no. The two aren't even related. I seriously have no idea why you think that's at all relevant.
The income from art lets artists devote more time to it. Some can even make enough to devote all their time to it. Alot of them tend to get alot more done that way. (writers are a great example of this phenomenon) And the more time they have to devote to it, the more and the better art that can be produced. This is, again, a big point of the whole idea of copyright.
You seem to be stuck on some rather silly idea that there is "enough" art.
You bolded the sentence *right before* the one that mattered... but it's the Internet, we're destined to talk past each other.
The vast majority of artists will continue to make no money and be hobbyists regardless of the existence of royalties that they would and will never see. Which means they will continue to have the day jobs they have today and won't have any more time than they do right now.
The few, the proud, the signed, do have more time... to do what, I'm not sure, since professional songwriting is typically done by staff writers. Although they are normally salaried from what I understand so royalties don't help them either.
I think at some point we have to differentiate between "What struggling artists need" and "What large established artists want." Are we trying to make things easier for struggling artists, or we are trying to collect rents?
Large established artists like Taylor Swift want to be able to collect massive rents on their work. They want to charge consistently high prices and encourage distribution models with a high entry barrier. They worry about things like IP protection and and secondary ad revenue: basically, they worry about the kinds of things you worry about when you already have big profit margins and are trying to make them bigger. Capital is also a non-issue for established and successful artists, because they're already successful enough to support themselves on their own work.
A struggling artist tends to have a different set of financial worries, which will often run contrary to Taylor Swift's goals. In particular, a struggling artist will (in most cases) be extremely concerned with getting their work discovered and building an audience. They will want low prices, because keeping the required investment low makes it easier for them to build their audience. A struggling artist wants a distribution model with a low entry barrier, so that they can actually spread their work to the masses. A struggling artist wants lots and lots of capital floating around so that they can find someone to support them while they work on their first album.
Basically, it seems to me that the goals of a struggling artist and the goals of the successful artist are either unrelated, or directly contradict one another. Yet in this thread, we've consistently talked about those things as if they are the same - as if doing things that help Taylor Swift will naturally trickle down to struggling artists, despite the fact that their needs are fundamentally different. If you want to make the music industry easier for struggling artists, don't start with the issues record labels have, start with the issues the struggling artist has.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Riiight. Work is work. Art is just something that happens.
It's the distinction between being paid for producing something and selling the product
Artists are (generally) paid for their products, not for their labour in producing the same
Except that part of the cost of the product is the labor that went into producing the product. So there is no distinction in that regard.
This is why the argument that "digital makes marginal costs vanish" is so goosey - you still have to pay for the master, and there's no reason why the cost of the master shouldn't me amortized across all copies. Not to mention that if some piece is successful, why shouldn't the artist get to share in its success?
It's not clear what you're arguing here. Because digital does reduce the marginal cost to near zero, so any argument styled as "digital makes margin costs vanish" is true by definition. Bringing up the cost of development is irrelevant so, either your paraphrasing of the argument is incomplete or everything that follows is a non sequitur.
Except that the cost of development is relevant, because without the master, no copies can be made. This is why I find the "marginal cost" argument so goosey - it's an attempt to say "the cost of a copy of X should be solely based on the cost of creating that single copy."
Now, of course, the argument then becomes "well, we can fund the production of the master some other way!" Which is great, except that the other models are just as flawed (if not moreso) than the amortization model that we currently use. We moved from traditional patronage systems because of the power they gave the wealthy in shaping the popular media. Crowdfunding has issues with protecting incumbents and the ever-present "seed corn" problem (i. e. how do we develop future artists?)
Not to mention the implicit argument in divorcing development costs from the price of creating copies that the artist is somehow not entitled to share in the success of their work.
Ok, so granting everything you've just argued there - it doesn't disprove that "digital make marginal costs vanish" that's still true, even though we still need to fund development. All the other parts of your post address an entirely different argument or rather arguments that can utilise the fact that digital reproduction and distribution is very small as a premise. Whether you're following arguments are correct, or not they aren't arguing against that brute fact.
As to how we fund development, no one in the thread has argued that we should not take development costs into account or that the near-zero marginal cost should mean that the cost of the copy should be equivalent to that copy. People have argued that (if we try to map the scarcity of the old systems to the digital environment then) the price per unit should be significantly reduced in response to the dramatically reduced costs of reproduction and distribution.
I don't think anyone has championed any particular production and development funding model, so it's not clear why you think there's significant objection to the system of ammortisation.
Lastly, no one has argued that artists are not entitled to anything and ESPECIALLY not "artists are not entitled to 'share in the success of their work' because the cost of reproduction is so low". It's not even wrong, it's not even recognisable as a strawman of anyone else's positions. It's not even a strawman of MY copyright minimalism (which historically has been the most radical of the D&D denizens) if only because the logic is so broken.
tl;dr - even if I grant everything you say is true it is still the case, as I said above "either your paraphrasing of the argument is incomplete or everything that follows is a non sequitur."
Here's the thing - the argument that digital reducing marginal costs should result in a significant reduction in cost only works if the costs that are reduced make up a significant portion of the price given. If they don't, then the argument becomes nothing more than a backdoor argument for reducing the amount of money that the artist takes home.
Here is a breakdown of the costs of producing a physical CD for a small band. Note that the production of the CDs is one of the smallest costs, and mastering the album (which, mind you, would still be necessary for a digital release - the only thing that wouldn't be needed is creating the master for the CD press) is a close second.
So the point is that before you can start arguing that prices should be significantly reduced because you've reduced the cost of creating the copy, you need to show that those physical costs are actually a significant portion of the price. And the only way to make that argument is to divorce the cost of development from the cost of manufacture, as the vast majority of the cost comes from development.
Ok, so just so we're clear, this is not the argument that we started with.
I don't disagree with the principle here - the reduction in price should reflect the reduction in costs, if it's small, then we should expect it to also be small. If it's a lot then we should also expect that to likewise be a lot. What's profitable and what isn't is a pretty straightforward bit of mathematics* for our purposes.
However, I would agree with what everyone else has said with regard to why the example given is a pretty poor one. But I would make the following additional observations:
The remarkably low run also has some cost saving involved - a 10 thousand CD run will be more expensive for storage and shipping per unit than a 100 CD run. A random band member could pick up the latter in their car and keep them in their boot. Once you get to larger numbers then the logistics of storage and shipping makes things considerably more significant. Distribution throughout a retail stores is no joke.
Even if we ignore that then there's some obvious costs to the CD that have been ignored - such as the packaging costs (for everything from getting art for the covers, to graphic design for the liner notes and all that and finally actually printing them and putting them in the cases). For a larger run this would be a less significant percentage, but for a small run it's going to pump up the price per CD considerably. Nowadays there's album art, and the track list and everything else has rather disappeared - another cost that has vanished.
So, I think it's pretty clear that it's not really that illustrative as things are incomplete and the accounting is whacky.
But what it does show is that for bands of a certain size booking a studio and doing a run of CDs might not be a good investment from a purely sales perspective. It also shows that if, on the other hand, Pangea was a big band that for that might expect 10000 sales rather than 100 from their CDs then the CD cost is the most significant cost - let's say that the price per CD drops to 1.50 per CD due to volumes then it's $15000 for the run, more than all of their other costs combined. Then the costs of the CD reproduction alone becomes the most significant cost and its reduction to near insignificance is a much bigger deal. Amortization over a really small pool of things is going to significantly distort what's sustainable and in turn change the balance between marginal and upfront costs. For illustration imagine if CD reproduction were $1K per CD, under the logic of the example above and what you're inferring from it if they were only producing a single CD then their marginal costs would still be dwarfed by their upfront costs and so a reduction in marginal costs shouldn't matter. The actual answer of how much it matters is entirely dependent upon the scale of reproduction and thus the number of units over which the costs are amortized.
* hahahaha
Apothe0sis on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I think at some point we have to differentiate between "What struggling artists need" and "What large established artists want." Are we trying to make things easier for struggling artists, or we are trying to collect rents?
Large established artists like Taylor Swift want to be able to collect massive rents on their work. They want to charge consistently high prices and encourage distribution models with a high entry barrier. They worry about things like IP protection and and secondary ad revenue: basically, they worry about the kinds of things you worry about when you already have big profit margins and are trying to make them bigger. Capital is also a non-issue for established and successful artists, because they're already successful enough to support themselves on their own work.
A struggling artist tends to have a different set of financial worries, which will often run contrary to Taylor Swift's goals. In particular, a struggling artist will (in most cases) be extremely concerned with getting their work discovered and building an audience. They will want low prices, because keeping the required investment low makes it easier for them to build their audience. They want a distribution model with a low entry barrier so they can spread their work to a larger number of people without getting edged out by big established names. audience and want to keep the cost of trying their work out at a minimum. A struggling artist wants a distribution model with a low entry barrier, so that they can actually spread their work to the masses. A struggling artist wants lots and lots of capital floating around so that they can find someone to support them while they work on their first album.
Basically, it seems to me that the goals of a struggling artist and the goals of the successful artist are either unrelated, or directly contradict one another. Yet in this thread, we've consistently talked about those things as if they are the same - as if doing things that help Taylor Swift will naturally trickle down to struggling artists, despite the fact that their needs are fundamentally different. If you want to make the music industry easier for struggling artists, don't start with the issues record labels have, start with the issues the struggling artist has.
This is exactly what I have been attempting to highlight - the last paragraph in particular.
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.
Uh, no those are both very safe assumptions. They are, again, a big part of why copyright exists in the first place. Artists that have more time to perfect their work become better artists.
There's more music available to me now in a far greater variety than ever before. There could always be more and better music but I'm not going to automatically declare good music a rarity these days.
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?
This claim can be equally applied to nearly every artist ever though. Why just musicians?
In a more general sense though I am trying to gauge the general consensus here so it's not just a question for Astaerath - do you think it would be morally outrageous if we could ensure that any artist considered to be of sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity were to receiving a liveable income (or even a high income in the case of very popular or very acclaimed artists) but that the economic, legal and social conditions made generating multi-million dollar pay days very unlikely.
You're going to have a problem with "sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity", since these are often in conflict. We could soften the question and phrase it as, "If enough people like X, then should persons who produce X receive a liveable income for producing X?"
The answer to that question is what Squidget mentioned:
A struggling artist tends to have a different set of financial worries, which will often run contrary to Taylor Swift's goals. In particular, a struggling artist will (in most cases) be extremely concerned with getting their work discovered and building an audience. They will want low prices, because keeping the required investment low makes it easier for them to build their audience.
The reason struggling artists want to build an audience is that the audience members are the ones who supports the artist. For tangible items this is simple. An individual who wants a chair gives some funding to the individual who produces the chair. When we transition from chairs to songs or designs or stories, the mistake we make is equivocating on the idea of production. Producing a chair, and producing a song, are not the same kind of thing, so the models of payment we use for one will not function for the other.
I think the solution is what Squidget mentioned: Audience support.
I like Rifftrax, so I buy Rifftrax. Could I obtain the mp3 files for free? Yes. But yoinking the files for free does not support Mike, Kevin, and Bill; it does not support them in their endeavor to produce more Rifftrax.
Buying a Rifftrax is not the same as buying a chair. In the case of the chair, I am giving funds in exchange for some tangible item. In the case of the Rifftrax, I am giving funds as part of a recognition of the effort that went into writing, recording, and distributing the electronic files.
If you like what Taylor Swift does, then give Taylor Swift funds so she can keep doing it.
We don't need government programs or market oversight. We need fans to stop being misers.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
In a more general sense though I am trying to gauge the general consensus here so it's not just a question for Astaerath - do you think it would be morally outrageous if we could ensure that any artist considered to be of sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity were to receiving a liveable income (or even a high income in the case of very popular or very acclaimed artists) but that the economic, legal and social conditions made generating multi-million dollar pay days very unlikely.
You're going to have a problem with "sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity", since these are often in conflict. We could soften the question and phrase it as, "If enough people like X, then should persons who produce X receive a liveable income for producing X?"
Firstly, the slash was intended to indicate multiple avenues or options to reach the "awarded a living wage" threshold - as in: artist A is critically acclaimed according to some scale but the general populus largely ignores them, they qualify; Artist B is considered vapid dreck by most critics but the hoi poloi can't get enough and listen to them constantly, they qualify; artist C is me in my garage and everyone thinks I am terrible and no one listens, I do not qualify.
The softened question doesn't actually get to the heart of what I am trying to interrogate. For the purposes of this particular exchange we can assume that all have agreed that the X-producers should receive a liveable income for having produced the X. My question is:
Would it be a problem if a big name act (i.e. Taylor Swift level) was only able to gather a substantially reduced income (say, like that of a relatively successful lawyer or surgeon, a few hundred thousand dollars) ASSUMING that all rent seeking middle men were not involved?
Or, an alternative way of putting it is:
Ought being a pop star command a multi-million dollar salary not just a liveable income (or indeed a very high income) as a moral imperative? Or is it rather only a function of the amount of money that they generate? (i.e. because they make the label 14 million dollars they should receive a significant portion of that money, it would be wrong if they only received 1% but the range between say, 35% and 65% is within the bounds of reasonable business negotiation).
Or:
If we were able to design a world without IP, that rewarded all artists of sufficient significance (determined by a demon who has supernaturally impeccable judgement) with a living wage but as a consequence* big name acts only drew incomes of hundreds of thousands instead of multi-millions would this world be unjust**?
Or:
Is it a moral requirement that a pop star lifestyle be unreachable to the plebs?
* of the social and market conditions, not of being paid
** simply by virtue of pop stars not making $$$$$$$
Would it be a problem if a big name act (i.e. Taylor Swift level) was only able to gather a substantially reduced income (say, like that of a relatively successful lawyer or surgeon, a few hundred thousand dollars) ASSUMING that all rent seeking middle men were not involved?
Or, an alternative way of putting it is:
Ought being a pop star command a multi-million dollar salary not just a liveable income (or indeed a very high income) as a moral imperative? Or is it rather only a function of the amount of money that they generate? (i.e. because they make the label 14 million dollars they should receive a significant portion of that money, it would be wrong if they only received 1% but the range between say, 35% and 65% is within the bounds of reasonable business negotiation).
Or:
If we were able to design a world without IP, that rewarded all artists of sufficient significance (determined by a demon who has supernaturally impeccable judgement) with a living wage but as a consequence* big name acts only drew incomes of hundreds of thousands instead of multi-millions would this world be unjust**?
Or:
Is it a moral requirement that a pop star lifestyle be unreachable to the plebs?
* of the social and market conditions, not of being paid
** simply by virtue of pop stars not making $$$$$$$
Oh, that question.
The demon with supernaturally impeccable judgement world is not unjust. This assuming we are defining justice by standards of equality and fairness among large groups, rather than defining justice by laissez faire capitalism.
Putting a limit on the income of entertainers, while ensuring that all entertainers acquire that same limited income, seems like what commoners mean by "fairness" and "equality", which seems like what is meant by "justice".
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service. And so they have added a paid, ad-free tier with offline listening, for the people who are into that.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service. And so they have added a paid, ad-free tier with offline listening, for the people who are into that.
You know, just like that service MTV used to have.
i think that mtv always had ads.
in fact i believe that their migration away from music programming was because advertisers started refusing to ad buys during their music blocks.
it will be interesting to see whether youtube starts limiting those "playlist" collections when they fully roll out their competing paid service. anecdotal, but i ran into a lot of unskippable ads on youtube yesterday
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I don't care about her soul and how much it costs, but when someone's principled and brave stance is also the most financially beneficial decision they can take, I'll go ahead and hold off on waving flags for a little bit. Doing what's best for me is what I do everyday. I try to find deals, so I pay as little as I can for things that I want; I negotiate to be paid as much as I can manage. Hooray for me, paragon of virtue.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service. And so they have added a paid, ad-free tier with offline listening, for the people who are into that.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service. And so they have added a paid, ad-free tier with offline listening, for the people who are into that.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service. And so they have added a paid, ad-free tier with offline listening, for the people who are into that.
You know, just like that service MTV used to have.
i think that mtv always had ads.
in fact i believe that their migration away from music programming was because advertisers started refusing to ad buys during their music blocks.
it will be interesting to see whether youtube starts limiting those "playlist" collections when they fully roll out their competing paid service. anecdotal, but i ran into a lot of unskippable ads on youtube yesterday
I meant a hybrid ad-supported / paid music listening service.
And I've been seeing those unskippable ads for a while. It will indeed be interesting, because YouTube/Google can be much more promiscuous about business models, whereas Spotify is really committed to their model. I tried the Google All Access Music Too Long Name thing, and while it was a mess of an interface I couldn't handle it also included everything. There was the streaming you paid for, it also let you listen to any music you uploaded, and music you purchased. They were missing ad-supported streaming because that was a completely separate, but it looks like they're now gonna tie that to everything else. I guess they're still missing a tip jar.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service. And so they have added a paid, ad-free tier with offline listening, for the people who are into that.
You know, just like that service MTV used to have.
Hilariously, Google's other streaming music service (Play Music) has had a paid buffet subscription option for like a year now.
When they shut one of their two redundant services down, I hope it's not the one I'm using.
I guess they'll roll them into each other eventually, because Play subscribers automatically get Music Key, and subscribing to Music Key grants access to Play. I guess they're starting out by making sure no one pays for both, and at some point they'll tell half their user base "we'll keep taking your money, but we've renamed your service."
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I like this phrasing, given that the entirety of her livelihood is based on an act.
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.
Well, I think this is a good point. It's stupid policy to have weird, inconsistent rules that are theoretically designed to keep artists from starving, which leads to plenty of artists who would like to make a career at a good living but cannot, and on the flipside, enriches millionaires to a level I think is toxic for society (in general). A rock star's widow(er) will be driving their Maserati while a ditch digger's widow(er) begs for alms.
If Dave de Artiste's painting is sold, and then resold, he may be entitled to a portion of the sale, by law, (even if not stated at all in the contract), and yet, the plumbing of my house can be resold as many times as I like while the plumber is starving in the streets, despite the fact that one of those has "cured" cholera and the other has not. Hell, doctors don't get 10% of future earnings when they save a patient.
This is bad policy, because everyone of every career field deserves the same social support structures (some caveats apply here), but people are overly enamored (including many artists themselves) with all these weird special snowflake regulations that are increasingly convoluted and contrary to the public good, while still not consistently achieving their stated goals. As others have noted, there are other options on the table that would be more consistent even for artists, but on top of that, don't throw every other career field under the bus.
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.
Uh, no those are both very safe assumptions. They are, again, a big part of why copyright exists in the first place. Artists that have more time to perfect their work become better artists.
Just because a bunch of people decided copyright seemed like a good solution to problems in 1710 (Statue of Anne) doesn't mean that was an obviously correct decision at the time, nor that over 300 years later, after developments like computers and the internet, or hell, universal literacy, which wasn't even a thing back then. We've gone from a society where "lettered man" has gone from a distinction to a near guarantee.
I think you can make a compelling case that copyright is very useful to certain types of art (Hollywood blockbusters as one exmaple), but it's not a fair argument to just assume that legislation written back when they thought it was acceptable to own people and have kings with actual power was not only wise at the time, but is timeless. Copyright and IP needs to be reexamined.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
...you do know who owns her label, right?
Big Machine Records? No I don't.
The Swift family. Including Taylor herself.
While I know very little about Taylor Swift or her career, this kind of thing makes me think that extrapolating the needs of struggling artists based off the words of Taylor Swift is like extrapolating the needs of the french peasantry based off of Marie Antoinette.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
...you do know who owns her label, right?
Big Machine Records? No I don't.
The Swift family. Including Taylor herself.
While I know very little about Taylor Swift or her career, this kind of thing makes me think that extrapolating the needs of struggling artists based off the words of Taylor Swift is like extrapolating the needs of the french peasantry based off of Marie Antoinette.
How so? She did exactly what everyone tells other artists to do, it's just that she's on a large enough scale that creating a formal structure makes sense.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
...you do know who owns her label, right?
Big Machine Records? No I don't.
The Swift family. Including Taylor herself.
While I know very little about Taylor Swift or her career, this kind of thing makes me think that extrapolating the needs of struggling artists based off the words of Taylor Swift is like extrapolating the needs of the french peasantry based off of Marie Antoinette.
That's what I've said from the beginning. She came up on the establishment industry side, and she's one of the very very few who have profited from it, while also managing to keep an autonomy as a big artist that few ever pull off. So of course she's going to sing that industry's praises, because near as I can tell, she's never been on the bad side of it. Which is fine. I disagree with her stance on digital music but I understand why she feels the way she does. (Even though I still think this spotify thing, along with her subsequent comments are just cover for trying to inflate the new album's 1st week sales numbers.) Anyway, Just call it what it is, a business decision. I can respect that. Muddying the waters with this digital piracy tripe is old. Especially since the rest of the industry moved on years ago.
And near as I can tell Hedgie, Scott Borchetta started and owns Big Machine. And has no family relation with the Swifts. I mean, her family may have financial interests in the label as well, but I can't find any info saying so. He also has deep industry roots. That said, and with admittedly little research on my part, his label certainly seems to treat their artists better than the bigs. Although his quote about the reasons for the spotify removal is particularly lame.
“We never wanted to embarrass a fan,” Borchetta said during the Nov. 7 interview on Sixx Sense With Nikki Sixx. “If this fan went and purchased the record, CD, iTunes, wherever, and then their friends go, 'Why did you pay for it? It's free on Spotify.' We're being completely disrespectful to that superfan who wants to invest.”
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
...you do know who owns her label, right?
Big Machine Records? No I don't.
The Swift family. Including Taylor herself.
While I know very little about Taylor Swift or her career, this kind of thing makes me think that extrapolating the needs of struggling artists based off the words of Taylor Swift is like extrapolating the needs of the french peasantry based off of Marie Antoinette.
That's what I've said from the beginning. She came up on the establishment industry side, and she's one of the very very few who have profited from it, while also managing to keep an autonomy as a big artist that few ever pull off. So of course she's going to sing that industry's praises, because near as I can tell, she's never been on the bad side of it. Which is fine. I disagree with her stance on digital music but I understand why she feels the way she does. (Even though I still think this spotify thing, along with her subsequent comments are just cover for trying to inflate the new album's 1st week sales numbers.) Anyway, Just call it what it is, a business decision. I can respect that. Muddying the waters with this digital piracy tripe is old. Especially since the rest of the industry moved on years ago.
And near as I can tell Hedgie, Scott Borchetta started and owns Big Machine. And has no family relation with the Swifts. I mean, her family may have financial interests in the label as well, but I can't find any info saying so. He also has deep industry roots. That said, and with admittedly little research on my part, his label certainly seems to treat their artists better than the bigs. Although his quote about the reasons for the spotify removal is particularly lame.
“We never wanted to embarrass a fan,” Borchetta said during the Nov. 7 interview on Sixx Sense With Nikki Sixx. “If this fan went and purchased the record, CD, iTunes, wherever, and then their friends go, 'Why did you pay for it? It's free on Spotify.' We're being completely disrespectful to that superfan who wants to invest.”
Ah yeah. I remember that story. A girl told everyone that she buys iTunes instead of listening to Spotify, which leads to her becoming a social pariah and then having pigs blood dumped on her at prom. And then she kills everyone with psychic powers. Typical digital age stuff.
That's the type of convoluted shit only someone who is a millionaire from selling records would say.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
This piece of news from last week escaped me. While other people might not like to think that it is one, it looks like the people who work at YouTube clearly recognize that they have created a music streaming service.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
...you do know who owns her label, right?
Big Machine Records? No I don't.
The Swift family. Including Taylor herself.
While I know very little about Taylor Swift or her career, this kind of thing makes me think that extrapolating the needs of struggling artists based off the words of Taylor Swift is like extrapolating the needs of the french peasantry based off of Marie Antoinette.
That's what I've said from the beginning. She came up on the establishment industry side, and she's one of the very very few who have profited from it, while also managing to keep an autonomy as a big artist that few ever pull off. So of course she's going to sing that industry's praises, because near as I can tell, she's never been on the bad side of it. Which is fine. I disagree with her stance on digital music but I understand why she feels the way she does. (Even though I still think this spotify thing, along with her subsequent comments are just cover for trying to inflate the new album's 1st week sales numbers.) Anyway, Just call it what it is, a business decision. I can respect that. Muddying the waters with this digital piracy tripe is old. Especially since the rest of the industry moved on years ago.
And near as I can tell Hedgie, Scott Borchetta started and owns Big Machine. And has no family relation with the Swifts. I mean, her family may have financial interests in the label as well, but I can't find any info saying so. He also has deep industry roots. That said, and with admittedly little research on my part, his label certainly seems to treat their artists better than the bigs. Although his quote about the reasons for the spotify removal is particularly lame.
“We never wanted to embarrass a fan,” Borchetta said during the Nov. 7 interview on Sixx Sense With Nikki Sixx. “If this fan went and purchased the record, CD, iTunes, wherever, and then their friends go, 'Why did you pay for it? It's free on Spotify.' We're being completely disrespectful to that superfan who wants to invest.”
Ah yeah. I remember that story. A girl told everyone that she buys iTunes instead of listening to Spotify, which leads to her becoming a social pariah and then having pigs blood dumped on her at prom. And then she kills everyone with psychic powers. Typical digital age stuff.
That's the type of convoluted shit only someone who is a millionaire from selling records would say.
No, it's pointing out that the free rider problem does actually exist.
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Uh, no those are both very safe assumptions. They are, again, a big part of why copyright exists in the first place. Artists that have more time to perfect their work become better artists.
Since we're talking about a government run Spotify-esque service to provide artists with a living wage without simply providing anyone who hangs out a shingle with a significant income (by tying it to number of plays). I think the question of how much the most popular artists should be paid is an eminently sensible one.
Swift made 2 million dollars via Spotify, if, as you describe, Spotify.gov were to provide a higher pay per play then it would be obviously of benefit to big name artists to take advantage of that. Except that I think that the government providing 2 million dollar revenues to an artist, let alone 10 million dollar revenues (the other figure being bandied about for Swift's potential earnings) in the name of providing a living wage to artists is rather perverse regardless of the number of plays their song gets. Hence w hy I brought up the idea of tiering and caps.
In a more general sense though I am trying to gauge the general consensus here so it's not just a question for Astaerath - do you think it would be morally outrageous if we could ensure that any artist considered to be of sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity were to receiving a liveable income (or even a high income in the case of very popular or very acclaimed artists) but that the economic, legal and social conditions made generating multi-million dollar pay days very unlikely.
If we lived in a world where being a pop star (or indeed any other celebrity) was just another job and not something for which you could expect to command a greater income than the President for would that be ok?
I put the caveat of "without anyone else being involved" in before to remove the confound of recording execs and record labels being rewarded greatly out of proportion to the artist which would probably strike people as unjust and exploitative.
I am confused. We just had a nice long agreement that the vast majority of artists can't and won't make a living off their music. Not because of talent/ability but simply because there is a lot of competition and labels aren't the best.
Doesn't that invalidate the argument that "Artists that have more time..."? Other than Madonna and U2, they *don't* have that time so the point of copyright isn't terribly relevant.
The artists that won't/don't have that time will continue to create (for as many reasons as there are artists) and therefore we won't be in short supply, either.
As an additional point, most of the western world (at least) is in a brutal recession, so the amount of money that a music customer 1) wants to spend 2) needs to spend 3) will spend might all be different.
This is an interesting idea, but problematic. For one, there is the issue of gaming the system; What does "very popular" actually mean? For another, I could see issues come up with musicians essentially being government employees. "Your popularity is down, but that's ok, we have a make-work contract to make a series of catchy tunes for the new NSA commercials."
For a hypothetical example I'm trying to put you in mind of an idealised system to address what an appropriate remuneration would be.
Let's start with the ideal and then move toward the practical implications once we decide on what the goals should be.
Uh, no. The two aren't even related. I seriously have no idea why you think that's at all relevant.
The income from art lets artists devote more time to it. Some can even make enough to devote all their time to it. Alot of them tend to get alot more done that way. (writers are a great example of this phenomenon) And the more time they have to devote to it, the more and the better art that can be produced. This is, again, a big point of the whole idea of copyright.
You seem to be stuck on some rather silly idea that there is "enough" art.
Sorry, I get it now. That's an even more audacious idea than I thought.
So we are trying to determine what the ongoing royalty for a hypothetical song would be in an idealized situation? I'm at a loss here.
Let's start with: How popular an Artist are we talking about here? Starting out? Mid-Career? Post-Career?
You bolded the sentence *right before* the one that mattered... but it's the Internet, we're destined to talk past each other.
The vast majority of artists will continue to make no money and be hobbyists regardless of the existence of royalties that they would and will never see. Which means they will continue to have the day jobs they have today and won't have any more time than they do right now.
The few, the proud, the signed, do have more time... to do what, I'm not sure, since professional songwriting is typically done by staff writers. Although they are normally salaried from what I understand so royalties don't help them either.
Large established artists like Taylor Swift want to be able to collect massive rents on their work. They want to charge consistently high prices and encourage distribution models with a high entry barrier. They worry about things like IP protection and and secondary ad revenue: basically, they worry about the kinds of things you worry about when you already have big profit margins and are trying to make them bigger. Capital is also a non-issue for established and successful artists, because they're already successful enough to support themselves on their own work.
A struggling artist tends to have a different set of financial worries, which will often run contrary to Taylor Swift's goals. In particular, a struggling artist will (in most cases) be extremely concerned with getting their work discovered and building an audience. They will want low prices, because keeping the required investment low makes it easier for them to build their audience. A struggling artist wants a distribution model with a low entry barrier, so that they can actually spread their work to the masses. A struggling artist wants lots and lots of capital floating around so that they can find someone to support them while they work on their first album.
Basically, it seems to me that the goals of a struggling artist and the goals of the successful artist are either unrelated, or directly contradict one another. Yet in this thread, we've consistently talked about those things as if they are the same - as if doing things that help Taylor Swift will naturally trickle down to struggling artists, despite the fact that their needs are fundamentally different. If you want to make the music industry easier for struggling artists, don't start with the issues record labels have, start with the issues the struggling artist has.
Ok, so just so we're clear, this is not the argument that we started with.
I don't disagree with the principle here - the reduction in price should reflect the reduction in costs, if it's small, then we should expect it to also be small. If it's a lot then we should also expect that to likewise be a lot. What's profitable and what isn't is a pretty straightforward bit of mathematics* for our purposes.
However, I would agree with what everyone else has said with regard to why the example given is a pretty poor one. But I would make the following additional observations:
The remarkably low run also has some cost saving involved - a 10 thousand CD run will be more expensive for storage and shipping per unit than a 100 CD run. A random band member could pick up the latter in their car and keep them in their boot. Once you get to larger numbers then the logistics of storage and shipping makes things considerably more significant. Distribution throughout a retail stores is no joke.
Even if we ignore that then there's some obvious costs to the CD that have been ignored - such as the packaging costs (for everything from getting art for the covers, to graphic design for the liner notes and all that and finally actually printing them and putting them in the cases). For a larger run this would be a less significant percentage, but for a small run it's going to pump up the price per CD considerably. Nowadays there's album art, and the track list and everything else has rather disappeared - another cost that has vanished.
So, I think it's pretty clear that it's not really that illustrative as things are incomplete and the accounting is whacky.
But what it does show is that for bands of a certain size booking a studio and doing a run of CDs might not be a good investment from a purely sales perspective. It also shows that if, on the other hand, Pangea was a big band that for that might expect 10000 sales rather than 100 from their CDs then the CD cost is the most significant cost - let's say that the price per CD drops to 1.50 per CD due to volumes then it's $15000 for the run, more than all of their other costs combined. Then the costs of the CD reproduction alone becomes the most significant cost and its reduction to near insignificance is a much bigger deal. Amortization over a really small pool of things is going to significantly distort what's sustainable and in turn change the balance between marginal and upfront costs. For illustration imagine if CD reproduction were $1K per CD, under the logic of the example above and what you're inferring from it if they were only producing a single CD then their marginal costs would still be dwarfed by their upfront costs and so a reduction in marginal costs shouldn't matter. The actual answer of how much it matters is entirely dependent upon the scale of reproduction and thus the number of units over which the costs are amortized.
* hahahaha
There's more music available to me now in a far greater variety than ever before. There could always be more and better music but I'm not going to automatically declare good music a rarity these days.
This claim can be equally applied to nearly every artist ever though. Why just musicians?
You're going to have a problem with "sufficient critical acclaim and/or popularity", since these are often in conflict. We could soften the question and phrase it as, "If enough people like X, then should persons who produce X receive a liveable income for producing X?"
The answer to that question is what Squidget mentioned:
The reason struggling artists want to build an audience is that the audience members are the ones who supports the artist. For tangible items this is simple. An individual who wants a chair gives some funding to the individual who produces the chair. When we transition from chairs to songs or designs or stories, the mistake we make is equivocating on the idea of production. Producing a chair, and producing a song, are not the same kind of thing, so the models of payment we use for one will not function for the other.
I think the solution is what Squidget mentioned: Audience support.
I like Rifftrax, so I buy Rifftrax. Could I obtain the mp3 files for free? Yes. But yoinking the files for free does not support Mike, Kevin, and Bill; it does not support them in their endeavor to produce more Rifftrax.
Buying a Rifftrax is not the same as buying a chair. In the case of the chair, I am giving funds in exchange for some tangible item. In the case of the Rifftrax, I am giving funds as part of a recognition of the effort that went into writing, recording, and distributing the electronic files.
If you like what Taylor Swift does, then give Taylor Swift funds so she can keep doing it.
We don't need government programs or market oversight. We need fans to stop being misers.
The softened question doesn't actually get to the heart of what I am trying to interrogate. For the purposes of this particular exchange we can assume that all have agreed that the X-producers should receive a liveable income for having produced the X. My question is:
Would it be a problem if a big name act (i.e. Taylor Swift level) was only able to gather a substantially reduced income (say, like that of a relatively successful lawyer or surgeon, a few hundred thousand dollars) ASSUMING that all rent seeking middle men were not involved?
Or, an alternative way of putting it is:
Ought being a pop star command a multi-million dollar salary not just a liveable income (or indeed a very high income) as a moral imperative? Or is it rather only a function of the amount of money that they generate? (i.e. because they make the label 14 million dollars they should receive a significant portion of that money, it would be wrong if they only received 1% but the range between say, 35% and 65% is within the bounds of reasonable business negotiation).
Or:
If we were able to design a world without IP, that rewarded all artists of sufficient significance (determined by a demon who has supernaturally impeccable judgement) with a living wage but as a consequence* big name acts only drew incomes of hundreds of thousands instead of multi-millions would this world be unjust**?
Or:
Is it a moral requirement that a pop star lifestyle be unreachable to the plebs?
* of the social and market conditions, not of being paid
** simply by virtue of pop stars not making $$$$$$$
Oh, that question.
The demon with supernaturally impeccable judgement world is not unjust. This assuming we are defining justice by standards of equality and fairness among large groups, rather than defining justice by laissez faire capitalism.
Putting a limit on the income of entertainers, while ensuring that all entertainers acquire that same limited income, seems like what commoners mean by "fairness" and "equality", which seems like what is meant by "justice".
https://www.youtube.com/musickey
You know, just like that service MTV used to have.
Surprised it took them eight years to realize that.
It didn't. It took them 8 years to diversify their revenue stream from streaming music to include something besides ads.
To bring this full circle and make this news directly relevant to the entirety of the thread, a British folk singer/activist, Billy Bragg, claims Swift left Spotify specifically to become the face of this new service.
Whether that's actually true or not remains to be seen, but the cynic in me would not be at all surprised though.
3DS: 0963-0539-4405
i am sure that billy bragg is earnest in his socialism but still i paid for several of his albums because the store wasn't giving them away for free
i think that mtv always had ads.
in fact i believe that their migration away from music programming was because advertisers started refusing to ad buys during their music blocks.
it will be interesting to see whether youtube starts limiting those "playlist" collections when they fully roll out their competing paid service. anecdotal, but i ran into a lot of unskippable ads on youtube yesterday
I don't care about her soul and how much it costs, but when someone's principled and brave stance is also the most financially beneficial decision they can take, I'll go ahead and hold off on waving flags for a little bit. Doing what's best for me is what I do everyday. I try to find deals, so I pay as little as I can for things that I want; I negotiate to be paid as much as I can manage. Hooray for me, paragon of virtue.
Hilariously, Google's other streaming music service (Play Music) has had a paid buffet subscription option for like a year now.
When they shut one of their two redundant services down, I hope it's not the one I'm using.
I clicked on Elki's link from my phone and was informed that by having a Google Play account I have access to the other.
I meant a hybrid ad-supported / paid music listening service.
And I've been seeing those unskippable ads for a while. It will indeed be interesting, because YouTube/Google can be much more promiscuous about business models, whereas Spotify is really committed to their model. I tried the Google All Access Music Too Long Name thing, and while it was a mess of an interface I couldn't handle it also included everything. There was the streaming you paid for, it also let you listen to any music you uploaded, and music you purchased. They were missing ad-supported streaming because that was a completely separate, but it looks like they're now gonna tie that to everything else. I guess they're still missing a tip jar.
I guess they'll roll them into each other eventually, because Play subscribers automatically get Music Key, and subscribing to Music Key grants access to Play. I guess they're starting out by making sure no one pays for both, and at some point they'll tell half their user base "we'll keep taking your money, but we've renamed your service."
I could totally see it. I can't help but feel the tugs of the record company pulling the strings behind this story. And it bums me out that such a smart girl is so willingly playing the innocent face of what by all angles looks like a pissing match with spotify, which is also why I don't put a lot of stock in her moral arguments. You know what music streaming service she didn't pull her music from? Terrestrial radio, even though on a per play basis, Spotify (likely) already pays higher royalties anyway.
If she's coming out of this with several million dollars extra I'd say she's pretty smart overall. Most people aren't going to care if it was an act.
I like this phrasing, given that the entirety of her livelihood is based on an act.
Well, I think this is a good point. It's stupid policy to have weird, inconsistent rules that are theoretically designed to keep artists from starving, which leads to plenty of artists who would like to make a career at a good living but cannot, and on the flipside, enriches millionaires to a level I think is toxic for society (in general). A rock star's widow(er) will be driving their Maserati while a ditch digger's widow(er) begs for alms.
If Dave de Artiste's painting is sold, and then resold, he may be entitled to a portion of the sale, by law, (even if not stated at all in the contract), and yet, the plumbing of my house can be resold as many times as I like while the plumber is starving in the streets, despite the fact that one of those has "cured" cholera and the other has not. Hell, doctors don't get 10% of future earnings when they save a patient.
This is bad policy, because everyone of every career field deserves the same social support structures (some caveats apply here), but people are overly enamored (including many artists themselves) with all these weird special snowflake regulations that are increasingly convoluted and contrary to the public good, while still not consistently achieving their stated goals. As others have noted, there are other options on the table that would be more consistent even for artists, but on top of that, don't throw every other career field under the bus.
Just because a bunch of people decided copyright seemed like a good solution to problems in 1710 (Statue of Anne) doesn't mean that was an obviously correct decision at the time, nor that over 300 years later, after developments like computers and the internet, or hell, universal literacy, which wasn't even a thing back then. We've gone from a society where "lettered man" has gone from a distinction to a near guarantee.
I think you can make a compelling case that copyright is very useful to certain types of art (Hollywood blockbusters as one exmaple), but it's not a fair argument to just assume that legislation written back when they thought it was acceptable to own people and have kings with actual power was not only wise at the time, but is timeless. Copyright and IP needs to be reexamined.
I mean, on some level I care, because she's re-started this conversation among all the indie blogs that are enamored with her, and yet there's a good chance her arguments aren't even genuine.
...you do know who owns her label, right?
Big Machine Records? No I don't.
The Swift family. Including Taylor herself.
While I know very little about Taylor Swift or her career, this kind of thing makes me think that extrapolating the needs of struggling artists based off the words of Taylor Swift is like extrapolating the needs of the french peasantry based off of Marie Antoinette.
How so? She did exactly what everyone tells other artists to do, it's just that she's on a large enough scale that creating a formal structure makes sense.
That's what I've said from the beginning. She came up on the establishment industry side, and she's one of the very very few who have profited from it, while also managing to keep an autonomy as a big artist that few ever pull off. So of course she's going to sing that industry's praises, because near as I can tell, she's never been on the bad side of it. Which is fine. I disagree with her stance on digital music but I understand why she feels the way she does. (Even though I still think this spotify thing, along with her subsequent comments are just cover for trying to inflate the new album's 1st week sales numbers.) Anyway, Just call it what it is, a business decision. I can respect that. Muddying the waters with this digital piracy tripe is old. Especially since the rest of the industry moved on years ago.
And near as I can tell Hedgie, Scott Borchetta started and owns Big Machine. And has no family relation with the Swifts. I mean, her family may have financial interests in the label as well, but I can't find any info saying so. He also has deep industry roots. That said, and with admittedly little research on my part, his label certainly seems to treat their artists better than the bigs. Although his quote about the reasons for the spotify removal is particularly lame.
Ah yeah. I remember that story. A girl told everyone that she buys iTunes instead of listening to Spotify, which leads to her becoming a social pariah and then having pigs blood dumped on her at prom. And then she kills everyone with psychic powers. Typical digital age stuff.
That's the type of convoluted shit only someone who is a millionaire from selling records would say.
Swift's family owns a part of the label.
Not sure how that's relevant.
No, it's pointing out that the free rider problem does actually exist.