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Topic ClosedWill piracy kill off prog rock ?

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Davesax1965 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 27 2014 at 08:53
Perhaps more to the point than my rambling, geriatric posts, here's a clip from the internet-thingy....

"Illegal-filesharing topped 33 million albums and 10 million singles in H1 2012 in the UK, according to a new report.

Musicmetric has released a study that suggests that more than twice as many albums were downloaded illegally over the six-month period as were legitimately bought through digital outlets.

Conclusions have been drawn from the data suggesting that the illegal download activity equates to £500m in lost revenue at retail, although that assumes that all illegal downloaders would have bought a particular album had piracy not been an option."


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 27 2014 at 08:42
Woo, huge post there, but I completely agree with it. Thanks, Dean. 

I really must put up a blog at some point which details how much the average musician doesn't get. I think a great number of non musos would be quite astonished at how little money people make from music. A very few people certainly do very well out of it.

The whole music industry is predicated on "Wannabe". The way it goes is that most kids start off wanting to be rich and famous. They avail themselves of the cheapest electric guitar possible, learn a few simple chords, teach themselves some tab, strum away, join a band, play some cheap club, bask in the adulation. Actually, they can't really play, they can't improvise, have no idea what they're doing (if you said "now do it in another key" or "and a solo at this point, please", they'd have no idea) - but they wannabe famous. And rich. And adored. Almost no one learns to play for the love of it any more. Sorry, Tamijo, most people who are coming along in music now wannabe musicians. Well, they want to strum a few chords and wake up the next morning playing like Jimi Hendrix. ;-) I've gone into my local music shop, picked up a guitar, played a bit of blues and been told by the staff (on more than one occasion) that I'm the only person they've had in that morning who could actually play. Properly. 

So, let's see. What does a Gibson Les Paul Classic cost nowadays ? About $2000. How many do you think Gibson would sell if they said "You're 90% likely NOT to learn to play this, it'll take you years, even if you do, there's no money in music any more ? " ;-)

And one guitar, folks, is the tip of the very iceberg if you're a touring musician. At the same time, people are unwilling to support artists, unwilling to go to gigs, so it all becomes more and more precarious. Remember the time when supermarkets first opened and everyone abandoned their local shops for convenience shopping ? Now there are no local shops - not in the UK, anyway, the supermarkets run rampant, we all get ripped off and Joe Public say "I wish we still had local shops, the food was better, you got better service"......... as if the local shops would or could stay open for them without their patronage. 



Edited by Davesax1965 - September 27 2014 at 08:59

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 27 2014 at 08:23
It is clear from Pedro's emotional response to my posts that he, and perhaps others, think I am defending the record labels here. I am not. I merely described the reality and made no judgement on whether that is right or wrong or good or bad. It is also clear that he, and perhaps others, finds the idea of making records being a business distasteful and somehow cheapens the art, but that's another topic of conversation and not what we are discussing here.

It is a reality that for every twenty albums a Label releases only one of those will ever make any money for anybody.

The profit from that one album pays for the losses incurred by the other nineteen. A royalty is a share of the profit, not a share of the selling price.

To account for this the royalty share offered to the Artist by the Label is typically around 10-20%, leaving the remaining 90-80% to pay for the 95% non-profit albums, the overhead costs of running the Label and for all the Advances paid to all the Artists. That 80% is not net profit for the Label.

At first glance this seems like "bad maths" by the Label, and since they are a business with paid accountants to work all this stuff out then evidently this isn't the case, so how does it work.

First off, a 20% royalty deal does not mean the Artist gets 20% of the retail price of an album, these percentages are calculated from the wholesale price after deducting the cost of manufacture. The wholesale price is the money the label earns from each CD, that is, before the retailer and distributor have added their mark-up. 

Typically in any retail market the retailer's mark-up (ie gross profit) is 35%, if you are a big retailer with lots of buying power (i.e., clout) this mark-up can be (and usually is) much higher and can be as much as 80%. Since the retail price remains more-or-less constant the difference between 35% and 80% comes from the wholesale price, that is, a big retailer gets the album from the Label at a cheaper price so the wholesale price is affected, not the retail price. If an album is sold in Wal*mart then the Label earns less per copy sold than it does from a brick'n'mortar record store, but it can sell far more copies so it is advantageous in the long-run. 

There is another odd thing regarding CD retail that is somewhat unique to the Recording Industry, and that is Returns. Record retailers work on a Sale or Return basis, albums that do not sell are sent back to the Label for a refund, often this refund is paid out after the royalties have been calculated since they are calculated on the number of wholesale sales not retail sales. To account for this a Label will often predict the number of returns and subtract that from the total number of wholesale sales they have made - this isn't a wild guess but one made by looking at how well an album has been received (reviews) and how well it is selling (chart position). Breakages are also deducted from the total, but for the sake of clarity I'll lump them in with the Returns.

Then there is the cost of sending out free copies. These are also deducted from the wholesale sales. If the Label sends out 1000 free copies and sells 10000 copies to retailers then the cost of the freebies is deducted from the money received from the retailer. This sounds wrong but it is not - the Label presses 11,000 copies, it gives 1000 away and sells 10,000 so the net earning is equivalent to 9,000 sales. 

If we assume that the retailer mark-up is the lower figure of 35% then a CD that retails for $10 has a wholesale price of $6.50, and if it cost 50¢ to make the CD and the booklet then that is $6.00.

So the Artist gets 20% of $6.00, which is $1.20 right? Well, almost.

Before the Label pays the Artist his $1.20 it subtracts the Recoupables. In simplistic terms Recoupables are expenses paid out by the Label to the Artist to make the album, such as (some) studio costs, (most) promotion costs and (often) the cost of ubiquitous promotional video. The biggest part of that is the Advance. 

The Advance is not a gift it is a loan - if you go to your boss and ask for an advance on your salary he pays you a sum of money in advance of the pay-cheque you would normally receive in the following month, and he will deduct that sum from your next pay-cheque - it is an interest-free loan. A record company Advance is the same, it is a payment of royalties in advance of any forthcoming sales, so when those sales start coming in he deducts the sum of money advanced from the Artist's royalty pay-cheque. If sales are good then the Artist gets paid. Again, for the sake of clarity in this explanation I'll lump all recoupables into the Advance, but in reality they are deducted separately.

If the Advance was $10,000 and the Label sells 10,000 copies to retailers then the 20% royalty is $12,000 so the Artist gets paid $2,000 from which the Label can make further recoupable deductions. If there are a predicted 10% Returns then the total number of sales is only 9,000 so the 20% royalty is only $10,800, and after subtracting the Advance the Artist gets paid $800. If the Label sent 1000 free copies to reviewers, distributors, radio stations etc., then the total number of sales is calculated at 8,000 so the 20% royalty is only $9,600 and after deducting the Advance the artist is $400 in the red and gets paid nothing... not looking so good now is it...

Bad maths says hang on, 10,000 copies at $10 each is $100,000 ... subtracting the Advance from that leaves $90,000 and 20% of that is $18,000, how come the artist gets nothing The answer is simple: Read the damn contract before signing it

If the Artist's royalties are less than the Advance then the Artist gets paid nothing and the Label takes the difference as a loss, he does not demand that money back. If the band was moderately successful the way he gets it back is by demanding a new album (the "obligatory contractual album"), if the album was a dud then the Label cut's his losses and the Artist is dropped. Those losses come from the "80%" cut the Label takes from sales of the albums from all his Artist, whether they are successful or not.

Sometimes an Artist has to release several moderately selling albums before the Advances from each are full paid-off, and sometimes you will hear an Artist say they never earnt a penny from those albums, but that isn't the whole story, they were paid in Advance.

Tales of Artists blowing their Advance are legendary and few realise that the money they are spending is money from their future earnings, so when that future arrives and they have no money the bubble bursts and it ends in tears.

This is not because the Artist is irresponsible, it is because they have high-expectations, and sometimes those expectations are unrealistic. No Artist signing a recording contract ever believes they are going to record a dud, they all expect that their album will sell and make lots of money; they all have the expectation of fame and fortune and their future earnings will be much greater than any Advance they are paid. Even an Artist in a less popular genre signed to a small label who will never sell millions of albums expects to sell enough albums to pay off their Advance.

Secondly (yeah, I'd forgotten all that was just a "firstly" too), this 20% Royalty is not the total royalty paid out for each album sold, it is what is termed the Recording Artists Mechanical Royalty. It is only paid to those musicians who played on the recording, excluding any sessions and guest musicians, and it covers all their expenses - if they have a manager, roadies and other employees then they are paid from this 20%. Any sum paid to sessions musicians generally came from the Advance as a one-off payment, though some do negotiate a percentage of the royalty and that is a percentage of the 20%, not the total - a friend of mine was offered the choice of a lump payment or royalty for guesting on an album, I recommended he took the one-off payment, he took the royalty instead and so far has earnt nothing. Other royalty payments are not under the control of the Label.

If the Artist is also the songwriter then the Writer/Publisher Mechanical Royalties are negotiated and calculated separately - the Label pays the Publisher and the Publisher then pays the Writer, the Artist negotiates that royalty payment with the Publisher. This payment by the Label is comes from their 80% and is not subject to the recoupable deductions apart from manufacturing costs and promotional deductions, so selling 10,000 copies at 20% Writer/Publisher Mechanical Royalty nets $7,680 for the Publisher and if he is on a 50:50 split with the Artist then the Artist gets paid $3,800... assuming they wrote every track on the album, if they only wrote half of them then they get $1,920. If an Artist isn't getting his Writer Royalties then his dispute is with the Publisher not the Label. If the Publisher isn't getting paid then their combined dispute is with the Label.

Obviously $3,800 for writing album that sold 10,000 copies is much better than the nothing you got for just playing on it, and this disparity is a huge cause of argument among band members.

The next set of Royalties are the Performance Royalties, again these are not under the control of the Label and are collected and paid out separately. Performance Royalties are also divided into Writer and Recording royalties, with Writer royalties being paid for both radio & streaming plays of the album, all live performances and cover versions, whereas the Recording Performance Royalty is only paid for radio & streaming of the actual recording. Again this disparity is a huge cause bitterness in a band.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Record Labels are not squeaky clean, nor are they outright dishonest, (they have to deal with the IRS just like anyone else). As I have said many times before, they are a business not a public service. Irrespective of the dreams of the Artist they exist to make money and that money is subject to the fickleness of the buying public. The business-model is a terrible one, no other business would survive on a 5% success rate, no other business would survive making 19 loss making products for every 20 they make. Even the film industry can make a profit from a dud movie, a dud album will never turn a profit and the cost of making those 19 poor selling albums is paid for by the one successful one. A poor selling album will not even make enough money to pay Writer Royalties. To turn a profit the Label will play dirty, it will play crafty accounting with the numbers and exaggerate the costs of making an album while understating the number of sales, it will load the dice in its favour. It will hold a seasoned and experienced Artist to the contract they signed as a wide-eyed and naive 17-year old, a contract is a legally binding document. Eyes open, mouth shut, sign nothing without expert advice. 


Edited by Dean - September 27 2014 at 09:14
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 08:29
Hi Tamijo, I define "learning to play" as "This will take the rest of your life", not "Shall we strum a few open chords on a guitar ? " ;-)

After 38 years, I'm still learning to play. If someone in 1976 had said "And by the way, you'll make more money busking" then I'd probably have done something else. ;-)

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 08:13
Originally posted by Davesax1965 Davesax1965 wrote:

Absolutely. ;-)
The worrying thing is that prog rock means that you have to spend a long time learning to play. If there's nothing financially at the end of it, a lot of the next generation will say "might as well just churn out crap, then. " 

I really hope that doesn't happen. 
I dont think people are learning to play, because they might (or might not) get rich from it.
The question is more if you will be able to collect the music, and how. As Dean said, it looks like it will be streaming, as producing CD will be a non profit effort. 

Edited by tamijo - September 26 2014 at 08:14
Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 07:44
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Tony R Tony R wrote:

...
You want to completely erode the musician's right to own and make a profit off his labour so that your perceived rights as a consumer are not infringed. The only difference between music and other consumer products is that people feel it is OK to steal music because you likely won't get caught.
...


And sometimes I think this is the real issue. If you do it by yourself, the "public" has no right to you or your work. But if you do it via a company of business, then you do owe them something, which makes you a slave. And I like that one artist's comments (musician, too!!!) that said that he felt like a COW ... just milk me!

And it is a serious issue, that is highly visible in this board, with folks taking any band their own right to do as they see, and think they should, simply because it is not satisfying the reviewer's butt! And it is, the most pathetic and boring type of review and example, of what happens in a public place, like this one, and Dean is the number one social advocate, of a system that has shown time and again, that it lied, cheated, robbed, maimed, and killed for their greed!

Sorry ... the individual and the art is more important, or the individuality necessary to create great work, as was the case with the progressive music we love, will not take place ... again! It wasn't Virgin that made Gong, or Tangerine Dream ... it was themselves! And Mike, for all his socks, doesn't need any more money except what his greed thinks he deserves, since his music isn't showing it anymore.

Go ahead, Dean ... kill it all!
Your inability to full comprehend the words I type is matched only by your inability to write a coherent sentence. That's quite an achievement. I would take my hat off to you but I fear some pirate would steal it.

So, what have we here? (sarcasm alert)

Tangerine Dream would have made records without Virgin, and this is indeed true, their first three albums were released on Ohr and they of course sold millions of copies, they toured the world and got paid oodles for their efforts, damn, you couldn't turn on the radio in those days without hearing Ultima Thule being blasted over the airwaves, the BBC couldn't make a documentary without using their music and William Friedkin dare not make a film without first phoning Edgar Froese first to see if he would score it for him. Ah, happy days. Then Virgin came along and spoilt it all. Damn them, damn them to heck! ... oh, wait...

How fortunate it was that BYG recorded Gongs biggest selling albums before those criminals at Virgin ruined everything, they even had the audacity to sell Electric Cheese for less than it cost to press and distribute and then failed to pay Gong royalties for every album sold, damn them, damn them to heck! Oh well, at least someone had the foresight to distribute their albums to those hapless Americans or they would have disappeared forever... I mean Gong, not the Americans... oh wait...

And Mike Oldfield (damn his cotton socks) is such a greedy b*st*rd how does he sleep at night? Counting money I would imagine, the greedy b*st*rd. In fact he's too busy counting all that ill-gotten loot he hasn't time to make good music any more, we need to fix that. He needs motivating. We really need to put a cap on how much an artist can make from their art just to keep them hungry enough to feed our desire for new music, nothing inspires an artist more than starving to death. Kick him in the wallet, that's the only thing he feels now. So oh no Mr Oldfield (damn your cotton socks), you've sold far too many copies of Tubby Bells you have to give me that for free now, so off you toddle back to the studio and write something new, we're so tired of hearing that old record now you don't need to sell it any more 'cos we're not going to buy it anyway, ooooh, is that Hergest Ridge? I haven't got that. How many of those did you sell? Millions? Okay, I'll take that too. Oh now, stop your crying, I'm not hurting you, you can always make Hergest Ridge II, we'd love that and we might even buy it, unless we can download it for nothing of course... Speaking of which, we downloaded Man on the Rocks last week, oh dear, what were you thinking, we're so glad we didn't buy it...






Is it dead yet?


Edited by Dean - September 26 2014 at 08:06
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 07:35
I'm going to agree with a lot of the posters here that there IS a lot of shoddy, slapped together music out there. The general public have had enough of paying through the nose for execrably bad "product" labelled as music. There has been a long and steady decline in musicianship, songwriting and .... general care... since the mid 1970's. 

However. The one good thing about technology is that it now allows a lot of musicians, who'd have never got near a studio 30 years ago, to record music and release it. There's no longer a huge capital outlay required in instruments, studio time, etc. No one tells you what to do, there's no record company demanding you release a three minute single or all dressing up in pageboy outfits to be popular. So that's good.

The problem is that this means there's a mass of utter rubbish out there released by people who really shouldn't be playing. A lot of people who listen to music can't distinguish good musicianship from bad musicianship, they either like something or they don't. So the problem is that the general public wade through masses of rubbish to find the odd jewel.

But. Please do all of us musicians who care, try and be innovative and try and release the best stuff they can a big favour and support us by buying our music, folks. I know people on this site will. They're the exception rather than the rule. I'm not in this game for the money, I just like making music. I'd give it all away but every now and again, as an artist, you need to know that someone likes what you're doing. Otherwise you will eventually throw the towel in. The problem is that a lot of people now think all music - good or bad - is free. Without support, good music will become rarer and rarer. I'd love to do live gigs but the problem is guaranteeing an audience and having to effectively gamble financially that I can fill even a small venue.

Please don't pay for crap. But do support good musicians, and think before you download torrents. Nothing, unfortunately, is really for free. ;-) As a PS, this really isn't a self advert, but more a concern about the general principle. 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 06:47
*sigh*
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
Today it doesn't work like that because we broke the music business, now the music business couldn't give a flying fart about esoteric music and niche markets like Prog because we broke it. Now the artist has to pay for everything, up front and out of their own pocket, the modern equivalent of the record label (Bandcamp, Soundcloud) pays for nothing. What do we get for that? Artist integrity? Think again. Every musician needs to eat 

Prog on, Sign in, Log out

In the end this is far better than before, with the exception that folks thinking that a free ride to heaven is the way to go.

Dream on!
Ermm probably. 
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:


It's not perfect, never was, but you having full control of your work, should make it better in the end. The problem is, that somewhere along the way, you get a wife and a kid and need a home, and you drop the music. Oh well, I guess it did not mean a whole lot to you anyway!
Pardon? I have a wife and kid and a home and full control of my music. What's your point?

Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

The business is business and bless his colored socks or the colored balls, but in the end, others got ripped. Gong and others are still owed money, they will never get. Not to mention the lies among the number of sales, anyway.
I wasn't defending Virgin, and it is clear that they behaved like arseholes to all their artists, just ask Andy Partridge. When negotiating with record labels (which I have done), the philosophy is simple: keep your ears and eyes open and your mouth shut, sign nothing without reading it and get expert advice before signing anything. A recording contract is a legal document written by people with law degrees, only an idiot would sign one without fully understanding what they were signing.

I was explaining the mechanics of how a label works and how funds are used, this affects the perception of how much money is made by each artist and by each album sale. The assumption that if you sell 10,000 albums you should get royalty payment for every album is poor understanding of economics and accounting, a poor understanding of how albums are produced and a poor understanding of how to run a business. If you want I can give a worked example of the economics of how albums are made and sold but I suspect I would be wasting my time.

Artists being ripped-off by their record label does not justify ripping them off by selling bootlegs or ripping them off by downloading albums.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

The rip off's are all relative. You are suggesting that the small band gets hurt more than Led Zeepadingaling, but you are not mentioning that the number of folks ripping off the unknown band is miniscule. It would still be the same dollar for each 30 or 40 or more, I bet!
That wasn't the point being made, and that's some seriously bad maths you're computing there. They are relative but they are not proportional, I kinda expected you to understand what that meant but it is clear that you do not.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

There is more to gain from the bootlegs, than there is from the "artist" that you bought the album from. The album is already full of make up, costumes, this and that and you do not see the real person behind it. In many bootlegs, you find out quickly, and many times, as is the case with the Beatles, they are far more interesting and wonderful than the middle class fascination with the stars in books, cds and the new LP craze. The music may be great but it is so sanitized that there is no person behind it. And maybe that is what the 20th century was all about ... hide it all like the movies, so we gullible folks buy it ... because otherwise we wouldn't!
And your point is? Pay the pirates not the artist?
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:


Who the fudge are you kidding?
Not you that's for sure.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Music, or any of the arts, has always been around, and more of it was never supported by a "company" or a "business" than otherwise. So why the big business and social defense now?
So the Catholic Church and the Austrian Court are/were not run like a business... I'm glad we cleared that up.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

The whole progressive music thing has more to do with the artistic freedoms of the time, than it does the business side of it. You're making it sound like any of krautrock'rs got paid, and the answer is, none of them ever did, enough to get a new car, but it was enough to survive. At least, they will be better remembered than the thieves!
So what are you complaining about? 

Back then if the business side didn't make the albums you wouldn't be listening to them today. It would not have been such a great loss of course because we would never have heard them so would not miss them. What of all those bands that never secured a record deal... 

...for every album on your shelf there are 1000s that never got recorded. Music that is forever lost to the world and those erstwhile unrecorded artists sit and dream of what could have been if some record label had given them the big break they so deserved... 

Damn those record labels. Damn them to heck. Angry

Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

And it was the same in London, with more bands not getting anywhere than the handful that got any moneys off it. Or NY, when it was known that the "gods" got all the money and the rest got kicked in the ass. You only have to read Patti Smith once to learn that and it was a known fact ... it always was actually, since like London, NY has its own mafia that runs the money in the arts, and new ones don't fare well at all ... geeeee ... I'm not about to go kiss their bums, or what's his name in London, either, simply because there is no competition in the market.
You can only read Patti Smith because she became famous. I still wouldn't kiss her bum.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

You really should study and read the story of black musicians in America in the 50's and 60's and how the movies (inadvertently, not intentionally I don't think!) in Hollywood, almost single handed killed so much black music. It was a tribute to its own strength that eventually it made it ...
Hindsight is such a wonderful thing.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

We need the piracy. We need some sort of checks and balances. The business world, has not been about the arts, it has been about the greed and the steal, and your houseboat! That's not to say that it did not happen anywhere else, but the numbers are smaller and easier to deal with. But we can only think in terms of the big names losing their profit, and one story about colored socks ... and colored balls!
...and coloured bulls*it it would seem.

No artist ever needs to be ripped off. Being ripped off by the "business" does not justify being ripped off by piracy.

You cannot justify a wrong with another wrong, that's just idiotic.


Today we have condoned mugging. Artists are expected to give their music away for free, because of "artist integrity" and "doing it for the love of it", and if they object we'll take it anyway and there is nothing they can do to stop us. Does this sound in any way, shape or form, fairer to you? If it does then you are an idiot, and a dangerous one at that.


Edited by Dean - September 26 2014 at 07:59
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 06:26
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
Today it doesn't work like that because we broke the music business, now the music business couldn't give a flying fart about esoteric music and niche markets like Prog because we broke it. Now the artist has to pay for everything, up front and out of their own pocket, the modern equivalent of the record label (Bandcamp, Soundcloud) pays for nothing. What do we get for that? Artist integrity? Think again. Every musician needs to eat 

Prog on, Sign in, Log out

The rip off's are all relative. You are suggesting that the small band gets hurt more than Led Zeepadingaling, but you are not mentioning that the number of folks ripping off the unknown band is miniscule. It would still be the same dollar for each 30 or 40 or more, I bet! 

I didn't understand most of that post but this is bit is incorrect - ask Pendragon (to give just one example) how much they are hurt financially by illegal uploading of their CDs and DVDs.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 05:23
Originally posted by Tony R Tony R wrote:

...
You want to completely erode the musician's right to own and make a profit off his labour so that your perceived rights as a consumer are not infringed. The only difference between music and other consumer products is that people feel it is OK to steal music because you likely won't get caught.
...


And sometimes I think this is the real issue. If you do it by yourself, the "public" has no right to you or your work. But if you do it via a company of business, then you do owe them something, which makes you a slave. And I like that one artist's comments (musician, too!!!) that said that he felt like a COW ... just milk me!

And it is a serious issue, that is highly visible in this board, with folks taking any band their own right to do as they see, and think they should, simply because it is not satisfying the reviewer's butt! And it is, the most pathetic and boring type of review and example, of what happens in a public place, like this one, and Dean is the number one social advocate, of a system that has shown time and again, that it lied, cheated, robbed, maimed, and killed for their greed!

Sorry ... the individual and the art is more important, or the individuality necessary to create great work, as was the case with the progressive music we love, will not take place ... again! It wasn't Virgin that made Gong, or Tangerine Dream ... it was themselves! And Mike, for all his socks, doesn't need any more money except what his greed thinks he deserves, since his music isn't showing it anymore.

Go ahead, Dean ... kill it all!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 05:11
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
Today it doesn't work like that because we broke the music business, now the music business couldn't give a flying fart about esoteric music and niche markets like Prog because we broke it. Now the artist has to pay for everything, up front and out of their own pocket, the modern equivalent of the record label (Bandcamp, Soundcloud) pays for nothing. What do we get for that? Artist integrity? Think again. Every musician needs to eat 

Prog on, Sign in, Log out

In the end this is far better than before, with the exception that folks thinking that a free ride to heaven is the way to go.

Dream on!

It's not perfect, never was, but you having full control of your work, should make it better in the end. The problem is, that somewhere along the way, you get a wife and a kid and need a home, and you drop the music. Oh well, I guess it did not mean a whole lot to you anyway!

The business is business and bless his colored socks or the colored balls, but in the end, others got ripped. Gong and others are still owed money, they will never get. Not to mention the lies among the number of sales, anyway.

The rip off's are all relative. You are suggesting that the small band gets hurt more than Led Zeepadingaling, but you are not mentioning that the number of folks ripping off the unknown band is miniscule. It would still be the same dollar for each 30 or 40 or more, I bet! 

There is more to gain from the bootlegs, than there is from the "artist" that you bought the album from. The album is already full of make up, costumes, this and that and you do not see the real person behind it. In many bootlegs, you find out quickly, and many times, as is the case with the Beatles, they are far more interesting and wonderful than the middle class fascination with the stars in books, cds and the new LP craze. The music may be great but it is so sanitized that there is no person behind it. And maybe that is what the 20th century was all about ... hide it all like the movies, so we gullible folks buy it ... because otherwise we wouldn't!

Who the fudge are you kidding?

Music, or any of the arts, has always been around, and more of it was never supported by a "company" or a "business" than otherwise. So why the big business and social defense now? 

The whole progressive music thing has more to do with the artistic freedoms of the time, than it does the business side of it. You're making it sound like any of krautrock'rs got paid, and the answer is, none of them ever did, enough to get a new car, but it was enough to survive. At least, they will be better remembered than the thieves!

And it was the same in London, with more bands not getting anywhere than the handful that got any moneys off it. Or NY, when it was known that the "gods" got all the money and the rest got kicked in the ass. You only have to read Patti Smith once to learn that and it was a known fact ... it always was actually, since like London, NY has its own mafia that runs the money in the arts, and new ones don't fare well at all ... geeeee ... I'm not about to go kiss their bums, or what's his name in London, either, simply because there is no competition in the market.

You really should study and read the story of black musicians in America in the 50's and 60's and how the movies (inadvertently, not intentionally I don't think!) in Hollywood, almost single handed killed so much black music. It was a tribute to its own strength that eventually it made it ... 

We need the piracy. We need some sort of checks and balances. The business world, has not been about the arts, it has been about the greed and the steal, and your houseboat! That's not to say that it did not happen anywhere else, but the numbers are smaller and easier to deal with. But we can only think in terms of the big names losing their profit, and one story about colored socks ... and colored balls!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 05:07
Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

55 bands played Isle of Wight in 1970, 500,000 attended - ticket sales = £1.5 million (equivalent to £22 million today)

over 100 bands played 2014, 58,000 attended - ticket sales = £11 million (equivalent to £750K in 1970)

...that's twice the bands for half the money.

No matter how you divide it, bands earnt less for playing in 2014 than they did in 1970.

This means that each attendee has paid the equivalent of about 5 times the price in 2014 than on 1970...
Correct.

In 2014 attendees paid more and the musicians earnt less than they did in 1970.

In 2014 10 times fewer attended the festival than did in 1970.

In 2014 twice as many bands played than in 1970.

In 2014 the organisers staged a 4-day festival for less money (and with better facilities) than they did in 1970 for a 3-day event.

The argument is that musicians cannot earn a living from album sales but make up for that in earnings from live performance because ticket prices have increased (by a factor of 5 or whatever). This is a fallacy, they are earning less from gigs because fewer people attend.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 04:49
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

55 bands played Isle of Wight in 1970, 500,000 attended - ticket sales = £1.5 million (equivalent to £22 million today)

over 100 bands played 2014, 58,000 attended - ticket sales = £11 million (equivalent to £750K in 1970)

...that's twice the bands for half the money.

No matter how you divide it, bands earnt less for playing in 2014 than they did in 1970.

This means that each attendee has paid the equivalent of about 5 times the price in 2014 than on 1970...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 26 2014 at 03:37
Originally posted by jude111 jude111 wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Piracy will disappear completely once everyone has been suckered into adopting the "cloud". You won't be able to download anything, you won't own anything, everything will be streamed and everything will be pay-per-listen. Welcome to the world of tomorrow, please form an orderly queue.

That's only if they manage to kill off Net Neutrality - which the US is in the process of doing. It must be stopped.
I disagree. The most effective way of imposing a philosophy is to get people to buy into it rather than forcing it upon them. Net Neutrality is a broad issue that covers all aspects of Internet usage and control regarding both the data and its delivery. It is my contention that Net Neutrality will be freely given up by the universal adoption of the Cloud and its Push-technology, Net Neutrality is the cart, not the horse. The WWW is currently Pull-technology, you search, find and pull data from it; with Push-technology you request and the data is pushed to you. One is passive, the other is pro-active. That is a fundamental change in how we receive data and has deep consequences for neutrality. 

Net Neutrality is lost when the choices offered are preselected, if Google, Bing or Yahoo filter the search results then we no longer have neutrality and everyone would agree that this is a bad thing. We would not buy into the idea and avoid it. Some already avoid Bing simply because it is owned, and thus controlled, by a multinational that few of us would trust unconditionally, (and that has implications for Yahoo users too). Yet people are rushing head-long into the Cloud with their eyes closed and their wallets open.

Consider these examples

1: I want to buy some Krautrock but don't know what to buy. I can go to our Krautrock page, look at all the bands and album and their ratings, read a few reviews and decide which album to buy. Conversely I can open a thread here asking for recommendations and people will suggest some albums for me to buy, I can then read their comments and decide which album to buy. 

2: Bandcamp is a market place for music. I can go to the Bandcamp website and search for music that fits my particular requirements, I can read all the descriptions, listen to some of the samples and decide which album to download. Alternatively I can go to the Bandcamp Recommendations thread here and look at the albums that Sevtonio is suggesting, read his descriptions, listen to some of the videos he has posted and decide which album to download.

In both case the second option seems to be the most favourable to me, even though I am being presented with fewer choices, they are being recommended to me as being worth buying and that should ensure that I don't end up buying a lemon. In both examples I am in control of what I buy so you would assume that neutrality is preserved. However, the first option in both examples is "Pull" and the choice I make is neutral, the second options are "Push" and they are not neutral, they have been preselected so the choice I make is not neutral. By using the second, more favourable, option I have sacrificed neutrality and done so willingly.

Ten million people willingly sacrificed net neutrality last weekend, if they don't use the Cloud to get their data they have bought a very expensive (and bendy) paper-weight.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2014 at 15:11
Originally posted by unclemeat69 unclemeat69 wrote:

I think I wrote something about a sense of entitlement.
I was thinking of the Band, Kiss, Bono etc.
They all expressed that sense of entitlement (the Band by way of their manager who claimed that file sharing alone was responsible for the decrease in annual income which used to be for a time $200.000, the Band hadn't toured for 10 years and hadn't released an album for 12 at that time).
Your opinion on entitlement is irrelevant and not worth the paper it's not printed on.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2014 at 14:32
Well, I'll put it this way and this is how I feel. If people don't start investing in people's work then be prepared to put up with shoddy, cheap productions awash with vst instruments because that's all anyone will be able to afford to release. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2014 at 13:55
I think I wrote something about a sense of entitlement.
I was thinking of the Band, Kiss, Bono etc.
They all expressed that sense of entitlement (the Band by way of their manager who claimed that file sharing alone was responsible for the decrease in annual income which used to be for a time $200.000, the Band hadn't toured for 10 years and hadn't released an album for 12 at that time).
Follow your bliss
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2014 at 13:54
Dean, you absolutely nailed it in one take. 


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2014 at 13:52
Originally posted by unclemeat69 unclemeat69 wrote:

 Distribution of collection 1s and 0s cost next to nothing, storage of those collection cost next to nothing a piece.
There IS a very real difference between physical (that is finite, scarce) goods and non-physical (that is infinite, non-scarce) goods.
That is actually completely irrelevant and naive. You are confusing the cost of something with its value. 

Of course there is a difference between physical and non-physical. When you buy a CD or a paper book you are buying a physical and a non-physical product, the total price is the value of both added together. A CD without the non-physical content is a blank CD, a paper book without the non-physical content is a blank book. Unfortunately (for your argument) in both cases the physical is worth less than the physical plus the non-physical, and in the case of the CD at least, the physical is worth less than the non-physical.

You accept this premiss when you buy a paper book and a CD, and you accept it when you buy a pizza, a bottle of beer, a car, a house, an oil painting, a pair of jeans, a vase, a mobile phone, a piece of jewellery, a computer and every other physical object that is worth more than it cost so why do you think this is different for a non-physical product?

What is it you think you are buying ... the physical CD or its content? Why buy Diamanda Galas CDs when Rhianna CDs can be bought in your local supermarket at discount prices? Surely they are the same, just 1s and 0s stored on a piece of plastic.

Originally posted by unclemeat69 unclemeat69 wrote:

For mp3's or ebooks to cost the same as cd's and paper books is extortion.
It probably is if you devalue the worth of what you are buying. But you are not buying the media, you are buying the content. 

When you buy a paper book what are you buying and why are you buying it? Are you just buying the physical object regardless of the content? No, you buy it to read the damn thing. If you had no intention of reading it then why not buy a blank book, or better still, a tree. Why pay the extra expense of having that wood pulped and turned into paper? You buy the book because you want the content, you buy it to read it - the object you want is not the physical book but the non-physical content. You are willing to pay 10€ for some processed wood pulp because you want to read the book that's printed on it.

The same is true for the CD - you don't buy a CD to sit and look at it, you buy it to play the music that is recorded onto it. You are not buying the raw material you are buying the content.

So what if the paper book is the same price as the ebook, so what if the CD is the same price as the download. What difference does it actually make to you when you perform the one singular task that you actually purchased them for - to read the words and to listen to the music. What you are pay for is the value of the content, not the medium it was delivered in..

If you want to read a book for free go to the library, if you want to listen to a music for free turn on the radio. At least the author and the artist gets paid when you do that.
Originally posted by unclemeat69 unclemeat69 wrote:


The premise that collections of 1s and 0s are exactly the same is any and all ways as physical objects is also a flawed premise, I believe that is your premise.
Erm, sorry but that's gibberish, and incorrect. That is not my premiss.

If you don't like being called a thief then don't steal. But for pity's sake don't try to redefine stealing.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2014 at 13:40
Let me just chime in here with a little anecdote. 

I recently released my first single. It cost 450 euros or so for me to pay a professional drummer and the mixing/mastering engineer. I paid a friend (with guitar lessons to the value of about 150) to make me a lyric video for youtube. 

The money I paid doesn't account for the years and years or practice and all the equipment I paid for to record it. 

I believe my song is worth at least a meagre 1 euro from someone who wishes to download it. I don't think that's an unreasonable fee for anyone to pay for something that may bring them an experience that is worth far more. Thus far, I have 6 sales which amounts to less than 6 euros. I will never *ever* likely see even a 5th of what I spent on this in return because people have absolutely *zero* value in music anymore. Music that can change your mood, make you think, lift you to greater heights (I'm talking here about the greatest artists in the world, not necessarily myself ;))

I think that's sad. 

If someone thinks that I have a sense of self entitlement because I feel I deserve to be paid for my work, well, quite frankly, I think they are deluded.  
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