
Think piracy is killing the music industry? This chart suggests otherwise - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/07/think-piracy-is-killing-the-music-industry-this-chart-suggests-otherwise/?tid=rssfeed
======
williamcotton
These articles are pointless. This guy knows nothing about being a
professional musician.

The investment money is gone. Record labels functioned as venture capital
firms. Their bread and butter, the physical audio disc, is no longer. No other
entity has yet stepped in to provide mentorship and investment capital for
young, bootstrapped musicians.

The schedules of musicians do not align with the modern working world.
Employers do not look highly on people who take 8 weeks off to tour. In order
to make money touring, you have to be pretty well established.

Also, unlike software development, there is no 'day job' that musicians can
work while saving to bootstrap their own venture. Their only option is are
low-paying temp jobs, mainly in the service industry, that they must
frequently quit in order to work on their craft.

And if concerts and not recorded albums are their craft, they will need to
spend lots of time on the road perfecting it. But how? Practice does not make
you a good stage performer. And you can't play 10 times a month in your home
city and expect fans, promoters, or clubs to think nicely af you.

Sure, there are still new music artists that emerge, but nowhere in the
numbers that they have in the past. It is ultimately a dying art form and
those that don't see that and in fact argue the opposite, don't have any
inkling of what is actually going on.

~~~
apalmer
Are you claiming that music is a dying art form? Really?

The music industry is at best a 100 year old historical anomaly compared to
the at least 4000 year history of music. The life of musician has pretty much
always been extremely unlikely to be financially rewarding. Even at the height
of the modern music industry maybe 1 in 1000 aspiring musicians ended up being
signed to a major label. Musicians by and large have always made the bulk of
their income based on in person performances. The only difference now is music
companies now are losing out on record sales and starting to design contracts
where artists have to split show and endorsement money with the label as well
as record sales.

Honestly its a moot point, the technology has changed, and the music industry
has to change with it or die. The whole music industry was created by the
technology of the record, and will change or die with the advent of easily
copyable media.

~~~
williamcotton
Of course music will still be around. I'm saying that music as we know it,
music that has been made as a result of the industry and technologies of the
20th century, is dying.

Claims that it isn't are false and misinformed.

What is ALWAYS missing from the "new solutions" is the investment in emerging
artists.

Sure, you see companies like Live Nation/Roc Nation setting up these 360
deals. There is definitely some promise to these new approaches, but the
investment money is WAY lower than what it was. I don't know the figures, I
can't find the numbers online, but I will talk to people I know in music to
see if I can track down some facts and write an article on the subject.

My point stands, however. The author of this article doesn't know what he's
talking about and the data he presented is useless and doesn't contain enough
information to come close to accurately representing the music industry.

BTW, there is a great opportunity for "music venture capitalists".

~~~
apalmer
Music as we know it? What does that even mean? Really I dont understand what
you are getting at? This isnt snark I really want you to explain.

Perhaps you mean the phenomenon of popular artists that are so big that they
are household names across all demographics across the globe/nation. If so
then your probably right. Probably we will see less new justin
timberlakes/drakes/britney spears level superstars, and more
local/regional/niche stars.

as far as the investment, really labels/mangement companies will continue to
invest in whatever makes them money... the size of the investments will
probably diminish, but realistically the breakdown of record label investment
is 90% marketing/promotion. And realistically if your projected to sell 50%
less you should cut your marketing budget appropriately, that has very little
to do with the music as an art form at all.

~~~
williamcotton
Music as we know it. Rock and roll and popular music as an art form. Albums, 3
minute songs. Things that were designed to fit on to a plastic disc and be
played on the radio between commercial breaks. This is what made up the "music
industry". Touring was a loss-leader to sell plastic to people up until about
10 years ago. You had to go out and make your sales! Come to town, have the
local paper and radio do your marketing for you, people maybe come to your
show or maybe go buy your album at a record store. That is going away. Hence,
the art form will die along with the changing media landscape, because well,
you know, The Medium is the Message.

I'm not crying about this, BTW, I'm merely pointing out that the death has
started. For fucks sake, I don't even really LIKE making records as much as I
like writing and performing music with a group of people, so personally I'm
enjoying these transformations.

The point I'm making is, is yes, the music industry is dying. Something else
will come along and replace it. Music won't die, but whatever we've become
accustomed to over the last 80 years is quickly disappearing.

Again, claims that this isn't happening are misinformed.

~~~
OvidNaso
All of your examples have to do with minor minutia of the day to day life of a
musician, but you give no examples of how the actual landscape of music has
changed. And I find it baffling if the point is that the focus and work
required by an artist today is _more_ different compared to one 10 years ago
than it was for that artist compared to one 50 years ago. Television, music
videos, global marketing, magazine specialization. These things didn't alter a
musicians life more than the current decline in retail sales?

Please expand and explain, because Albums, 3 minute songs, radio play with
commercial breaks and touring are all very very similar to 10 years ago from a
consumer perspective despite the proliferation of other choices and the
changing landscape.

~~~
williamcotton
Dude, we haven't seen the landscape change yet because no one knows what the
fuck is going on.

Let me put it this way. Should I make my art in the form a 180 minute long
atonal sound collage that can only be heard by buying a custom piece of
machinery that is installed in your house OR should I make my art form 55
minutes of music that can fit on a Compact Disc?

Think of shipping containers. Should I make my own custom shipping container
or should I go with the modern, modular standard?

The medium affects the kind of art that is made. The reason we even ended up
with the three minute single and the LP have more to do with the physical
limitations of vinyl than anything else. An entire industry and culture sprung
up around this. It is prohibitively difficult for a musician to go outside of
the well established path of the current industry to make and share their
music.

Music isn't about 3 minute songs, it isn't about albums, or anything of the
sort. It conforms to the momentum of culture and technology as much as it
inspires the technology and culture.

It will survive, but the current culture and industry will of course go away,
and with it, the entire art form.

Think about that phrase. ART FORM. Roll it around in your mouth, taste it on
your tongue. Art will always be made, but it's shape is constantly in motion.

~~~
mattmanser
Mmmmmm 180 minutes of atonal 'sound collage' hell, otherwise known as complete
and utter self-absorbed wank. 99% of the music listening public aren't
interested in hearing it.

There are plenty of examples of the non-3 minute song and generally they've
been done by masters of their art, the reason songs are 3 minutes long is
because that's our attention span for average music.

Records, your plastic limiter, haven't been popular for decades, eons in pop
music time, entire generations of teenagers have gone and past, and yet most
songs are still 3 minutes long.

So there's your pet theory out of the window.

~~~
williamcotton
My point with the "sound collage" wasn't with the CONTENT, rather the MEDIUM.
It makes more sense for me to ship a stereo recording across an established
channel like a Compact Disc instead of coming up with my own proprietary
medium. If I make an art form known as an "album" and I make it available on
Compact Disc, I can plug in to an existing industrial infrastructure. Sound
engineers, mixing engineers, networks of distribution, journalism,
marketing... EVERYTHING has been built on top of the little plastic disc. If I
forgo the little plastic disc, the album, well, I can't tap in to this
industry. You literally can't get someone to review or promote your work as a
musician unless you have a little plastic disc.

If you're interested in my "pet theory" of the medium being the message, I
highly recommend you check out Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan.

------
bitwize
According to every small-time musician I've spoken to, piracy killed the indie
music scene. In particular, Boston used to have a vibrant music scene that's
all but dried up now, and every former musician who played that scene I've
spoken to points the finger at file sharing.

This is because piracy changes the economics of how the major labels behave.
Before, major labels used to take risks on what they thought might be the
"next big thing" in order to reap the profits when it does turn out to be
popular -- and landing a major label contract, and the attendant fame and
fortune, is what motivated many bands to get together and play. These days,
however, if the "next big thing" is starting to show signs of catching on,
that probably means its music is already pirated and all over BitTorrent, and
that's like Kryptonite to a major label. So they don't sign that cool new band
and the band has to make do with concert and T-shirt sales and word-of-mouth.
And that may mean having to choose between your music and putting food on the
table. To most musicians, your "big break" is _how you make a living with your
music_.

It also brings the quality of music down, as now the major labels will only
invest in "sure bets" like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, or Justin Bieber. The
ones that don't get signed to major labels either take nine-to-five jobs and
stop playing, or are so in love with their music that they don't mind being
penniless hipsters. Most can't achieve the critical mass it takes to build a
large fan base, so most people's conception of what music is is
disproportionately influenced by the formulaic "sure bet" acts.

So support your local musicians. Support DRM.

~~~
skore
Not sure if serious...

Music labels have always sold what is popular, they don't care whether it's
good or not, they're a business. For a while, they were quite good at it, but
then they started to suck at it and then the money dried up. Now all they have
left is investing in "sure bets". Filesharing simply accelerated that process
and showed the underlying error more quickly.

Look - Art is hard. For a little while, there was a lot of money in music.
Droves of indie musicians missed that train and now they're jealous of the
success of youngsters that you really shouldn't envy for a nanosecond. It's
particularly sorry that they blame their fans for it.

The reality is: Their music is only good enough for a little filesharing. And
that's why they don't get signed.

Most "good" musicians who are also reasonably popular have worked their asses
off day and night for decades. Success in art is about getting the privilege
to translate your innermost into something that can be shared and then seeing
it resonate with people so much that they want to share it forward.
Translating your innermost into art that resonates with people is frigging
hard and takes years and years. Having it resonate with more and more people
so you build momentum takes years and years again. Either you're with that, or
don't go down that road.

There is no manna raining from the sky and there is very definitely no
guarantee for manna raining from the sky that is unfortunately wasted on those
you think don't deserve it. That's petty and self destructive (hey, indie
musicians).

If you think you deserve something, but somebody else who doesn't deserve it
gets it, you have a lot of soul searching to do. Especially if you're that
bitter in your early twenties.

As Stephen Fry said: Self Pity (as a superset of hate) will destroy everything
except itself.

------
TallGuyShort
They keep talking about "the industry", but I don't think anyone's been saying
the entire industry was being killed. It's the recording companies that have
been complaining, and yeah - their orange line doesn't look too healthy. As I
understand it, most of the money for concerts and other distribution channels
is going to the musicians themselves and newer companies. Am I mistaken here?

~~~
kevincennis
"As I understand it, most of the money for concerts and other distribution
channels is going to the musicians themselves and newer companies. Am I
mistaken here?"

Historically, yes. Labels generally had very little to do with concerts.

These days, a lot of artists are signing "360 deals", which means that the
label receives a cut of basically all the artist's revenue streams, including
touring and merchandise.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal)

~~~
kbenson
A (hopefully) smaller cut of everything instead of a large cut of specific
revenue streams seems like it might encourage better record company behavior.
Rather than highly promoting specific sections of the revenue stream to the
detriment to others (overplaying on the radio causing lack of interest before
the tour is done, etc), a more holistic approach may emerge, which better
benefits all parties.

~~~
kevincennis
I have a few friends in pretty successful bands, and most of them (and other
artists they know) tend to have a pretty negative view of the 360 deal.

My impression is that it's generally considered to be the only option in most
cases. In certain segments of the music industry, major labels are still
basically the gatekeepers. Wanna be the next Modest Mouse? Fine. You can put a
few records out on a small indie label and do pretty well. Wanna be the next
Taylor Swift? You pretty much need a huge label like Universal. The discovery
channels for certain types of music are a lot narrower. If you're an aspiring
pop singer, you need pop radio. And you won't get it without major label
backing.

So the labels have the power to basically say "Here's the deal we're willing
to offer. You can take it or leave it". Most artists would probably be better
off keeping the majority of their touring profits (since, along with
licensing, I think that usually tends to be the biggest source of income) --
but if they're stuck between a bad deal and no deal, a lot of artists will
take what they can get.

~~~
dublinben
>If you're an aspiring pop singer, you need pop radio. And you won't get it
without major label backing.

Adele's mega success is absolute proof that this is not true. Her label, XL,
is a true independent and ushered her to multiplatinum status.

------
beat
Major record labels are the venture capitalists of the music world.

They invest large amounts of capital in a small number of artists, hoping for
big hits that are highly profitable. Most aren't, so they're savagely dumped.
Worse, unlike venture capital, record labels insist on control over the
reproduction rights of the music they fund, so artists lose control over their
own work. It's a really crappy deal for musicians, unless they're one of the
lucky handful who go platinum.

When these articles talk about "the music industry", they're really talking
about the major labels. They're getting beaten up, and for good reason. It's
not piracy - it's distribution costs, which are converging on zero due to
Internet technology. The labels were needed when it was an incredibly
expensive and difficult proposition to put copies of a record in thousands of
record stores. Today, artists can just put their music out on the cloud
basically for free, and pay a very reasonable and competitive fee on download
costs and payment processing from the likes of iTunes, CDBaby, Bandcamp, and
others.

At this point, what are the major labels bringing to the table? Their
increasingly irrelevant marketing prowness? Their marketing was based heavily
on de-risking due to the investment expense (which is why the major labels
pushed so much tame, crappy music - it was safe). That's exactly the opposite
of what many musicians need!

So yeah. Musicians are doing fine. It's not as easy to get filthy rich now,
but it's a lot easier to make a decent living doing what they love, without
compromise. As for the major labels? Don't let the door hit you on the way
out.

~~~
whiddershins
Musicians are doing fine? I'm sorry but you base that on what? Because I live
in NYC and am acquainted with a representative cross section of professional
and aspiring musicians across several genres and including rock stars,
sidemen, classical musicians, jazz musicians, jingle writers, you name it.

And overall, most people are hurting. It is harder than it was. Some people
who write for TV and commercials are doing ok, some great. Some mid sized
bands are doing great. Most everyone else is taking a beating.

~~~
belorn
> It is harder than it was.

Indeed. I remember the happy 1990s. 13-14 year old kids could earn more money
than their parents writing websites for companies, and other kids were working
as consults for tech companies.

Now days, things like that doesn't seem to happen anymore. It really is harder
now.

------
danso
> _To be sure, the industry hasn 't enjoyed the strong growth it saw in
> previous decades. Revenues are down slightly since the peak about a decade
> ago. But there are still plenty of opportunities to earn a living making
> music fans love._

So, yeah, that'a a big caveat. Notice how the graph, on the left side, cuts
off where we see the end of a steep upward slope. How steep was that slope for
the previous 20 to 30 years? That's kind of relevant to the argument.

------
zby
A similar study from Norway: [http://www.espen.com/thesis-bjerkoe-
sorbo.pdf](http://www.espen.com/thesis-bjerkoe-sorbo.pdf) and from Sweden:
[http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/other_actions/col_2009/pub...](http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/other_actions/col_2009/pub/kth_annex.pdf)

Overall? Less sales more concerts - and musicians earn bigger percentage of
money from concerts - so there are more musicians and a little bit better
earning.

~~~
hipsters_unite
For newer artists though it used to be that labels offered tour support to
help with costs. Now, a lot of smaller bands doing national tours that I've
spoke to are instead of taking their pay from merch sold while on tour instead
using that money to cover costs.

------
JesseAldridge
The graph doesn't mention whether it's adjusted for inflation. If it isn't
then the trend is actually downward. $50K 1998 corresponds to $69K 2011.

[http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm](http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)

------
hipsters_unite
One thing that graph completely fails to address is the fact that economies of
scale have massively driven all the good news there. For example, having a
massive back catalogue means you can earn more from Spotify or Rdio. Good news
for the biggest players, bad news for everyone else.

------
scorcher
This graph is pointless, revenue is not the same as profit. Sure total revenue
has stayed the same but that tells you nothing about profit.

One the the major increases in revenue is concerts. They are expensive and
often operated at a loss to promote physical media sales

~~~
tunesmith
The belief that touring is a panacea really cracks me up. Touring does not
make money for indie musicians. Maybe for the top 1% or less, fine - there are
always anecdotes - but far, far more common is the kind of tour where you save
up money, sleep on couches or share a motel 6 bed with a bandmate, eat crappy
food, play to mostly empty rooms to people that are turned away from you
talking to their friends, for a door fee that doesn't cover your food and gas
money. And that's for _good_ musicians. The bad musicians don't tour.

------
Tycho
I hate this idea that concerts are this more nobel endeavor and the saviour of
music.

Concerts for most popular music are a low-value-add phenomenon. It's the
equivalent of going to a WWE show. They usually involve childish antics which
then passes as an 'amazing' concert performance. It's never really about the
music, yet is considered 'authentic.'

------
fnbaptiste
Not surprised at all to see the concerts line going up in this chart. The
amount of money my friends and I spend on live music is getting out of hand
lately, largely because mid-sized acts can now charge big prices for tickets.
I like the fact that 'indie' acts now sell out shows in decent venues and can
get away with charging $60+ for tickets. I think the pirating of music is
making things a lot easier for those mid-sized bands to push their way into
getting a decent-sized world-wide audience. I think groups like Chvrches or
The Naked and Famous (both of which coming to my city in the next month,
selling tickets at $60+, and likely to sell out their venues) have probably
benefited a lot from the pirating of their music. I've never paid for either
of their music, nor has anyone I know (in fact, I know very few people who
still regularly pay for music at all), but most of my social circle are likely
to go to one or both of those shows.

------
trhaynes
The x axis is misleading. The gaps (in years) are: 2, 4, 4, 1, 1, 1.

~~~
tonylemesmer
ah yes, the wonderful Excel line graph. Always use scatter!

------
timje1
" _Data provided by the music industry were misleading; contrary to what
lobbying organisations were claiming, the music industry was doing reasonably
well._ "

In my mind, this is the real clincher, and the reason why this chart runs
counter to previous (false?) data - although I'd love to see their evidence
for this statement.

Edit : their reasoning is explained by
[http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33905/1/LSEMPPBrief1.pdf](http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33905/1/LSEMPPBrief1.pdf)
pages 4-9

------
Tyrannosaurs
Three interesting things here:

1) Revenue from recording IS dropping. Some of that is people consuming it
differently (hence the uptick in mobile / internet), some may be piracy, some
may be disinterest / people preferring to spend money elsewhere.

2) How the music industry has closed the gap - the biggest increase is in
money from concerts, which makes sense - if the record companies are scared,
rightly or wrongly, of piracy, focus on something you can't pirate - the live
experience.

3) What does this mean for books, movies and other media in the move to
digital? In particular books don't have a concert equivalent to pick up the
slack. Yes authors tour but they're not going to make money out of it the way
a band does. Will they see a similar drop off and if so how will they fill it?

~~~
ScottWhigham
For #2, the 360 deal (and its variants) arose to mitigate this -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal)

For #3, I think we consume books/movies so differently that what happens in
the music industry has no effect on other mediums. The biggest change since
1983, for example, is that people today have the opportunity to hear any and
every song they want all day, every day without having to pay. Sure, you might
need to listen to a commercial every once in a while (Spotify, Youtube,
Pandora, etc) but that's okay - you aren't a "pirate" if you use those
services so it's cool. And you can go about your daily life while doing so -
you can listen to 8+ hours of music at work today if you want and still get
your work done. That didn't happen back in 1983 - _if_ you got to listen to
music, you'd share that music with everyone else in the office and it would
either be muzak (!) or a radio station. You didn't get to have these deep
niches and deep preferences that Spotify/et al allow.

Movies though - that requires your full attention. Can you read a book while
you code? Can you watch a movie while you do your company's books? It's just
too different.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Not saying that the music industry impacts the other industries, just that
there are parallels in the move to a digital world and these may be things
that will apply.

But yes, there are differences, but there will be similarities too.

------
k-mcgrady
I don't think piracy has been a problem for a while. Most casual pirates
transitioned to free streaming services/YouTube.

The odd ranges on the x-axis also make this chart a little misleading.

It's also interesting to note how revenues switching from recorded music to
concerts will effect artists. Previously you could go into the studio, record
an album, and sell it. You then tour behind it to promote it.

Now with the money coming mostly from concerts you will have to tour a lot
more. In other words revenue from concerts has gone up but it takes a lot more
work to make money from concerts than recorded music.

------
crucialfelix
Always left out of these graphs: there are more musicians than ever before,
and vastly more recordings being released.

Earnings at the top are higher than ever, and the tail is longer and
shallower.

------
dalai
Well the problem with trying to counter the argument that piracy is killing
the music industry is that we are talking about potential sales that would
have happened in a universe where no piracy existed. I doubt the graph will
help much. They can still claim that with the trends before 2004 the total
revenue should have exceeded $100 billion so they still lost $40 (imaginary)
billion.

------
dylandrop
Scale of years is uneven, revenue != profit. Also, if the only thing that's
countering the loss in album sales is concerts, I think we should take a look
at ticket prices for concerts. I think they've grown to be ridiculously
(prohibitively) expensive over the years, which is just wrong.

------
tunesmith
There really are some forms of music that are better suited for recordings, as
opposed to stages. People insist on conflating them by saying "It's okay that
it's harder to sell recorded music - just go on tour!" when that point really
doesn't make a lot of sense.

------
sigzero
What does the report say about it being ethically wrong?

------
Schwolop
Worst graph ever. I know! Let's do linear extrapolation from a graph with a
non-linear dependent axis!

------
rootedbox
the report doesn't seem to compensate for inflation

 _shrug_

------
ksmith107
i guess this proves giving the people what they want isnt a bad thing

