The major labels try to frame the discussion around piracy, which confuses everyone else because YouTube bends over backwards when it comes to copyright law.
If you dig deeper, its not about piracy - its about control. What do the majors get from Spotify/Apple music that they don't get from YouTube? If the majors don't like their deal with Spotify (whether its 80% of the revenue, or no free listeners), the majors can walk, and if any of their music appears on Spotify, the majors can sue them out of existence.
With YouTube it's different -
1.) YouTube is the largest streaming site so users will always look for music there
2.) Anyone can upload music to YouTube
3.) YouTube isn't financially responsible when someone uploads infringing material.
These 3 factors mean, if the majors decide they want 80% of YouTube's revenue rather than 50% and YouTube walks, there is a chance (more like a given) that someone will upload Taylor Swift's new album on there pitch shifted by 13% (to evade content id), and will go on to generate millions of views. And since YouTube is protected by the DMCA, the majors can't sue them out of existence. That's why the majors hate the DMCA, as it applies to YouTube. There effectively isn't a "scorch-earth" policy for music on YouTube, and the majors can't leverage their army of lawyers to force YouTube to submit to them if "scorch-earth" fails.
Now I doubt "we need to kill the DMCA so we can sue YouTube for billions" is very PR-friendly, but "muh piracy" always is.
Paying someone to be an artist is like paying someone to be an alcoholic, and the more I hear Artists collectively complain about the lifestyle I'm failing to enable, while I sit lashed to a desk all day, the more I want to destroy their every dream and aspiration.
You seem to be lambasting what you see as entitled behavior, while making it very clear that you are simply bitter that they live a life you either don't agree with or perhaps, are envious of.
Either way it isn't up to you to decide who will pay for what, and your assumption that every artist is a drunken freeloader is clearly false. Most working artists also have to hold down a job and will get very little in return for their efforts.
They aren't providing nothing, and very clearly people want what they are providing. It takes time, effort and opportunity costs to produce music and to expect that it be given to you for nothing because you think it's frivolous is ridiculous.
Do you pay for DVDs? Pay to see movies? What about the artwork on your clothing, or the design of your car? You pay for all of those things directly or indirectly and they could all be considered frivolous in one way or another, yet someone worked hard to make it happen and people are willing to pay for that.
That's not what the GP said, he said he wanted to see these artists go under, which is another matter. I feel the much the same way about artists who lobby for insane surveillance and trivially abusable laws because they feel they aren't paid what they're entitled to.
"Do you pay for DVDs? Pay to see movies? What about the artwork on your clothing, or the design of your car?"
1. No.
2. No.
3. What "artwork" on my clothing? Everything I have is for work, white or blue collared shirts. Occasionally I'll be really wild and do something in plaid!
4. Don't have a car and I won't support the consumer vehicle industry. I use mass transit, thanks.
Your shirts were at some point designed by someone even if they have no artwork. The point is that creatives are involved in many facets of life that are not always obvious, and they are exerting man hours to create those things. Most of the time the creatives are paid up front, such as a car designer. But for music that's not the case, so the money to pay for their man hours has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is gigs, merchandise and royalties.
The system is sometimes convoluted but eventually the money comes out of the consumers pocket. The point I'm trying to make is simply that at least some of those dollars should make it back to the creator.
In theory that's what copyright is designed to make happen. I don't have as much of a problem with people getting stuff for free, they probably wouldn't have paid for it anyway. It's more about those who are making money off the artist without giving any back, and you could argue that Youtube does that if a musicians music is available for free and they are generating indirect revenue from advertising across the site.
If I know I can get a song on YouTube, I'll hit their home page, get an advertisement, then go to the song. They have profited from hosting the song in that example. They don't advocate or allow it, but it happens and the artist gets nothing for something while Youtube gets something for nothing.
the money to pay for their man hours has to come from somewhere
Actually no, it doesn't have to come from somewhere. It's quite possible that we'll go back to a world where musicians aren't generally paid, except for a few who are paid up-front by rich patrons. That's pretty much how it was until the 20th century.
If it doesn't come from somewhere, it doesn't exist.
When you write that it doesn't have to come from somewhere, you are just arguing that costs (time/money) will be born by the musicians themselves. Basically a donation to society.
Your conflating money with the thing it pays for. They are not equivalent.
I make all sorts of cool art for free. No money, comes from nowhere, sometimes I pay for materials or prints. The printers aren't the creative ones (if they dare I'll take my work somewhere else next time). Then I give them away (because birthday presents are hard).
And sometimes I make music but you can't give that to people, which very neatly describes the whole problem in a microcosm: You can give someone a performance but that's ephemeral, a one time thing (and only if I were good enough that'd be passable birthday present and even if I were a rockstar, after a while you gotta ask yourself wtf you're doing and why). You can give someone a recording but that's worthless because it's just information which has near zero value--and IMHO it's completely ridiculous to expect people to pretend otherwise (unless that's the art but then it's not music and let's not get into the art of pranksterism right now).
The other option is they stop making music--haha! Seriously, who is going to make them stop?? Some wise people once said it takes a nation of millions to hold them back (maybe they meant something else, but they also meant this). Another wise person once said that we are nothing but the sum of our parts and that which we give away for free.
So there's music that is not going to be made if you don't INSERT COIN. Then there's music that builds from divine pressure (wise person said "can't touch this") and forces its way out no matter what. Cry me a river if we lose the former, thanks to technology, it'll just create space and breathing room for the latter.
For that matter, most of my shirts don't have artwork--I like casual button-downs for everyday wear; but I look for striking colors, interesting fabric patterns, etc. I'm not pushing any personal style in particular, but it's a shame if there's nothing in your closet but work clothes.
Why? The only clothes I use with prints are ones with imagery from my favorite games, the rest are just single colored or have simple patterns. Some people like it that way!
Recorded music is the advertising for the musician. I don't understand why I should pay for that advertising. What they are advertising is their ability to perform music and they will receive my money when I pay to watch them perform or purchase their merchandise.
EDIT: Let me elaborate in regards to ehnto's argument. DVDs, clothing and cars are all physical items I am paying for and therefore I am happy to pay for that. I am also happy to pay to see a movie because movies could not exist prior to being able to film. Movies are the end product that I want to see.
All of these are different to music. Music existed well before the ability to record it did. All that recording did was make it more accessible. Back when you had to purchase a record or CD there was a physical item you ended up with to listen to that music. Therefore something that was worth paying for. I bought a lot of CDs. The music is not the end product. The live show where I go to see the musician perform is.
I don't get paid for people to use my work without any involvement from me past the fact I created something. Why should a musician be paid for you listening to the music they created. They aren't putting in any hours for me to hear that past the original creation. What are they getting paid for?
This is why I love artists like Hoodie Allen and Chance the Rapper. They release the majority of their music for free. Hoodie Allen was unable to release one of his albums for free on iTunes, so he charged the minimum. He was constantly on social media telling people they can download his album for free from multiple locations and that they didn't have to buy it on iTunes. People still paid for that album like crazy.
> I am also happy to pay to see a movie because movies could not exist prior to being able to film.
I am happy listening to records, because records could not exist prior to being able to record. See, some album music is really unique in its own right and could not be easily reproduced live. The same as some movies could not easily be translated to a theater play.
> I don't get paid for people to use my work without any involvement from me past the fact I created something. Why should a musician be paid for you listening to the music they created.
Isn't it a bit the same as with software? When I buy some software, the developers also aren't putting any hours for me at the moment I'm using it. Still, most people are ok with paying for software.
You can get plenty of software for free. Most people I know seem to have dodgy or OEM installed versions of software, and use free products on top of that. The ones who do pay for software usually have it paid for by their work.
>The music is not the end product. The live show where I go to see the musician perform is.
Hey, how much of all the music you listen to you listen live? One percent perhaps? Don't be hypocritical please. Without recording you wouldn't get a chance to hear the best musicians from around the world.
Also a lot of people don't see or don't care about the difference between recording and live performance. For them music is the end product.
You shouldn't pay for advertising if you don't want to. The issue is that, as the creators of the work, artists have the right to decide what they want to charge for access to their creation.
You do not have a right to access that content without paying whatever price it is the artist has decided to charge.
If any artist WANTS to release their music for free, they can. If they do not want to release their music for free, they can also do that.
As far as I see it, the big media companies are the cause for most of their troubles. To a large part through resisting better business models, and through forcing themselves into the position as gatekeepers.
Artists should be supported, but I can't see any sane justification for letting them dictate the terms for how a society may interact with its own culture.
That's a very convenient excuse. Media companies can't actually force themselves into that position. Artists have to sign contracts with them voluntarily.
That's a very naive way of looking at it. Why do you think artists historically have felt they had no other choice than to do so? (hint: they control the vast majority of the distribution and PR)
What about recoupment contract terms and similar unjust practices?
That is a very paternalistic way of looking at it.
You are effectively saying to artists, shut up, you have no right to sign contracts or have your voluntary agreements respected because you are too exploited to know what's good for you. And now step aside and let me download all your stuff for free until we have sorted out all the warts of media business models, capitalism and the universe in general.
We all face constraints and we are not completely free in the choices we make. That doesn't mean the choices we do make can simply be discounted.
Why are you calling it paternalistic, instead of anti-monopolist?
You're essentially excusing slave trade where people sell themselves to become slaves "because they could choose not to", when they actually in the real world couldn't see any other viable option for survival.
And while at it you're blatantly ignoring (or perhaps obscuring) the other option, of targeting the other side of the equation and banning such exploitative contracts, requiring that they offer reasonable terms instead. Are you claiming it is impossible for them, who keep making record profits, to afford to be fair?
Because you are talking over artists' heads like they were little children unable to understand how enslaved they are.
If an artist says, I feel enslaved (and some probably do), I take that seriously, and I would have a very close look at those contracts.
But if an artist says I am acting voluntarily and I demand restrictions on free music downloads, and a consumer of music such as yourself says no you are being enslaved and therefore I feel entitled to free music downloads in the name of fighting big bad media companies, then that is too obviously self-serving for me to take at face value.
The artists are prioritizing their careers first, can't afford great lawyers when they're fresh (so they don't actually know how horrible the contracts are!), and everybody keeps telling them it is harder to succeed alone.
How can't you understand the effects of that? Are laws against lies in advertisement also paternalistic?
And why in the first place do you even believe that piracy is a problem that can be solved legally? Why do you believe it even should be solved using the law? Why should the mere request of the media companies be sufficient to put people in jail!?
You are making a lot of unfounded assumptions about what I believe.
I'm not defending any particular contractual structure. I'm not arguing against banning specific types of contracts. I'm not calling for excessive punishment for copyright infringement or for a surveillance state to enforce copyrights.
I'm saying that artists can be trusted to understand their own situation and act in their own interest, possibly with the help of lawyers or organisations that support them.
If some of them come to a conclusion that is different from yours, you can't just go ahead and declare them mentally incapacitated. That is what I call paternalistic and it is actually a rather moderate way of putting it.
Artists are not enslved imbecils who need to be protected from themselves. They may need to be protected from others, but that is something they need to diagnose themselves and make demands accordingly (some certainly do that).
Our societies are moving pretty quickly in a direction where we take away people's freedom to enter into voluntary agreements with other adults based on the claim that they are in a forced situation and can no longer be trusted to speak for themselves. Just look at prostitution, smoking, gambling, foreign currency loans, variuos fetishes, assisted suicide, etc.
Yes there are situations in which people need to be protected from themselves and their inability to grasp their own situation. But these situations are exceedingly rare. There should be a very high threshold before coming to that conclusion.
> I'm saying that artists can be trusted to understand their own situation and act in their own interest
I'm saying this indeed is wrong in 90% of the cases because the big media companies are intentionally deceptive, and control the message that the artists are getting. Try reading a bunch of blogs of musicians getting fed up by the companies - they're easy to find, and most of yet stories are very similar. They're promised everything and get nothing.
> possibly with the help of lawyers or organisations that support them.
I'm saying this is a necessity with independent organizations that actually care about the individuals, because right now they don't have that kind of support.
>I'm saying this indeed is wrong in 90% of the cases because the big media companies are intentionally deceptive, and control the message that the artists are getting.
And what makes you so uniquely positioned that you cannot be deceived and the information you have access to is not tightly controlled by these supposedly omnipotent media bosses?
I haven't heard anything from you that makes me believe in your superior insight compared to the people who signed the letter the NYT is reporting on.
Artists talk to each other you know. If 10% knew some super secret truth about the media business, the other 90% would quickly learn about it.
I'm afraid you'll have to accept that there are different opinions out there and not everyone who disagrees with you has had wool pulled over their eyes.
Has it occurred to you that the reality may be more nuanced so that reasonable people can disagree? Or that media conglomerates and their business models may be one problem that artists have and copyright infringement on a massive scale another one on top of that?
Looking up recoupment in the music industry is infuriating on its own, it isn't far from modern day slavery. Control over PR budgets is another one, and shitty royalties is a major one.
If you spend a few hours looking up those leads, I sincerely doubt you'll still think I'm misguided or not educated enough afterwards.
I'm not saying that you are misguided or not educated enough.
I have a problem with the principle of disregarding someone's express will based on a claim that he or she is manipulated and unable to speak for themselves.
That is dangerous for a free, democratic society based on the rule of law. If you disagree with someone about what is good for them, you need to convince them, not ignore their will.
And that has nothing to do with the extent to which I agree or disagree with your opinions on the subject of media contracts. We may well agree on a lot more than you seem to think.
Recorded music is the advertising for the musician. I don't understand why I should pay for that advertising. What they are advertising is their ability to perform music and they will receive my money when I pay to watch them perform or purchase their merchandise.
That's a very limited view of music. Tons of music/audio workers out there neither sing nor play live instruments. Songwriters, composers, electronic musicians, recording engineers, mixers, Foley artists, etc. To them, recording is their only product.
Definition of musician: a person who writes, sings, or plays music.
If their work is only a recording they can make money off of donations. This is how it works in my example of Hoodie Allen. He was directly telling his fans they could download his album for free and they were still paying for it.
I truly don't see how anything you have said here detracts from what I said.
> Recorded music is the advertising for the musician. I don't understand why I should pay for that advertising. What they are advertising is their ability to perform music and they will receive my money when I pay to watch them perform or purchase their merchandise.
No. Just no. Concerts and merchandise are lame excuses for people who prefer not to pay for music. You don't decide what the artist is selling.
In most cases the album is the actual product. You may see it as an advertisement, but it has a very real price tag attached. If you don't want to pay for it, fine - but please don't feel entitled to it because you attended a concert or bought a shirt.
Furthermore, do you realize that not every artist is a rock band? An ambient artist releases intended for home listening, may have a hard time
a) selling t-shirts to a mature audience that isn't all that interested in colorful prints on hip shirts
b) filling anything but the smallest venues since the music might be less suited for clubs and stadiums compared to that band you probably had in mind
> I don't get paid for people to use my work without any involvement from me past the fact I created something. Why should a musician be paid for you listening to the music they created. They aren't putting in any hours for me to hear that past the original creation. What are they getting paid for?
I can't believe how naive this sounds. You probably don't sell any kind of digital good, do you? Would you say the same thing about software, apps, books? The artist put a lot of hours into the original work and that's what you pay for.
Do you think you paid for the medium or the distribution process back when you bought CDs? That was a fraction of the price.
> On that note... fuck the music industry.
The music industry is much more than the handful of major labels. There are countless small, caring and niche labels that absolutely have the interests of artists and listeners in mind in everything they do. Your view is very narrow in that regard.
If you dig deeper, its not about piracy - its about control. What do the majors get from Spotify/Apple music that they don't get from YouTube? If the majors don't like their deal with Spotify (whether its 80% of the revenue, or no free listeners), the majors can walk, and if any of their music appears on Spotify, the majors can sue them out of existence.
With YouTube it's different -
1.) YouTube is the largest streaming site so users will always look for music there
2.) Anyone can upload music to YouTube
3.) YouTube isn't financially responsible when someone uploads infringing material.
These 3 factors mean, if the majors decide they want 80% of YouTube's revenue rather than 50% and YouTube walks, there is a chance (more like a given) that someone will upload Taylor Swift's new album on there pitch shifted by 13% (to evade content id), and will go on to generate millions of views. And since YouTube is protected by the DMCA, the majors can't sue them out of existence. That's why the majors hate the DMCA, as it applies to YouTube. There effectively isn't a "scorch-earth" policy for music on YouTube, and the majors can't leverage their army of lawyers to force YouTube to submit to them if "scorch-earth" fails.
Now I doubt "we need to kill the DMCA so we can sue YouTube for billions" is very PR-friendly, but "muh piracy" always is.