Hard News: Another nail in the coffin of music DRM
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waffle on for a page and half here about why you are wrong on this.
is it not true that majors were pretty decent to nz artists?
is it not true that a large number of artist contracts are really really boring, straight forward business agreements (that you may well need a lawyer to look over but the same goes for purchasing a house) -
Uhhh..in both cases probably yes, but lets not go into details.
well the proof is in the details simon.
did you read my recount of the un named indie artist who bad mouthed roger sheperd cos they felt he owed them $50.
i'm sure there are similar (unjust) stories floating round about you, but if anyone knows a little bit more about the workings of making and distributing music they'd realise it's not a winning game anywhere in the chain, cept perhaps retails and their 75% mark up, but even they'd tell you they need that to survive.surprisingly enough musicians are consumate complainers, i'm sure you've met a few. everybodies ripping everyone else off if you believe anyone of a number of perspectives and now the end customer is ripping the whole chain off. its a beautiful picture ain't it. and an honest days work for an honest days pay doesn't seem to fit into the equation any more.
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well the proof is in the details simon.
like I said Rob, I ain't gonna go into this. Suffice to say I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the historical fairness of the record industry's dealings with acts. That is not in any way universal of course. But I could give you dozens of examples that exist in standard boring contracts, that are designed to confuse and reduce payment and are written in such a way as to circumvent even the most intrepid lawyer. Ok..a little detail...I had one contract with a large company which I negotiated in good faith face to face with their lawyer. We agreed on it all, shook hands and signed. It worked well until said company was taken over by another, whose lawyer then said..no this (very important) clause means this, thus circumventing our intent, and slashing the payments due. I attempted to argue and was told that they would apply it their way unless I took it to court. There was a clear corporate intent to screw me despite our original intent.
But I also agree with your position that much is also implied and said that is unfair..the world loves a beaten up and ripped off underdog regardless of the truth. Almost every act feels ripped off especially when viewed through rose tinted glasses as to how 'big' they were: "we charted"...3 years back I had a band member ask for an audit of a record that cost a couple of thousand to make and sold less than 200 copies..and was deleted in 1983. He'd festered for decades.
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There was a clear corporate intent to screw me despite our original intent.
that's business for you though. allow them to screw you and they will. its the same in any business. air tight contracts etc. you would have obviously had a nature and intent of the contract clause and you could have contested that in court if you could be bothered pursuing it.
truth is in NZ majors probably do indies a favour in a way by taking something which doesn't really make em that much money and getting it into shops. it really helps to have someone in the major on your side as the guy who did the original contract was.
if that person isn't there any more then the favour is lost and its all just a waste of time for them business wise.
I see what's driving them, profit, and I see what's driving the other side, passion, there are no real surprises there.He'd festered for decades.
shoe, meet the other foot. :)
I wouldn't for a second think you'd rip anyone off, or that there was anything to be ripped off.
that's why the evil label thing rings hollow for me. there's a million sides to the story. and yes there are some classic cases of overly favourable contracts, more full the artist that signed them without getting them looked at by an expert. its business. you can't blame the lion for eating its prey. -
and simon, for the record you didn't restate what you've already said which slightly contradicts what you said today.
majors were predominantly good to local acts in nz when they bothered to get involved, and many many contracts are completely non eventful.
some are nasty though, some. -
majors were predominantly good to local acts in nz when they bothered to get involved, and many many contracts are completely non eventful.
sadly there is a gulf between the people who work for majors and the ingrained business practices. Best not to confuse the two.....
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sadly there is a gulf between the people who work for majors and the ingrained business practices. Best not to confuse the two.....
but isn't that the same for every other business.
you can get dicked over in real estate, banking, or buying a scone, it all depends on the attitude of the person serving you.
in a capitalist system businesses are there to make money, as much money as people will let them. its the good (or bad) people that front them that make the difference. It seems silly to point the finger and cry foul at record labels and not do the same to every other business that made a profit at your expense.I'd love to see this contact that could be interpreted in 2 different ways. if its a production and distribution deal then there's a percentage cut isn't there? how did you manage to nut out the original contract and leave that ambiguous? on the plus side you won't be falling for that one again though will you :)
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Rob, it was way more complicated than that...to quote you, the devil is in the detail, and the way certain words can be said to be applied to others in the midst of a 45 page document....or not. Nuf said..
but isn't that the same for every other business.
you can get dicked over in real estate, banking, or buying a scone, it all depends on the attitude of the person serving you.But predatory practices in business, taking advantage of others' weaknesses and abusing a position of strength are neither morally or, often, legally acceptable. You seem to be saying that because they exist, they are.
The most interesting development in these current times seems to be the recurring use of the word no when artists are approached by larger record labels. Its been a point of some talk in the US industry forums. Bands or artists who are saying no to a contract of any sort with the big 4..its never happened before. There is no longer any reason to sign those bits of paper offered from a position of strength now disappearing
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the way certain words can be said to be applied to others ....or not.
Clinton argued Bennett was speaking in the present tense. 'It all depends,' said the President, 'on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the -- if he -- if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not -- that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....
'Now if someone had asked me on that day, 'Are you having sexual relations with Ms. Lewinksy?' That is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said, 'No.' And it would have been completely true.'
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But predatory practices in business, taking advantage of others' weaknesses and abusing a position of strength are neither morally or, often, legally acceptable. You seem to be saying that because they exist, they are.
I'm not by any stretch of the imagination endorsing arsehole tactics.
what I am saying is that music is no different from any other business and this shit happens everywhere. Its called capitalism and so long as its within the law (and it is within the law to fuck people over so long as you do it by the rules) then yes it is deemed legal and acceptable by our civilisation to do so, which is pretty crap, but its no different in any other business field so why should we be surprised and let our guard down, or expect any different of people manufacturing and distributing music. I'd expect each and everyone of them to try and maximise their share and profit from the venture. They're not the ones who have an emotional interest in it, its just a job to them.We on the other hand are allowed to by law not do business with them. Nothing has ever been stopping you or any other music entity from doing the whole thing yourself. Buy a duplication plant, print and package it all yourself, visit every record store in the country etc.
Flying Nun did it that way for a good long time (the distro), I've hardly done it any other way (almost the whole package).
But there's a reason you get into bed with the devil you know. Its hard work and you figure it makes sense to pay for their services, and to an extent it does as shown by my successes verses FN or Propeller. Shunning the beast is all well and good but the difference is a) do it yourself, make no money and remain small and relatively unheard of, or b) do it through majors, make no money and get a sizably bigger profile.
The NZ reality is always zero dollars but one way they pay for it and barely break even and take a large part of the dog work out of it (and the first and sometimes the only bite of the pie) and the other way you pay, possibly lose money, and devote many long hours you could better spend practicing your bass guitar moves.
I just don't get the surprise factor that the music business works like it does and the argument forwarded by many that piracy is justified cos it gives them a little of their own medicine back.
Real estate agents creaming off wads of cash for doing fuck all, banks charging excessive fees for little or no actually effort or cost to them, yet I don't hear people justifying robbing banks based on their bad behaviour. maybe the deciding factor is our ability to get away with the crime.
I did get into bed with the evils once and managed to rip them off if that helps make anyone feel any better. they paid for the production of about 6 albums and I did fuck all promo in australia and they sold very few in that territory. They were supposes to keep the profits from there to pay for the pressings and their profit margin, it didn't happen, they came and asked me for cash and I said no, sorry, don't got none. It was a verbal vague agreement with a good guy who worked for them who ended up leaving before it came time to pay the piper. They probably squeezed it out of some other indie sap though so swings and roundabouts I guess (sorry mate, where do I send the cheque?)
Me hating big business and excess profiteers even more than the next guy I find it disturbing that I should be in the position of defending major labels especially against you. Maybe its cos I've been making discs from the ground up for 25 years that I appreciate what they contribute to the equation. Its a service that Ive sometimes wished i'd paid for instead of being so stubbornly independent, and then other times I'm glad iIve taken the route I have.
I'm certainly not going to say something as stupid as what Mr Napier Bell did by saying a record is only worth 10 cents of plastic cos I know the added value given to that plastic every step of the way. I know raw plastic costs are not the costs of a disc. That's as stupid as saying a car is only worth 50 bucks cos thats what the metal costs.
Big business is only as evil as you let it be. If you don't like the way they work, do business with someone else or do it all yourself. its hardly a monopoly, although the other roads are not nearly as easy to travel.
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not that there are going to be any further developments or changes in the drm argument but the next lars urlich has stepped up to be stoned for daring to speak his mind. apparently he is inciting the invasion of privacy in the same way that a cop invades a burglars privacy by looking out for balaclava clad guys with flash lights hanging out round unguarded premises in the early hours of the morning. too bad he's rich or people might take him seriously
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Paul McGuinness full speech.
I think I'll go with this guy over the dude who gave us boney m, crap phase ultravox and wham. (ie manufactured pop)http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i062b16e707aa99916c212e660cbffd3e
key quotes
"We were never interested in joining that long, humiliating list of miserable artists who made lousy deals, got exploited and ended up broke and with no control over how their life's work was used, and no say in how their names and likenesses were bought and sold."
"I love the record business, and though I may be critical of the ways in which the digital space has been faced by the industry I am also genuinely sympathetic and moved by the human fall-out, as the companies react to falling revenues by cutting staff and tightening belts. Many old friends and colleagues have been affected by this. They have families and it is terrible that a direct effect of piracy and thievery has been the destruction of so many careers."
"Sadly, the recent innovative Radiohead release of a download priced on the "honesty box" principle seems to have backfired to some extent. It seems that the majority of downloads were through illegal P2P download services like BitTorrent and LimeWire, even though the album was available for nothing through the official band site. Notwithstanding the promotional noise, even Radiohead's honesty box principle showed that if not constrained, the customer will steal music."
"If you were publishing a magazine that was advertising stolen cars, processing payments for them and arranging delivery of them you'd expect to get a visit from the police wouldn't you? What's the difference? With a laptop, a broadband account, an MP3 player and a smartphone you can now steal all the content, music, video and literary in the world without any money going to the content owners. On the other hand if you get caught stealing a laptop in the computer store or don't pay your broadband bill there are obvious consequences. You get nicked or you get your access cut off.It is time for ISPs to be real partners. The safe harbours of the 1990s are no longer appropriate, and if ISPs do not cooperate voluntarily there will need to be legislation to require them to cooperate."
"whatever business model you are building, you cannot compete with billions of illegal files free on P2P networks. And the research does show that effective enforcement -- such as a series of warnings from the ISP to illegal file-sharers that would culminate in disconnection of your service -- can address the problem."
"I think the failure of ISPs to engage in the fight against piracy, to date, has been the single biggest failure in the digital music market. They are the gatekeepers with the technical means to make a far greater impact on mass copyright violation than the tens of thousands of lawsuits taken out against individual file-sharers by bodies like BPI, RIAA and IFPI. To me, prosecuting the customer is counter-intuitive, though I recognise that these prosecutions have an educational and propaganda effect, however small, in showing that stealing music is wrong."
"ISPs could implement a policy of disconnection in very quick time. Filtering is also feasible. When last June the Belgian courts made a precedent-setting ruling obliging an ISP to remove illegal music from its network, they identified no fewer than 6 technologies which make it possible for this to be done. No more excuses please. ISPs can quickly enough to block pornography when that becomes a public concern.When the volume of illegal movie and music P2P activity was slowing down their network for legitimate users recently in California, Comcast were able to isolate and close down BitTorrent temporarily without difficulty."
"I suggest we shift the focus of moral pressure away from the individual P2P file thief and on to the multi billion dollar industries that benefit from these countless tiny crimes -- The ISPs, the telcos, the device makers. Let's appeal to those fine minds at Stanford University and Silicon Valley, Apple, Google, Nokia, HP, China Mobile, Vodafone, Comcast, Intel, Ericsson, Facebook, iLike, Oracle, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Tiscali etc, and the bankers, engineers, private equity funds, and venture capitalists who service them and feed off them to apply their genius to cooperating with us to save the recorded music industry, not only on the basis of reluctantly sharing advertising revenue but collecting revenue for the use and sale of our content. They have built multi billion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it."
"And the message to government is this: ISP responsibility is not a luxury for possible contemplation in the future. It is a necessity for implementation TODAY -- by legislation if voluntary means fail." -
Simon's response to Paul McGuinness.
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"Sadly, the recent innovative Radiohead release of a download priced on the "honesty box" principle seems to have backfired to some extent. It seems that the majority of downloads were through illegal P2P download services like BitTorrent and LimeWire, even though the album was available for nothing through the official band site. Notwithstanding the promotional noise, even Radiohead's honesty box principle showed that if not constrained, the customer will steal music."
I utterly despair at this contemptuous characterisation of "the customer", although I guess you're down with it Rob, given your line of argument.
But let's try reframing it: "The honesty box principle showed that some people, including a very large group that wouldn't have bought the bloody thing anyway, won't pay you. On the other hand, you can pocket a much larger proportion of what the customer actually pays and your CD will sell like billy-o."
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Simon's response to Paul McGuinness.
yeah, that was an indepth analysis of the multitude of points McGuinness raised giving us new insight into the workings of the complex industry that is music distribution.
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I utterly despair at this contemptuous characterisation of "the customer",
Really, and you don't apply those same standards to other customer relationships. you get treated with a lot more contempt when you line up to get into a high street club, or buy your hamburger.
Where else are people allowed to consume the product then decide not to pay? if you don't want it, don't take it. you can sample most of this stuff on myspace without downloading it. its not contempt to allow try before you buy (radio, streaming audio), its not contempt to say hey, show me and my product some respect. where do you get this concept of contempt? I don't read that into any of his comments? why do you think you're entitled because you seem to have this air of entitlement to your comments. seriously an honest question that might enlighten us. why do you think people deserve music for free? I ask this without being rude cheeky etc. straight up question to get insight into what a lot of people have noted on this thread.
I guess you're down with it Rob, given your line of argument.
:) for the purposes of winding you up I'm enjoying the line of argument, not that it makes any difference what so ever in the real world, or that its even a real view held by me. you do get that I am on some points being argumentative to see where it goes.
but its interesting to see a respected industry professional say many of the same things I hypothesised about, and I'm pretty sure he's got a better grasp of what can and will happen in the real world of media distribution than anyone on this list.
As I've said I so don't idolise the majors but what affects them affects my favourite bands from them more obscure corners of the world. I "utterly despair" at the short sightedness of some. I've aid it before in this thread I don't pretend to know what will happen but i'm dead sure it isn't as simple of roll over and take it as far as music and digital media is concerned
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yeah, that was an indepth analysis of the multitude of points McGuinness raised giving us new insight into the workings of the complex industry that is music distribution.
I didn't need to Rob, the general reaction to Paul's comments out there hasn't been positive. Instead I was just pointing out the one blatant screaming moment of hypocrisy, and one he tried to address but in doing so dug himself a slightly deeper hole.
BTW Radiohead have said they made more out of the current album than then entire EMI catalogue to date. I guess it worked for them.
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Where else are people allowed to consume the product then decide not to pay?
Ahhhh the publishing industry where it is possible for me to create a piece of work, pay for it to be published/distributed and then pay again if I want to use it publicly, digitally or as a part of other work.
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Paul McGuinness full speech.
I think I'll go with this guy over the dude who gave us boney m, crap phase ultravox and wham. (ie manufactured pop)a) its all frigging manufactured pop, its just the degree.
b) Can we add co-writing "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (which dwarves anything in the U2 canon), discovering Mark Bolan (without whom no punk and a myriad of other things including U2), and managing Dusty Springfield and The Yardbirds to Mr. Napier-Bell's achievements. Its only fair. Or don't they count?
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Where else are people allowed to consume the product then decide not to pay?
Libraries?
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Damn libraries, with their free access to information! What are they thinking?
I'd like to give some revisionist props to Boney M. No, hear me out! They are so *weird*. They sound utterly robotic and emotionless, yet they dressed like LaBelle, and they chose some really incongruous stuff to cover. The Melodians' 'Rivers of Babylon' *and* Bobby Hebb's 'Sunny'? Really?
(Also: Wham! were way better than everyone thinks. dammit. I have this argument regularly with people, because I am insane.)
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I'm with Danielle on Bony M. Except I just think they're cutesy and fun when drinking. She's got a whole explanation.
You're on your own with Wham however. Good luck!
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(Also: Wham! were way better than everyone thinks. dammit. I have this argument regularly with people, because I am insane.)
Just tell them that George Michael, aged 18, was writing, arranging, producing, choreographing and art directing his career pretty much on his own when most are still working out what to do with the rest of their lives.
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Boney M were not really Boney M, they were Frank Farian (who was also Milli Vanilli and with whom he managed to convince a gullible USA that they were real when everybody else knew exactly what they were for gods sake)
Frank came from the same close circle as Moroder and both were pop wunderkids. Craftsmen and masters of their art.
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Boney M were not really Boney M
I believe the current situation is that just about anyone is Boney M.
There's about three or four Boney M bands on tour at any one time. Any of the main four members of the band retain the right to tour under the name. Good fun.
And apparently Boney M at least performed their live music, live (unlike MV), though a lot of the recorded music was actually done by Farian.
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