Hard News: The song is not the same
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Hey Rob, try this: rather than using the phrase "tech head occupants of this site" as if it's some kind of insult, say "I realise there are people here who've thought a lot about these issues from the technology side, but I think they're missing some of the realities of being in a creative business."
It also implies that there is no creative aspect to technical pursuits, no resulting body of work, and no interest in making a living from this work.
All of which are - and I can't believe this even needs pointing out - ridiculous.
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Amy: absolutely. Computer programs are eminently copyright-able. If you want to make a living from selling proprietary software, you are interested in copyright. If you want to write free software and protect how it is used, you are interested in copyright. People who write programs for a living are more likely to be interested in copyright, for reasons that affect their work and their bank balance, than just about anyone.
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as if it's some kind of insult,
absolutely no insult intended,
jealousy if anything, society holds technical thought in high regard. their the guys that make stuff work.
but yes, you said it better.But that's been the story of the last few decades of copyright law. Virtually all the movement -- term extensions, force of law, etc -- has gone in favour of copyright owners
so if forward movement is term extensions, more support and rights to creative content owners then a move to remove that must be a backwards, a return to conditions of old, that's the conservative position. We tried it your way and we didn't like so we're going back to a position we had before". less rights for media.
I have trouble with seeing some of the thrust of copyright reform as a move forward. We've already been in that state of mind before, many years ago.
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implies that there is no creative aspect to technical pursuits
hell no, that is rediculous, but that's software not media. I was trying to restrict my comments to something that doesn't do something other than entertain, although computer games must fall into the entertainment category.
what's the game industries position on seeing their work spread without recompense?
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The real problem for creators on iTunes and other download services is the miserable royalty rate paid on those sales by the major labels. I think that will change as independents and aggregators start eating the majors' lunch.
the providers of the service are now taking the large cut of the lunch. itunes takes some where in the region of half. pretty hard to offer your product at a lower price if someone else is taking a huge cut.
That was the same with cd retail taking a 75% mark up but the high cost of cds was always focused on the greedy label. a large part of the cost of media is the last person to touch it charging so much to give you the media and take your money. -
It also implies that there is no creative aspect to technical pursuits, no resulting body of work, and no interest in making a living from this work.
It also implies that all we do is technical stuff, writing software or games. It ignores the fact that many "tech-heads" are also musicians, artists, writers, performers, film makers even potters and sculptors.
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the providers of the service are now taking the large cut of the lunch. itunes takes some where in the region of half. pretty hard to offer your product at a lower price if someone else is taking a huge cut.
As far as I know, Apple's margin on iTunes sales is still 30%, of which it loses about 2% in credit card handling fees.
That's less than Apple's 34% gross margin as an overall company, and it pays for the server farm, the localisation and the marketing and operation of the service. I actually don't think it's an unreasonable margin.
By comparison, major label artists typically receive 10-14% of the remaining price of a download. But that's not the retail price. Or even the wholesale price. It's the price after the labels have typically skimmed 50% in questionable deductions, including the notorious "packaging fee".
It's really crap, and artists who signed away their digital rights (even as part of P&D deals with majors) are in a really difficult position.
In the independent world, it's all different. That's where you want to be as an artist in the digital download business.
PS: I should note that if you add an aggregator's fee for shopping your music to the various commercial download services, your total cost of sale does rise to about 50% -- but that generally only applies to indies and individual artists. Majors deal directly.
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Russ, this is pretty much the model I was referring to some threads back, but Simon indicated it is much lees the case these days. Did I read you wrong, Simon?
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/lees /less
edit function !!!
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implies that there is no creative aspect to technical pursuits
actually the tech head comment was made with regard to a couple of specific comments in this thread coming directly from the tech side only. that attitude may well not be representative of the tech industry, or the creatives in said industry.
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Ooh, Mark broke System. He got the strong tag to stick in the html.
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fix? hmm.
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</strong>
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nup, It seems it will have to be done by Cactus. Not sure what happened, I used the tag on both sides of an __ tag set but it seems to have chomped on the opening < of the closing tag. I think.
Oh, dear
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test
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ummm ummmm umm. I'm telling Russell on you! :P
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And it's only the bottom of that one page that's affected. Very bizarre. Moral: use PAS's proprietary formatting codes, not the proper HTML ones :P
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On the other copyright thread their are a couple of links that are worth having a look at. There are a few for Shirky that Sacha provided a few links for and the other is the anti-monopoly ebook that Keir suggests.
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I actually don't think it's an unreasonable margin.
that would depend upon what the actual costs of bringing said product from artist/label to paying customer.
30% of the total income is similar to what a shop takes and for that they provide sales staff (be they disinterested snotty teenagers, or informed passionate and knowledgeable), high street shops (or dingy back alley basements) paying rent, advertising, physical displays.
They store and manage and handle physical stock.If myspace can afford to manage and store the swag of material it does at no cost to the streaming consumer that would mean that the remaining value and expense is in the financial transaction and the accounts management. is that a 30% cost.
Also that 30% makes it really hard for artists to bring their wares to customers at what would be an attractive rate. say 50 cents a song.
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refresher current break down of retail cd prices
$22.44 (19.94 plus gst) wholesale = $34.95 retail. retail cut = $12.51 a disc.anyone got comparable figures for 12 tracks itunes downloads.
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refresher current break down of retail cd prices
$22.44 (19.94 plus gst) wholesale = $34.95 retail. retail cut = $12.51 a disc.So, a 35.8% markup, although it's clear that the likes of the Warehouse and JB operate on totally different wholesale prices to the rest of the retail sector.
Assuming you're not a major label, what's a distributor's cut come to?
anyone got comparable figures for 12 tracks itunes downloads.
Simon?
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local indie distributors figures. different retail full price of $29.95
wholesale $14.40 inc gst (artist label cut $12.82 ex gst)
distro $19.23 inc gst (distro cut $4.28 ex gst)
retail $29.95 inc gst (retail cut $9.52 ex gst)I think I got that right, not sure on the last one.
means more than half of the cost of a disc is in getting it from label to consumer.
ie $12.82 -artist/label/manufacturing
$13.80 - distro/retail.please check and correct, my heads a little sore this morning.
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in getting it from label to consumer after it has been manufactured
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Moral: use PAS's proprietary formatting codes, not the proper HTML ones :P
I did, the System formats them into em's and strong's in order to display them. I'd try it again for experimentation but twice might make Russell growls at me.
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Russ, this is pretty much the model I was referring to some threads back, but Simon indicated it is much lees the case these days. Did I read you wrong, Simon?
No I think Russell's right. It really depends on the deal but there are all sorts of add ins that affect the cut to artist too. There are, depending on the contract, packaging deductions (which means that the artist is only paid royalties on reduced base price..it's essentially a scam), technology transfer fees, new tech deductions, and a thousand other ways to cut the end royalty to the act.
From the artiist's POV the key phrase is royalty base price which is (and there are a million variations on this) published price to deal (PPD) less the various deductions labels make to reduce that so that they pay less. And many of those deductions are a scam, nothing less.
So, a 35.8% markup, although it's clear that the likes of the Warehouse and JB operate on totally different wholesale prices to the rest of the retail sector.
There are a whole bunch of things used to reduce the cost to these guys. Firstly there is discounting....and the artist usually only gets paid on a reduced rate here even though, unless they are contracually specific, they have no say. Then there are freebies. You buy 500 U2 albums, we will give you 500 Dire Straits albums, or 500 assorted albums from out catalogue. On these, regardless of what they are sold for, the artist gets no royalties as the are cut outs of whatever term is current. In the US there was a court case a few years back where Universal was giving stock to juke box operators free, which was going straight into retail at full price..royalty free. There are many more....TV advertise the album and there is a much reduced royalty, and often a bill back to the artist's recoupment account.
On many acts, the royalties paid on digital by majors are appalling with all the normal scammy deductions from physical being transfered to digital (packaging deductions on mp3s?), part of which add to my reasoning that the majors really don't deserve a break on this.
Indies (but not all by any means) tend to be far more creator friendly when it comes to digital splits. But for all that, the basic premise that the artist signs to a label, pays all the costs out of their small fraction, and then owns nothing at the end, is one of the things that will cause labels to flounder. Some majors are addressing this but only because they have to as their time as new music originators passes but in my experience the contracts and paperwork surrounding all this is even more punitive than before, in other ways. Why any act would sign such a thing now is beyond me.
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