The Challenges Facing
Everyone In The Music Business Today, From The Conglomerates to The
Independent Guys. (Editorial)
The Challenges Facing
Everyone In The Record Business Today, From The Conglomerates to The
Independent Guys.
Judging by the millions of music videos by wannabe content
creators on YouTube, and free to download “mixtapes” on Datpiff.com and sites
like it, you would think that the music business is undergoing an incredible
renaissance. Everyone must be making money hand over foot because people are
fighting to get in to this business huh? Some do, most aren’t . Here are a few
reasons why.
An example of the problems existing today in the laws and
statutes which allow these kinds of loopholes is The United States Court of
appeals for the District of Columbia
case:
No.11-1083.
INTERCOLLEGIATE BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC., A
RHODE ISLAND NON-PROFIT CORPORATION, APPELLANT v. COPYRIGHT ROYALTY BOARD AND
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, APPELLEES COLLEGE BROADCASTERS, INC. And SOUNDEXCHANGE,
INC., INTERVENORS
In 2003-2004 the RIAA’s very
public lawsuits brought against infringing consumers changed how the law is enforced. The RIAA
brought suit to 5,460 individuals who shared files through services such as
Napster and Kazaa, stiff penalties in the tens to hundreds of thousands of
dollars were imposed on ordinary working individuals with families (Electronic
Frontier Foundation, 2008).The reason individuals were targeted is because in
the RIAA’s case against Verizon Inc:
RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC., APPELLEE v. VERIZON
INTERNET SERVICES, INC., APPELLANT
No. 03-7015, Consolidated with 03-7053
UNITED STATES
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
The United States Court of Appeals For the District of Columbia Circuit found that Verizon could not be held
responsible for users who use Verizon’s service as a conduit to their activities unless Verizon themselves
were housing the illegal material on their servers and not connecting individuals who were housing
infringing material on their personal computers. Since then, actually penalizing consumers who
illegally download and share content which has illegally been uploaded in the
first place has come to be seen as “heavy handed” and an abuse of the RIAA’s
and the authorities power. In short, though it was legal, and the only remedy
the RIAA could seek on behalf of rights holders it was a complete PR nightmare.
The public’s indifference to paying for music has lead to
continued infringement on copyright holders rights. The stiff penalties imposed
since 2003 have done little to discourage the people’s continued illegal
downloads and sharing. When we combine these factors with the recent development
of a very grim picture develops for content creators. Artist who would have tried
to develop their careers utilizing these technologies are beginning to find
that a career in the arts which depends on copyrights being respected, has come
to be commercially impractical.
Streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify and Mog operate
on algorithms. These equations calculate the numbers of plays by fractions of a
cent paid back to copyright owners for streams, utilizing a constant divided by
the amount consumers pay for membership into theses services. While these
companies like to tout their legality and boast on their adherence to the law,
The actual percentages paid to rights holders are said to be fractional and are
often ate up in recoupment fees by record labels and distribution, leaving the
artist out in the cold at the end of the day.
In addition these services have yet to report a profit and
are said to be hemorrhaging millions of dollars in fees paid back to the publishers
and distributors of content (Sefton,2012) . Something doesn’t add up.
In 2012 Spotify was sued by Nonend inventions a Dutch
company which specializes in P2P cloud type technology patents:
UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE
NONEND
INVENTIONS N.V. Plaintiff, vs. SPOTIFY USA INC., a Delaware Corporation; SPOTIFY LIMITED, a
United Kingdom Corporation; SPOTIFY TECHNOLOGY SARL, a Luxembourg Corporation;
and SPOTIFY AB, a Swedish Corporation
Spotify was targeted because much of Spotify’s music is
housed on many servers of it’s users as opposed to other streaming companies
which own their servers and house the music in central locations. Nonend argues that Spotify is utilizing it’s
technology and infringing on it’s patents. None of these parties are discussing
the fact that their technology patents are often sidestepping the issue of
Copyright infringement by allowing users to share music across the internet and
multiple servers without knowing legality of the music or accurately paying
streaming fees for shared content (music)which neither Spotify or Nonend,
actually own.
As an independent artist who funds my own career, I have
found that the best viable option for people like me, looking to create
compelling content, is to build my brand by investing in increasing my value.
First of all, I create what I consider Compelling well thought out content! I
have released my music through digital distributors, which charge miniscule
fees in my opinion. I utilize promoters to tweet email and blast my content
across the world. I have registered my work with the U.S Copyright office,
acquired ISRC Codes for royalty collection and Joined Performance rights
organizations like ASCAP, SESAC, or BMI.
I do this in order to differentiate my self and my company from the
millions of talentless dreamers who have been empowered to cloud up the
airwaves and desensitize the public to good content, through utilizing the very
same tool I do, the Internet. I invest heavily in the creation, design and
dissemination of my brand yet without the simple honoring of my exclusive
rights as a Copyright holder it may all be for naught. Every factor that I have
identified, is a factor that an Independent artist and record label must
consider in order to be properly informed and plan around to ensure survival in
this bleak economy, industry and present day business paradigm.
In order to harness
the public’s indifference to the established covenants of our industry as
opposed to fighting them, we must learn to turn window shoppers into paying
customers by creating truly remarkable content. There has been a sharp rise in
record labels signing artist to either “single” deals or overbearing 360°
deals. This seems to be the effort of the ailing conglomerates to either
generate as much revenue as they can from one song from an artist they don’t
believe in very much, or squeeze the juice out of an established brand or
artist.
If these same conglomerates would invest in developing some
of those artist they sign to single deals and help them to create never before
seen innovative content, maybe the public would be more apt to pay for
something they can really respect and feel merits them spending their dwindling
disposable income for. Major record labels get their panties in a bunch when
they aren’t making as much as they used to from their “Deep catalogue” and
their newest content creators seem to be everywhere and popular but are selling
fewer units. I think this is because you can put the artists content everywhere
and play it non stop on the radio stations with payola, but you can’t truly
make the public really, really like and support an artist with no real
charisma, persona, stance, relevance or platform other than the one you are giving
them. In essence, major record label conglomerates are spamming the airwaves, internet and email
with worthless flavor of the week content that is here today gone tomorrow,
while old rockers like U-2 and Paul Mccartney can gross hundreds of millions of
dollars on fewer and fewer world tours.
It’s the content. It has always been the content. The only
way to overcome any of these challenges is to create truly remarkable,
compelling, quality content. Therein lies the solution.
References:
351 F.3d 1229;
359 U.S. App. D.C. 85; 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 25735; 69 U.S.P.Q.2D (BNA) 1075;
Copy. L. Rep. (CCH) P28,734; 31 Comm. Reg. (P & F) 438. Retrieved from
www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic
684 F.3d 1332;
401 U.S. App. D.C. 407; 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 13757; 103 U.S.P.Q.2D (BNA) 1337;
Copy. L. Rep. (CCH) P30,276. Retrieved from
www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic
DELIVERING
TO A DIGITAL WORLD. (2012). Music Week, (17), 33-38.
Digital Music Cloud Dilemma: Poker Face, Go your own Way,
and Imagine.(2011) The Media Institute.Menell ,Peter S.
Street,
J. (2012). From Gigs to Giggs: politics, law and live music. Social Semiotics,
22(5), 575-585. doi:10.1080/10350330.2012.731901
HOW
SHOULD WE CONTAIN THE CLOUD?. (2011). Print, 65(4), 46-47.
RIAA VS. The People: five Years Later.(2008) Electronic
Frontier Foundation. Retrieved from- https://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-five-years-later
Spotify Gets Hit With a Patent Suit From Nonend a Dutch Peer
to Peer IP Holder(2012) Techcrunch.com –retrieved from- http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/15/spotify-gets-hit-with-a-patent-suit-from-nonend-a-dutch-peer-to-peer-ip-holder/
http://www.cmj.com/news/berklee-and-midem-announce-rethink-music-conference/
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