Where the music money goes. . .

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sun Oct 06, 2002 9:52 am

Picked this link up from the Floops forum. Great tale of woe about where the money goes in the music industry. Guess who loses ? The story gets better as it goes along - especially at the end when the figures are added up

Have a look:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Reminds me of a few musos I knew. One of them was in a pretty average band that I saw play once (they only ever played twice), who mysteriously got "picked up" and were flown to London to "cut some demos and meet some people". After about a year fluffing about like this - and several months living in a London flat - the wheels fell off, nothing was released and the band split up. Odd methought at the time...

Another friend (actually the boyfriend of a girl I knew) was in a well known band in Sydney. They were working on their second album and "just couldn't get the last track sounding right". They spent something like three months and $150,000 on that one song - and it wasn't even single material. I just couldn't figure out how that could be cost effective for anyone, or even how they could spend that much! And all the while I kept thinking what that $150,000 could achieve with some of the smaller bands I knew . . .

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sun Oct 06, 2002 5:25 pm

hey spirit, very interesting.....
i had contact with the music biz only as session man, and kept my composing just for the media (radio plays, documentaries...)but i remember the worst things happening in the minds of the people i was working for.
in italy most of the people working as producers are failed musicians, and they show a sort of perverted wish of power towards artists, there is a sort of unconscious incredible self destructiveness,
and most of them keep on loosing trains.

i really hope that many musicians start to bypass companies, we are really very close to the possibility to do so, small realities can reach many people throug the net, and cooperation is the way to get out of the "trench". and then, well, maybe not those huge amounts of money, but better music allowed...

ciao-

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 2:26 am

The music label industry started due to a technical monopoly - artists simply did not have access to the tools to produce albums themselves. With computer recording, cheap CD duplication, and MP3's - musicians now have the tools to subvert this monopoly, and are doing so. The big labels seem to be squirming about this a bit, but they still have a stranglehold on the market due to their pervasive marketing and the tradition of the parasitic artist/label relationship. The only benefit that a label seems to have for musicians these days is marketing - they can get your stuff out to a wide audience. Self-marketing is an option - but it is tough, believe me!

The EP I will be releasing ASAP is going to be available for free download online, but also be purchase-able in physical form. I think I am going with http://www.cdstreet.com/ - they take 20% of your sales - A hefty cut, but way less than the raped-by-the-labels scenario Spirit posted. Also, CD street enables secure shopping directly from your own website and does the shipping of your music for you. (this is really nice for me because I'll be out of the country for 2 years!)

If anyone else has ideas on 'grassroots disto' or knows good resources, please post here. I am interested in world-wide distribution of this EP, if anyone can think of distros in their region that would be interested, please email or PM me.

coc999 · Post by **coc999** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 1:25 pm

The reality is really hard,the distance that exist between an artistic creation and the final merchandising is as big as the distance between the sun and earth.Spirit thanks for this link.It is the first time i see this kind of mathematic report(at the end of the page).It proves that Musician are really philanthropists haha; With the money they generate they make live like LORDS a mass of people around them,except themselves sometimes(in your link sure!!!).

DJATWORK · Post by **DJATWORK** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 9:56 pm

The past week the US Justice had made payd 65.000.000 U$S to the Labels (Emi, Universal, etc etc) for breaking the monopoly laws.

djody · Post by **djody** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 5:23 am

So that means the US goverment is also ripping of artists.

Where did that money go???

Laterz

Post by **garyb** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 11:20 am

don't ask......

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 2:11 pm

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Fri Oct 11, 2002 5:07 pm

They say only the really big bands make money from the major labels. CD sales are currently down 10%. I'm guessing it is because of file swaping, also with the internet there are other ways to entertain yourself. It's a brave new world. I would be perfectly happy if all the major labels went bankrupt. If composers have to take day jobs so be it. In the end there will always be new music. Hollywood only spits out a bunch of crap anyway.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri Oct 11, 2002 8:13 pm

Trouble is that companies like Sony are now vertically integrated in the market. Their involvement starts with basic electronics research, then goes to consumer product design, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and music publishing.

In the worst case scenario (for them) one or two of these operations might go bust. ore likely is a new oppressive system of copy protection built into every device so that it becomes virtually impossible to move material around with some sort of device ID.

In that world old analog gear could suddenly regain its value - no copy protection.

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Fri Oct 11, 2002 10:13 pm

harharhar - spirit you remind me of this:
http://www.urbanreflex.com/may24_02/record.html

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 8:34 am

I can not think of one artist on Sony that I listen to. As far as I am concerned they can use as much copy protection as they want. They are shooting themselves in the foot. Artists don't need labels to make music. Listeners would be much better off if nobody made any money on music. Then you would have only people with a higher calling making music and most likely the music would get better. Could it be worse than the comercial music of today?

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 9:46 am

Liked the link Algo - I am a believer in this sort of thing. Often these days I think too many people have contempt for anything that's old and assume that new must always be better.

Braincell, that's an interesting idea. It reminds me of a book I was just reading where just before World war I (I think) there was furious debate in Britain about paying politicians. The thought was that instead of getting people who wanted to help direct civic life, politics would be overrun by people interested only in money.

Retro · Post by **Retro** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 11:23 am

On 2002-10-12 10:46, Spirit wrote:
The thought was that instead of getting people who wanted to help direct civic life, politics would be overrun by people interested only in money.

Well thank goodness that hasn't happened! (I'm being sarcastic)

I had a friend in Sydney who joined a certain political party (one of the "big 2") with the intention of putting some integrity back into politics. Right from the outset I seriously doubted she would succeed, and unfortunately I was correct. It was both fascinating and very sad to watch her benevolent ambitions slowly disintegrate in favour of money-grabbing and vile scheming. The transformation was shocking and it made me wonder just how many bureaucrats started out the same way.

The story doesn't stop there... I produced a theme song for one of her campaigns, and as a result I was invited to the launch party. I witnessed several high-profile politicians smoking dope and telling extremely bigoted jokes. A couple of them were having sex in the men's toilets. Most of them got extremely drunk and some of them drove home in that state. I'm not saying this to pass judgement, but the display of hypocrisy was astounding! Political correctness? My arse!!

Okay, that ended up being a rave but I couldn't help sharing one of the most educational experiences of my life so far. Forgive me if I don't get all warm and fuzzy when someone suggests politicians are anything but self-serving, two-faced scum.

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 11:49 am

In the Republic, Plato was very careful to spell out that the ruling class was to live in a state of poverty and was restricted from a broad variety of material possessions . . . he saw this as an important check on power-serving-self-interest.

and now?

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 8:41 pm

Plato, if I recall correctly, was a great fan of the Spartan system. The Spartan kings lived a very simple life, but were vulnerable when exposed to the real world.

After his victory over the Persian army at Platea, the Spartan King Pausanias went on to fight the Persians in Asia Minor but, being exposed to incredible Persian oppulance, was quickly corrupted.

On a seemingly unrelated theme, I was reading an excellent series of articles on the BBC site about slum-dwellers in Kenya:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2297265.stm

They avoid the police because they are often beaten, or the police demand bribes. But interestingly no-one really blames the police for their attitude because they are so poorly paid that they can't make a living unless they take bribes.

It's a beautiful world.