Musicians vs. RIAA At USA Today 615
An anonymous reader writes "USA Today has an article about the growing friction between recording artists and the 5 major labels which make up the RIAA. Many issues are covered, including copyright reform, fraudulent accounting on the part of record labels, and how selling a quarter million albums can leave you owing your label $14,000."
Clear Channel / Payola (Score:5, Informative)
The Clear Channel / Payola problem is one of the most serious issues in the music industry today. It is one of the primary causes of the crap that's coming out of the major labels.
If you haven't read it, you should check out Salon's great series [salon.com] on this issue.
Original Steve Albini article (Score:5, Informative)
You can read the original piece by the brilliant Steve Albini here [negativland.com], and probably lots of other places [google.com]. Thanks to some slashdot comment I read last week but have since lost.
Pay back Bo Diddley! (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if this includes the artists who died penniless. (Back pension to the widowed families)
What would be nice is if they could reverse the law that lets the Big-5 keep the copyrights forever. Retrieval of copyrights back to the family of deseased artists could be a form of income for them.
Although it's possible the Big-5 think of these as revenue for themselves, the fact is, they sit on them without re-releasing songs because it's not "profitable" to them. These families have smaller overhead, and it could be profitable for THEM.
somebody just defined the RIAA in a sentence (Score:2, Informative)
bingo!
-- james
Steve Alibini article (Score:2, Informative)
The income statement is a little hard to follow. For one thing, it doesn't have proper indenting for sub-items, so it's hard to tell which things should really be added up.
For those who think it's okay for bands to make nothing on recordings since they make all their money on tours--this band lost money on tours, which is typical, from what I understand.
Re:Pay back Bo Diddley! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48625,
Copyright has bloated from providing 14 years of protection a century ago to 70 years beyond the creator's death now, he said, and has become a tool of large corporations eager to indefinitely prolong their control of a market. Irving Berlin's songs, for example, will not go off copyright for 140 years, he said.
Re:Fear the Parrot! (Score:3, Informative)
All the 'bad' stuff in this article is true! (Score:3, Informative)
The Stevel Albini blurb is an excellent read. If you're not a Hootie or Britney or Korn type (even korn being huge is weird) they you're either 100% screwed or you're never gonna make it or you're gonn land on an indie or start your own label.
Me, I tried the start your own label after 'not making it'. 'The industry' is not anything remotely to do with bringin artistic capabilities to the listening public. It is 100% about 'product', how to get that 'product' into the hands of as many people as possible and what the next 'hit' is gonna be. When 'the industry' says it loses $6mil on most acts, big fucking deal, it's your own fault. Because:
- they've completely run all the mom and pop record stores outta biz = no loyal fanbase at a word of mouth price = $3mil for radio (ugh, clear channel) & mtv promotions = Accountant: 'shit, we couldn't clear out the other 10mil units of Susie Johnson cuz people are sick of her already.' CEO: 'scerew her then. alright, dump the cd's in some poor country and jack up the fees 10% on the next 10 new acts'.
- recording an album in a pro studio is horrendiously expensive ($5k for a guy to come in a tune the room is pretty fucked up)
- they sign shitty cookie cutter bands! any orginality, forget it.
- Jim Lawer charges $500/hr. John CEO makes 10x more than Jim.
This being said, I would vomit profusely like a posessed demon and kill myself if it wasn't for many of the real musicians and labels. Look at Fugazi and Dischord. That is it!. They live the music, they do well and they don't fuck eveyone ever and drive away at the end of the day to their mansion on the hill and preach all this rhetoric shit like Rosen does.
Once you get back to the real deal about music, which is (and I don't give one rats ass what Kid Rock says - yah, lets see what he thinks in 10 years when he's been milked dry and tossed aside) that it's art and expression. Period!
Sure, you can make money at it, but 'the industry' is soooo lopsided right now that the RIAA/Rosen claims make me laugh. This stuff all ties in also with the MPAA and p2p (duh!) and DRM. These groups have been stifling artists rights for some time and now their only recourse, after 'the people' as in we, have spoken, is to go after us. Threatening to pass legislation to get 'copyrighted' material off our computers if need be!
What you can do:
1. Don't buy trash crap from Britney and the like
2. Smash your MTV (they're literally nothing but a delivery vehicle for the big 5, period!)
3. Get into your local scene. This is where the best stuff always is. And if there isn't one, make one!
4. If you find you have a p2p song that's been 'doctored' remove it. This will keep the good stuff flowin and the rage against the machine growin.
So, there is stuff we can do. We just have to get off our asses and do it. Or, lay down with the wolves...
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2, Informative)
While this is true, this isn't the whole story. The labels will continue recording your albums for as long as they are making money - for them, mind you, not the artists, or at least this is at best a secondary thought. The problem with this system is that let's say a young band makes moderate profits (and winds up WAY in debt to the label, but taht's another story), and records a second album that doesn't do so well. The label then declines to fund recording of a third album, but since the badn is under contract for say seven or so albums, they are unable to shop their music around to other labels. This is the crux: Their own label will NOT fund costs for another album, yet they actively restrict the band from going with another label as they are under contract. These poor sods have no recourse - their recording career is effectively over. You can live off of proceeds from live shows, but it's nearly impossible to get mass exposure without major lable support. Hope you like flipping burgers!
Mind you, these contracts are ONLY allowed because the recording industry PAID FOR legislation that provides them exemption from existing labor laws that expressly forbid these kind of things.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, I'm in a similar position - only instead of communication (well, I did do a lot of Internet work in the 90's...) I now work for Access Music, making: musical instruments.
(See www.access-music.de for details...)
I can guarantee you, my industry (musical instruments) has no desire whatsoever to see DMCA implemented in our devices, anywhere. The moment the RIAA starts coming onto our turf, there will be some *serious* upheavals, thats for sure...
As a hardcore geek, I've been running from the RIAA for the last 3 years. I have no interest whatsoever in pandering to their will, and neither do any of the musical instrument mfr's I know of