and I say that as a fellow musician.

...and how it was a challenge to pay it, and his other bills, because "the kids are ripping us off."

I agree with you completely. In the late 70s, I used to trade mix tapes all the time. If a friend gave one to me and I liked the music, I went out and bought the album.

I also have purchased the recorded catalogs of artists like Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles several times:

1). Complete Beatles catalog on its original vinyl

2). The first round of Beatles CDs (the complete catalog)

3). The 2009 Beatles remasters (the complete catalog)

So in my mind...whether I am correct or not...my answer to the question "What do you owe The Beatles" is "Nothing, except thanks for the memories."

Same for Hendrix, except there were THREE releases of his stuff on CD: original Warner/Reprise, the MCA "remasters," and the current "Experience Hendrix" remasters. I've spent a small fortune on Hendrix "upgrades."

Hmm, perhaps the members of Metallica have a future in politics

Typically, CD sales are not a profit venue for bands unless they're very big acts like U2 or Bruce Springsteen who can basically write their own contracts. For most acts, particularly new ones, the royalties per CD, and the price of producing it--which is billed to the band, not provided for by the record label--are such that CDs are actually a money LOSING proposition overall. Not saying that they're losing money per CD, but that even with a reasonably successful CD, it probably doesn't go in the black unless you've sold a couple million copies.

And his music I do buy!!

He is real.

came out with C30 C60 C90.

It was about taping music off the radio on to cassettes.

the music industry freaked out and made sure that song never got air play.

this has been going on a long time, both people getting music and the music industry acting like jackasses.

...back in the days when the slogan was...if I remember correctly..."Home taping is illegal (and it's killing the music industry)"...

Decades later, the musi industry may smell funny, but it definitely ain't dead.

they use it to go after more downloaders.
i know quite a few musicians and they have yet to see a penny from the RIAA on the money they raked in.

But most of my favorite artists need to work at that horrible warehouse that's being told about at DU today. Thanks to piracy.

So now, I re-print this story I often tell:

Back about 1992 or so a movement arose among musicians of all stripes to cut the lyin', cheatin' record (CD) companies out of the picture.
These were the companies that produced results like: Aerosmith in debt to their record company by $10,000 after their first LP went platinum.
It was the perfect microcosm of where all of America is now. You work your ass off. Produce inspired new ideas that sell like hot-cakes - and yet, receive none of the benefits due you. Those benefits having been scammed upward to the "ruling elites" of the record companies.

I believe it was Ani De Franco who made the breakthrough move to self-produce and self-release a major CD release - and the revolution was begun.

Here's what almost happened: Thanks to the Internet, for the first time in history, an artist could self-promote a CD that was produced with the latest in "home" technology for about 1% of the wasteful expenditures of a major label.

In addition, that artist - who might have gotten 1.4 cents from the sale of a 16 dollar CD if signed with the majors (and likely, nothing at all if a new artist) could sell that CD for 8 or 10 bucks and profit directly from those sales. Maybe pocketing 4-5 bucks.

Suddenly, the "music biz" was going to be profitable even for the littlest guy selling small niche-market CD's. The major acts were going to find real stability. Artists would retain copyright of all their own material, too! No more Michael Jackson Estate getting paid when your song gets played! And the record companies? About to wither away into pointlessness.

It. was. beautiful. This plan was surging ahead daily. Musicians were getting PAID. Music buyers were just starting to get CD's for far less than before - because the parasitic middle layer was going bye-bye.

BUT.... just as this was occurring, Napster appeared. And millions of people suddenly felt perfectly entitled to get the musician's product not just for a lower price - but for absolute, frikkin' nothing.

The revenue stream was killed.

Musicians, about to enter a supportive, fair, inspiring world have now been plunged into the 7th level of Hell.

Thanks to "peer-to-peer sharing", releasing new music doesn't pay...... at all.

If there is a way to claw some of this back, I'm for it.

1). YES, there will ALWAYS be people who will seek free music because they would rather not pay for it. I don't see that changing. Some people are just leeches and bottom feeders...old as the world.

2). During the days when Tower was still a "live" brick and mortar store, they were selling new SINGLE CDs for $19. FAR too many "artists" SKATED by, releasing one or two decent songs and an album worth of filler CRAP. People were no longer willing to drop 20 bucks on a CD that might suck. They wanted to hear it first. And the "one or two decent songs" became more in demand, hence the rise of iTunes and similar services.

Remember Dana Carvey's "Choppin' Broccoli" bit for SNL, about a hack songwriter? These were the "artists" ripping off the public before a "course correction" was put in.

*sigh* I needed that this morning. Thanks. lol, love choppin' broccoli.

Love Dave Grohl too.

And the solution to the overpriced CD's was what I described above.

All that extra money for overpriced, lousy CD's was going right up to the executive suites. The artist was getting virtually nothing.

Now... they get nothing.

The cat is out of the bag. Once entertainment becomes digital and goes onto the 'Net, it's there for everyone.

As consumers, we need to 'face the music' ourselves. Some people decry the current situation as the death of music. I doubt it but even if true, we need to come to grips with what can replace it.

More local performances? More dedicated devices that aren't so easily ported to the 'Net (and that include 'extras' that aren't available elsewhere)? Or even different mediums of artistic expression.

Things are changing. It can't be stopped.

not expect to profit from their art.

But I think most people expect otherwise.

And with 7 billion people on the planet, the march to profit from one's endeavors will continue. That can't be stopped any more than piracy of music or movies.

Last edited Tue Feb 28, 2012, 05:38 PM - Edit history (1)

I certainly hope so

You need some money to survive. A lot of people who try to go into music or acting end up quitting if they have no success because there is only so long you can live off practically nothing.

Before releasing new music, an artist has facsimile files of all the new songs produced that have some kind of intolerable noise laced into them. Even just very tinny EQ would do and keep the files looking like the real thing.

Then, a service that keeps track of the ever-changing PTP sites floods them with the fake files (and any peer to peer looking tags or whatever. I've never downloaded one so I'm not sure).

Each file could maybe have a tag telling everyone where to get the real thing for, like 49 cents.

Hopefully, all kinds of people would get tired of plowing through the fake files and go pay the artist for a real one.

I think i-pad / phone / pod-sters would be especially impatient and just pay for the real one like an app.

It didn't work because you can all too easily tag a file as "fixed" or "noise free", those become the popular/most shared, and the fakes stop being propagated across the network.

Those complaining about this can't stop it. Period.

It's impossible.

Plus, this wouldn't be the experiments dabbles with earlier - but entire services dedicated to overwhelming the PTP sites.

The sites have to be open to being found and used. These services would simply be automated find and flood users.

I think it could work.

All the sites run by the RIAA and MPAA are blocked.

It's an excellent point overall, but massive "pirate" file sharing arose when music publishers were willfully ignoring digital music, holding on to the model where they could sell a (illegally price fixed) CD for $18 to people looking for one or two songs on a record.

People are paying for digital files. Ask iTunes or Amazon. And how's Ani doing, by the way? I think she pulled it off pretty well.

I heard a piece on NPR the other day about this guy

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2006/04/14/thing-a-week-29-code-monkey/

recording funny songs in his house, pulling down half a million a year. No publisher. No record contract.

The music industry's in flux, and artists are still the first and last to get screwed, but I think on balance, the power of digital self-publication weighs in the artists' favor.

But I'm all about artists getting paid for their work.

Copyright is an idea that goes back to the very founding of this country. It's artificial - but on purpose. So that artists can get paid for the years spent developing what so many feel entitled to get for free.

The i pads, phones, pods don't allow for easy PTP "sharing" - so people pay for the ease of getting what they want. That's good. That is progress. I want to see more of it.

As far as Ani and Dave Grohl go - they bulked up their fortunes under the old system. The new Ani's and Dave's simply won't get paid like that.

The balance of digital self-publication is in the artist's favor as far as exposure goes - but not when it comes to getting paid. Not yet.

I'm not sure the growth of the alternative rock phenomenon of the early 90s, which gave him the exposure to make $200 million. People keep citing copies of cassette tapes, but those were always lower quality than a purchased copy, and thus there was an incentive to purchase a copy.

People complain that music sucks these days, while making it less profitable for record companies to take a risk on a band like Nirvana was back in 1991. Hmmmm.

considering that Keith Richards is estimated at $287 million and KR has been around for almost fifty years.

Being worth a lot of money doesn't make you evil. He is constantly touring and owns a bunch of the Nirvana catalog which explains his net worth.

How many other bands out there let you stream their brand new album completely for free via website?!?!

because they're rich???

hahahahahaha. Jokes on you then!

Back when CD tech not only doubled the cost of an album, but forced everyone to buy the new tech to play their old music.

They had no problem charging 20 dollars even after the tech got so cheap that albums cost far less to make than Vinyl.

They had NO problem when people rightfully complained that for all the technology, they did not improve the sound, not because the tech was bad, but because production values were always run on the cheap, and they did not want to have to put the work in. Only when they found people would pay for that, did they, and then they would sell a whole album with some "remastered" sound that even the tin-eared knew was Bull. And then sell another.

I say this as one that has three cds of Pink Floyd's "Dark side of the moon", that refused to buy the live version they sold after that.

And while we may cry for musicians, let us be honest. The Music industry has never, ever had musicians interest at heart. Even folks like Madonna, Billy Joel, The Beatles, John Fogerty, all had to get into nasty fights with the record companies because the recoprd companies were stealing whatever money they were supposed to get, the dime the artist would make after the company already stole at least 50 cents from every dollar. The only reason there are SOME Millionaires is because the stars made most of their money on tours and merchanise, and even that pot of honey gets raided by the companies. Also, for every Millionaire rock star, there are 20 that made their company millions, but still got robbed. Yes, the companies love to spin tales of people that blow their money on drugs, but what they do not say is that most of that money got blown on lawyers, and that the sretss of dealing with the record companies made the artist turn to drugs.

Dave Grohl knows that well, as he saw the sharks drive Cobain mad, and then he had to deal with Kurt's widow being used by the companies to steal the money Nirvana made. Yes, Courtney Love is a mess, but that did not change the fact that the record companies were trying to use her so that Dave and his former Nirvana bandmates would not get a penny. Yes, Dave became successful with the Foo Fighters, but he knows that is NOT the standard ending to the rock tale. If the Foo Fighters failed, he cold have been another "celebrity" on reality TV, still trying to pay legal bills, because the record company lawyers are still suing. Watch VH-1 to see people who were plain devoured by execs.

The point is not to deny that people are "stealing" music. However, many artists have relied on this to get exposure to their music, so that they can get the REAL money on tour. The point is that what is making "the business" fail is not what people are doing online, but rather that the fans are TIRED of getting screwed by the industry.

And let us not forget one thing: the record companies have no problem with looking online to find the next artists, the ones that sell, despite the fact that they are not what is considered "cool." Take a look at Adele, months on the chart, and she is a heavy set girl from England that sings Jazz rock. There is a reason Adele does not look like most pop stars, it is because she does not fit the model of female pop star, set by Madonna. Speaking of Madonna clones, after her formula was done to death, along came another internet sensation, Lady Gaga, a girl who was composing classical sonatas at six, who actually managed to throw in some real controversy and talent (guess she forgot Madonna cannot actually sing or compose music.) She broke the mold, and sold Millions. The record industry did little to develop these careers, yet they reap the gold.

1975. FM radio advertises the "Friday Night Six-Pack", six brand-new albums played in their entirety, with no commercial interruptions, starting at midnight.

1985. CDs just coming to market, the length of blank cassette tapes is increased just enough to hold a whole CD.

Many live concerts, many cassettes.

KSAN and KOME also had a plethora of shows broadcast live from places like The Record Plant in Sausalito.

They were against the music industry then too.

Music is as old as mankind, and even professional musicians are nothing new. Well into the 20th Century, professional musicians made almost all their money performing--songwriters worked for royalties on printed music sheets, but most often were commissioned (much like painters) to create a score for stage, a school, or other organization that wanted a theme, fight, or just background music.
The most successful musicians over those millennia were those who could engage with audiences (for songwriters, it was the ability to write songs that could be easily/successfully performed by a range of customers in a variety of venues.
Recorded music is really a newcomer that turned the entire industry upside down. Rather than stage presence, musical virtuosity became the main driver. More importantly, music publishers (the record companies) took control and musicians became employees/products.
The "death" of the recording industry as we briefly knew it is inevitable. It will become a side business with the main job of promoting acts, serving as a catalogue and repository, and little else. The business of music will return to its roots pretty much. Live performance (and the recordings made and sold at the show), commercial sponsorship, and licensing deals (write a song for the next iPad commercial!) will be how performers and songwriters make their money. The record companies will be on the sidelines for most of that.

what a fucking douchebag. Some people live or die by money they make from SELLING their music. They don't get $100K for each show they do, because they play coffeeshops for a few bucks at a time.

Grohl was a millionaire before file sharing was a reality. The interest from that money is earning interest. Not everyone is so lucky.