david byrne and others: end of the old music industry - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 12-19-2007, 03:28 PM

this link takes you to an interesting article from the current issue of wired on the state of affairs in the music industry, such as it still is.

http://www.wired.com/print/entertain...16-01/ff_byrne

i'll paste the text below and see how it turns out: the link is maybe better because it includes graphics and audio clips.

Quote:

WIRED MAGAZINE: Issue 16.01
Entertainment : Music RSS
David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars
By David Byrne Email 12.18.07 | 6:00 PM
David Byrne.
Photo: James Day
FEATURE
David Byrne and Thom Yorke on the Real Value of Music

Full disclosure: I used to own a record label. That label, Luaka Bop, still exists, though I'm no longer involved in running it. My last record came out through Nonesuch, a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group empire. I have also released music through indie labels like Thrill Jockey, and I have pressed up CDs and sold them on tour. I tour every few years, and I don't see it as simply a loss leader for CD sales. So I have seen this business from both sides. I've made money, and I've been ripped off. I've had creative freedom, and I've been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will. It saved my life, and I bet I'm not the only one who can say that.

Bonus Track: "Ex Guru"

"Here's the 'cover' I did of the Fiery Furnaces tune — the words in the first half are theirs and in the last two verses they are mine. Kind of a new way to collaborate."
— David Byrne

Courtesy Thrill Jockey Records

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that's not bad news for music, and it's certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.

Where are things going? Well, some people's charts look like this:

Some see this picture as a dire trend. The fact that Radiohead debuted its latest album online and Madonna defected from Warner Bros. to Live Nation, a concert promoter, is held to signal the end of the music business as we know it. Actually, these are just two examples of how musicians are increasingly able to work outside of the traditional label relationship. There is no one single way of doing business these days. There are, in fact, six viable models by my count. That variety is good for artists; it gives them more ways to get paid and make a living. And it's good for audiences, too, who will have more — and more interesting — music to listen to. Let's step back and get some perspective.

What is music?
First, a definition of terms. What is it we're talking about here? What exactly is being bought and sold? In the past, music was something you heard and experienced — it was as much a social event as a purely musical one. Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context. Epic songs and ballads, troubadours, courtly entertainments, church music, shamanic chants, pub sing-alongs, ceremonial music, military music, dance music — it was pretty much all tied to specific social functions. It was communal and often utilitarian. You couldn't take it home, copy it, sell it as a commodity (except as sheet music, but that's not music), or even hear it again. Music was an experience, intimately married to your life. You could pay to hear music, but after you did, it was over, gone — a memory.

Technology changed all that in the 20th century. Music — or its recorded artifact, at least — became a product, a thing that could be bought, sold, traded, and replayed endlessly in any context. This upended the economics of music, but our human instincts remained intact. I spend plenty of time with buds in my ears listening to recorded music, but I still get out to stand in a crowd with an audience. I sing to myself, and, yes, I play an instrument (not always well).

We'll always want to use music as part of our social fabric: to congregate at concerts and in bars, even if the sound sucks; to pass music from hand to hand (or via the Internet) as a form of social currency; to build temples where only "our kind of people" can hear music (opera houses and symphony halls); to want to know more about our favorite bards — their love lives, their clothes, their political beliefs. This betrays an eternal urge to have a larger context beyond a piece of plastic. One might say this urge is part of our genetic makeup.

All this is what we talk about when we talk about music.

All of it.

What do record companies do?
Or, more precisely, what did they do?

* Fund recording sessions
* Manufacture product
* Distribute product
* Market product
* Loan and advance money for expenses (tours, videos, hair and makeup)
* Advise and guide artists on their careers and recordings
* Handle the accounting

This was the system that evolved over the past century to market the product, which is to say the container — vinyl, tape, or disc — that carried the music. (Calling the product music is like selling a shopping cart and calling it groceries.) But many things have changed in the past decade that reduce the value of these services to artists.

For example:

Recording costs have declined to almost zero. Artists used to need the labels to bankroll their recordings. Most simply didn't have the $15,000 (minimum) necessary to rent a professional studio and pay an engineer and a producer. For many artists — maybe even most — this is no longer the case. Now an album can be made on the same laptop you use to check email.

Manufacturing and distribution costs are approaching zero. There used to be a break-even point below which it was impractical to distribute a recording. With LPs and CDs, there were base manufacturing costs, printing costs, shipping, and so on. It paid — in fact, it was essential — to sell in volume, because that's how many of those costs got amortized. No more: Digital distribution is pretty much free. It's no cheaper per unit to distribute a million copies than a hundred.

Touring is not just promotion. Live performances used to be seen as essentially a way to publicize a new release — a means to an end, not an end in itself. Bands would go into debt in order to tour, anticipating that they'd recover their losses later through increased record sales. This, to be blunt, is all wrong. It's backward. Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living.

So with all these changes, what happens to the labels? Some will survive. Nonesuch, where I've done several albums, has thrived under Warner Music Group ownership by operating with a lean staff of 12 and staying focused on talent. "Artists like Wilco, Philip Glass, k.d. lang, and others have sold more here than when they were at so-called major labels," Bob Hurwitz, president of Nonesuch, told me, "even during a time of decline."

David Byrne in Conversation with Brian Eno
"How the f--k can we get out of this?"

"Cool Tools"

"The people who know how to do this are the ones you fired ..."

"When was the last time you had dealings with a record company?"

But some labels will disappear, as the roles they used to play get chopped up and delivered by more thrifty services. In a recent conversation I had with Brian Eno (who is producing the next Coldplay album and writing with U2), he was enthusiastic about I Think Music — an online network of indie bands, fans, and stores — and pessimistic about the future of traditional labels. "Structurally, they're much too large," Eno said. "And they're entirely on the defensive now. The only idea they have is that they can give you a big advance — which is still attractive to a lot of young bands just starting out. But that's all they represent now: capital."

So where do artists fit into this changing landscape? We find new options, new models.

The six possibilities

Where there was one, now there are six: Six possible music distribution models, ranging from one in which the artist is pretty much hands-off to one where the artist does nearly everything. Not surprisingly, the more involved the artist is, the more he or she can often make per unit sold. The totally DIY model is certainly not for everyone — but that's the point. Now there's choice.

1. At one end of the scale is the 360, or equity, deal, where every aspect of the artist's career is handled by producers, promoters, marketing people, and managers. The idea is that you can achieve wide saturation and sales, boosted by a hardworking machine that stands to benefit from everything you do. The artist becomes a brand, owned and operated by the label, and in theory this gives the company a long-term perspective and interest in nurturing that artist's career.

Pussycat Dolls, Korn, and Robbie Williams have made arrangements like this, selling equity in everything they touch. The T-shirts, the records, the concerts, the videos, the BBQ sauce. The artist often gets a lot of money up front. But I doubt that creative decisions will be left in the artist's hands. As a general rule, as the cash comes in, creative control goes out. The equity partner simply has too much at stake.

This is the kind of deal Madonna just made with Live Nation. For a reported $120 million, the company — which until now has mainly produced and promoted concerts — will get a piece of both her concert revenue and her music sales. I, for one, would not want to be beholden to Live Nation — a spinoff of Clear Channel, the radio conglomerate that turned the US airwaves into pabulum. But Madge is a smart cookie; she's always been adept at controlling her own stuff, so we'll see.

2. Next is what I'll call the standard distribution deal. This is more or less what I lived with for many years as a member of the Talking Heads. The record company bankrolls the recording and handles the manufacturing, distribution, press, and promotion. The artist gets a royalty percentage after all those other costs are repaid. The label, in this scenario, owns the copyright to the recording. Forever.

There's another catch with this kind of arrangement: The typical pop star often lives in debt to their record company and a host of other entities, and if they hit a dry spell they can go broke. Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, TLC — the danger of debt and overextension is an old story.

Obviously, the cost of these services, along with the record company's overhead, accounts for a big part of CD prices. You, the buyer, are paying for all those trucks, those CD plants, those warehouses, and all that plastic. Theoretically, as many of these costs go away, they should no longer be charged to the consumer — or the artist.

Sure, many of the services traditionally provided by record labels under the standard deal are now being farmed out. Press and publicity, digital marketing, graphic design — all are often handled by smaller, independent firms. But he who pays the piper calls the tune. If the record company pays the subcontractors, then the record company ultimately decides who or what has priority. If they "don't hear a single," they can tell you your record isn't coming out.

So what happens when online sales eliminate many of these expenses? Look at iTunes: $10 for a "CD" download reflects the cost savings of digital distribution, which seems fair — at first. It's certainly better for consumers. But after Apple takes its 30 percent, the royalty percentage is applied and the artist — surprise! — is no better off.

Not coincidentally, the issues here are similar to those in the recent Hollywood writers' strike. Will recording artists band together and go on strike?

3. The license deal is similar to the standard deal, except in this case the artist retains the copyrights and ownership of the master recording. The right to exploit that property is granted to a label for a limited period of time — usually seven years. After that, the rights to license to TV shows, commercials, and the like revert to the artist. If the members of the Talking Heads held the master rights to our catalog today, we'd earn twice as much in licensing as we do now — and that's where artists like me derive much of our income. If a band has made a record itself and doesn't need creative or financial help, this model is worth looking at. It allows for a little more creative freedom, since you get less interference from the guys in the big suits. The flip side is that because the label doesn't own the master, it may invest less in making the release a success.

David Byrne in conversation with Mac McCaughan from Merge Records.
"How could an indie label handle a release the size of Arcade Fire's second record?"

"How do emerging acts survive?"

"Major labels aren't doing well because they put out terrible records for years and years and kept raising the price of those terrible records and finally people were like, 'Screw you.'"

But with the right label, the license deal can be a great way to go. This is the relationship Arcade Fire has with Merge Records, an indie label that's done great for its band by avoiding the big-spending, big-label approach. "Part of it is just being realistic and not putting yourself in the hole," Merge cofounder Mac McCaughan says. "The bands we work with, we never recommend that they make videos. I like videos, but they don't sell a lot of records. What really sells records is touring — and artists can actually make money on the tour itself if they keep their budgets down."

4. Then there's the profit-sharing deal. I did something like this with my album Lead Us Not Into Temptation in 2003. I got a minimal advance from the label, Thrill Jockey, since the recording costs were covered by a movie soundtrack budget, and we shared the profits from day one. I retained ownership of the master. Thrill Jockey does some marketing and press. I may or may not have sold as many records as I would have with a larger company, but in the end I took home a greater share of each unit sold.

5. In the manufacturing and distribution deal, the artist does everything except, well, manufacture and distribute the product. Often the companies that do these kinds of deals also offer other services, like marketing. But given the numbers, they don't stand to make as much, so their incentive here is limited. Big record labels traditionally don't make M&D deals.

David Byrne in conversation with Michael Hausman.
"We weren't competing with Madonna, Beyonce or Springsteen, because they weren't doing it."

"There's a way for music to have a life of its own and turn into something bigger ..."

"The labels aren't set up for enlightened, long-range thinking. That's what a good manager should be doing."

In this scenario, the artist gets absolute creative control, but it's a bigger gamble. Aimee Mann does this, and it works really well for her. "A lot of artists don't realize how much more money they could make by retaining ownership and licensing directly," Mann's manager, Michael Hausman, told me. "If it's done properly, you get paid quickly, and you get paid again and again. That's a great source of income."

6. Finally, at the far end of the scale, is the self-distribution model, where the music is self-produced, self-written, self-played, and self-marketed. CDs are sold at gigs and through a Web site. Promotion is a MySpace page. The band buys or leases a server to handle download sales. Within the limits of what they can afford, the artists have complete creative control. In practice, especially for emerging artists, that can mean freedom without resources — a pretty abstract sort of independence. For those who plan to take their material on the road and play it live, the financial constraints cut even deeper. Backup orchestras, massive video screens and sets, and weird high tech lights don't come cheap.

David Byrne in conversation with Radiohead's managers, Bryce Edge and Chris Hufford (Courtyard Management).
"... how it proliferated around the world with such ridiculous speed"

"You've had years of experience with the press ... missing the point."

"It actually physically blew up and we had to replace it ..."

"It's just an art band from Oxford having a bit of a laugh."

"Johnny’s doing his gay boy sort of pretty look"

Radiohead adopted this DIY model to sell In Rainbows online — and then went a step further by letting fans name their own price for the download. They weren't the first to do this — Issa (formerly known as Jane Siberry) pioneered the pay-what-you-will model a few years ago — but Radiohead's move was much higher profile. It may be less risky for them, but it's a clear sign of real changes afoot. As one of Radiohead's managers, Bryce Edge, told me, "The industry reacted like the end was nigh. They've devalued music, giving it away for nothing.' Which wasn't true: We asked people to value it, which is very different semantics to me."

At this end of the spectrum, the artist stands to receive the largest percentage of income from sales per unit — sales of anything. A larger percentage of fewer sales, most likely, but not always. Artists doing it for themselves can actually make more money than the massive pop star, even though the sales numbers may seem minuscule by comparison. Of course, not everyone is as smart as those nerdy Radiohead boys. Pete Doherty probably should not be handed the steering wheel.

Freedom versus pragmatism
These models are not absolute. They can morph and evolve. Hausman and Mann took the total DIY route at first, getting money orders and sending out CDs in Express Mail envelopes; later on they licensed the records to distributors. And things change over time. In the future, we will see more artists take up these various models or mix and match versions of them. For existing and emerging artists — who read about the music business going down the drain — this is actually a great time, full of options and possibilities. The future of music as a career is wide open.

Many who take the cash up front will never know that long-range thinking might have been wiser. Mega pop artists will still need that mighty push and marketing effort for a new release that only traditional record companies can provide. For others, what we now call a record label could be replaced by a small company that funnels income and invoices from the various entities and keeps the accounts in order. A consortium of midlevel artists could make this model work. United Musicians, the company that Hausman founded, is one such example.

I would personally advise artists to hold on to their publishing rights (well, as much of them as they can). Publishing royalties are how you get paid if someone covers, samples, or licenses your song for a movie or commercial. This, for a songwriter, is your pension plan.

Increasingly, it's possible for artists to hold on to the copyrights for their recordings as well. This guarantees them another lucrative piece of the licensing pie and also gives them the right to exploit their work in mediums to be invented in the future — musical brain implants and the like.

No single model will work for everyone. There's room for all of us. Some artists are the Coke and Pepsi of music, while others are the fine wine — or the funky home-brewed moonshine. And that's fine. I like Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man." Sometimes a corporate soft drink is what you want — just not at the expense of the other thing. In the recent past, it often seemed like all or nothing, but maybe now we won't be forced to choose.

Ultimately, all these scenarios have to satisfy the same human urges: What do we need music to do? How do we visit the land in our head and the place in our heart that music takes us to? Can I get a round-trip ticket?

Really, isn't that what we want to buy, sell, trade, or download?

David Byrne is currently collaborating with Fatboy Slim and Brian Eno. Separately.

the single sentences above (you know, the sentences that are just kinda dangling there) have audio clips in the linked article, which is better.

anyway, the piece claims that the party's basically over for the old music industry.

the piece offers a series of alternative models for emerging musicians to get their stuff out into the world, do performances, you know, the stuff you want to do, really.

how are you coping with this dissolving of the old music industry model?
how do you get your work out into the world?

hunnychile · 12-19-2007, 05:22 PM

David Byrne has always been on the front edge musically and philisophically IMO...so I found this post/link to be extremely truthful with poetic timing.

The link was interesting enough to make it all seem like the "ice cream cone smacking real music lovers squish right in the center of our forehead!"

Loved it. Thanks for sharing!

mixedmedia · 12-19-2007, 05:39 PM

Great article, rb. I don't have much to say other than...

Yay!

aberkok · 12-19-2007, 07:50 PM

how are you coping with this dissolving of the old music industry model?
how do you get your work out into the world?

I've entered the game after all this began, but I do constantly wonder whether making a physical disc is necessary. I lean toward yes, however, because I've come to realize that the experience a physical object provides seems more lasting...more like a deal has been made between creator and listener, and as stupid as it sounds, I value the listening experience more because I have to get of my ass to change the disc. Oh, and in most practical situations they sound better.

But that's really another discussion.

To get back on topic, my music gets "out there" on disc. As little as I've sold, I've sold far less in downloads. I think it's because my audience is still so small that no one's looking for me yet. The ripe moment is at a gig. Telling someone at a gig to check us out online when they get home is horrible salesmanship compared to having the disc right there.

Probably we're using the #6 model (self-everything), and may only ever do that.

Because we're so new to this world, and have such small audiences, my band isn't threatened or relieved by the "new model." But it is my goal to grow our audience, and though we can only ever appeal to a small niche, I think there's still room to grow (from hoping for a dozen people to one day expecting 50). Until we are doing that and generating some sort of income, the industry side is merely worth knowing about.

roachboy · 12-20-2007, 01:07 PM

this is an interesting article...

how about licensing your stuff?

a side of me kinda likes the creative commons idea--i'm not making any money from this but you can do what you want with it so long as you dont make money.
the part i am more ambivalent about is: but if you do, you have to pay me some of it.
this because it is the same as everything else.
but maybe this is bizarre-o luxury because, as an improvising musician, i have little chance of making any money from recordings in any event because i (well, anyone...not just me.) can't claim copyright over something that isn't scored.

it would be good if the music biz became more diversified about more about touring.
it'd be good if there were lots of performance venues all over the place.

maybe something like the new deal for musicians.

it'd also be good if many venues were given decent pianos, which they could have so long as they tended to them, water them when they get dry and sing to them if they have trouble getting to sleep because sometimes they do.

j8ear · 01-07-2008, 07:57 PM

David Byrne has always been one of my favorite artists ever since he "took me to the river" and asked me if I'm right or if im wrong...and...MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!!?

A visionary in a sea of payola and simon cowell (in simon's defense he is unabashedly upfront about his motivation).

I saw this happening in 1999 when someone showed me winamp and in a few weeks I owned digital copies of everything my imagination and the imaginations of those who asked could conjure up.

I watched ~my~ prefered distribution mediums killed off only to be replaced by a newly minted preferred medium. It became almost embarrassing for the labels...and I began to feel pity for them. So antiquated, so foolish, so...so...so irrelevant to the process.

I'd never quite seen the six different possibilities so outlined, but I imagined them none the less...although from my prospective, the closer to one your possibility, the worse off you are as a musician.

I'm curious Roach about your "new deal" for musicians. Obviously we're polar opposites politically, but I'm intrigued by your floating of this concept none the less.

Please elucidate.

-bear

roachboy · 01-07-2008, 08:28 PM

huh....well j8ear, i have to confess that i dont remember what i meant by that.

i suspect i had in mind something like the canadian arts council funding system. music could be seen as type of art-making that has enough benefits to merit state support--why not?---hell, i'd settle for even a federal directive that organizes or prompts private foundations to increase the amounts and types of grants that are available. in this respect, i dont particularly care about the sources--you can do the same things with public or private dollars.

the arguments for it would run something like music is an important cultural resource, an index of the space (level, i suppose, but i hate that terminology) attained by a collectivity. like architecture but smaller.

and it is also the case that you find some of the best most innovative players working in forms that not alot of people know about, and they should have more options (rather than fewer) for acquiring funding to carry out projects.
projects could be anything from recordings to building new instruments to commissions for large-scale works that include the possibility of the composer's actually hearing the piece (i know ALOT of composers who have never heard the large-format pieces they have written...it's kinda sad.) there could be underwriting for tours, backing for the formation of new small labels that distribute music in forms that aren't really commodified (it seems to me that one of the main things we're seeing with the collapse of the old music industry is a decommodification of music--outside the mainstream of course, which it itself a commodity--one result of that is now even fewer people can make a living...)---mostly, though, i would support a radical decentralization of music, the proliferation of performance venues and sources of recordings, more new music rather than less.

as it stands in the states, there are not a whole lot of options, particularly not for emerging artists in non-commercial genres, to get funding...and so far as i can see, there's no reason for it.

music markets are not rational. never were: demand has been structured by the main audio media and related print media almost from point where audio reproduction technologies became widely available. and conservatism in music programming is not a new phenomenon. generally, in the states folk who are doing new things wait until they are dead to get their music heard. even then, it doesn't work as it could.

but that's only trying to fill in what i think i meant.

j8ear · 01-07-2008, 08:59 PM

My request was probably unfair, as I think you were just pining for a ~better~ way for musicians to be respected and compensated for their talents and work. I can certainly appreciate the sentiment without any specifics.

This however I can feel:

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

music markets are not rational. never were: demand has been structured by the main audio media and related print media almost from point where audio reproduction technologies became widely available. and conservatism in music programming is not a new phenomenon. generally, in the states folk who are doing new things wait until they are dead to get their music heard. even then, it doesn't work as it could.

Except for the freakish exception (like perhaps the PNW grunge phenom in the early 90's) it's what's turning heads now that the powers that be want to "recreate" in the hopes of keeping the heads so turned and the registers so ringing. No matter how you slice it the whole music industry is extremely synthetic and manufactured....the simoncowellization of art.

Sad really.

I'm curious about you in other regards. You as musician is new to me as of today and you have peaked my curiousity. Both with your declarations for the care and assistance to rest of the paino and your outline of what in 2007 has/d your ear.

I wonder if your improvisations have ever been committed to a format for future consumption? Is this even possible...not physically of course but can your improvs by consumed more then once? or is it the total package....the time and place? the light and audience feedback? Those real and abstract characteristics which do not lend themselves to an audible only reproduction?

-bear

vanblah · 01-08-2008, 08:26 AM

Well, the problem with live performance is the same as anything else ... money. I will completely discount cover bands for my post.

How does an unknown artist with no financial backer get CONSISTENT gigs in small venues? If you are a "fringe" artist (ie. not an artist that does mainstream-sounding music) then your chances are slim.

Bar owners want people to show up and drink; they could really care less about the band--despite what they might say. The owner may actually be a big music fan ... and LOVE your band but if the audience doesn't resond ... well. I've watched venue owners kick bands out of the club because the music they were playing did not excite the crowd or worse actually angered or frightened the crowd.

If the venue is not a bar ... maybe a skatepark or **gasp** a REAL music venue ... then you have a better chance; but if you're doing something the kids don't like (such as experimental or jazz) then 1) you may be asked to leave and 2) you won't be asked back.

Consistent gigging is the key. You want to come back to the same town and HOPEFULLY the same venue so that the one or two or five fans that you made your first time will bring one or two friends with them.

Most music venue owners want mid-level bands to perform ... not unknown bands. Since they aren't making as much money on drinks they have to sell tickets. An unknown is not going to sell tickets.

If you are writing contemporary classical then it's actually EASIER to get a grant or some sort of funding (easy is relative though). All you have to do is fill out the paperwork and say the right things. Align yourself with a college or school. Try that in a rock band.

Back to touring in bars, which is where most musical acts are going to fit. You said that they should be given pianos. I remember when most bars actually had pianos ... and kept them in tune. They had working P.A. systems, too. Now, when I book a gig, the first thing I have to ask is: do they have a P.A. If they don't then we have to work out an agreement where I supply the P.A. What kind of horse-shit is that? How am I supposed to run sound AND play keyboards and sing at the same time? It can be done, sure, but it's less than ideal. If a bar owner wants live music the bar owner should invest in a P.A.

It's an uphill battle for any unknown act ... whether it's a bar band or a non-commercial experimental group. Rising gas prices ... apathy from listeners ... reluctant venue owners. Of course, things are slightly better in the UK and OZ ... but not much. At least the listeners haven't been as brainwashed by mass media. On the upside, the hipster syndrome is kind of dying out. You know, saying a band sucks before you've even heard of them because you don't want to look uncool for maybe liking a band that someone else doesn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

but maybe this is bizarre-o luxury because, as an improvising musician, i have little chance of making any money from recordings in any event because i (well, anyone...not just me.) can't claim copyright over something that isn't scored.

Not true. You CAN copyright the performance (form PA) and the recording (form SR); it doesn't have to be scored. In fact, you should always register both. I found this out after scoring all of the music for Chess Club's first recording. I had a question about drum parts: would they need to be scored, too? So I called the copyright office and was told that a recording would be sufficient; there was no need for a score. I did send in a basic chord structure just to be safe. You could do this after the performance; just transcribe the recording. Also, Creative Commons is getting a lot of flack right now because the language in their limited use copyright is so vague.

Copyright doesn't guarantee that you will make money. You have to register (as a PUBLISHING HOUSE) with a royalty house (ASCAP, BMI, SECAM) to get any kind of mechanical or publishing royalties.

All copyright does is make the claim that you are the owner of a certain performance if it is ever contested in court. The copyright office won't make sure you get paid for any performance or sale of the CD.

jvwgtr · 01-25-2008, 01:48 PM

I'm so glad you linked this article - I'm a huge David Byrne fan, and this was a very interesting read.

12-19-2007, 05:22 PM	#2 (permalink)
hunnychile Alien Anthropologist Location: Between Boredom and Nirvana	David Byrne has always been on the front edge musically and philisophically IMO...so I found this post/link to be extremely truthful with poetic timing. The link was interesting enough to make it all seem like the "ice cream cone smacking real music lovers squish right in the center of our forehead!" Loved it. Thanks for sharing! __________________ "I need compassion, understanding and chocolate." - NJB

12-19-2007, 05:39 PM	#3 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	Great article, rb. I don't have much to say other than... Yay! __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

12-19-2007, 07:50 PM	#4 (permalink)
aberkok “Wrong is right.” Location: toronto	how are you coping with this dissolving of the old music industry model? how do you get your work out into the world? I've entered the game after all this began, but I do constantly wonder whether making a physical disc is necessary. I lean toward yes, however, because I've come to realize that the experience a physical object provides seems more lasting...more like a deal has been made between creator and listener, and as stupid as it sounds, I value the listening experience more because I have to get of my ass to change the disc. Oh, and in most practical situations they sound better. But that's really another discussion. To get back on topic, my music gets "out there" on disc. As little as I've sold, I've sold far less in downloads. I think it's because my audience is still so small that no one's looking for me yet. The ripe moment is at a gig. Telling someone at a gig to check us out online when they get home is horrible salesmanship compared to having the disc right there. Probably we're using the #6 model (self-everything), and may only ever do that. Because we're so new to this world, and have such small audiences, my band isn't threatened or relieved by the "new model." But it is my goal to grow our audience, and though we can only ever appeal to a small niche, I think there's still room to grow (from hoping for a dozen people to one day expecting 50). Until we are doing that and generating some sort of income, the industry side is merely worth knowing about. __________________ !check out my new blog! http://arkanamusic.wordpress.com Warden Gentiles: "It? Perfectly innocent. But I can see how, if our roles were reversed, I might have you beaten with a pillowcase full of batteries."

12-20-2007, 01:07 PM	#5 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	this is an interesting article... how about licensing your stuff? a side of me kinda likes the creative commons idea--i'm not making any money from this but you can do what you want with it so long as you dont make money. the part i am more ambivalent about is: but if you do, you have to pay me some of it. this because it is the same as everything else. but maybe this is bizarre-o luxury because, as an improvising musician, i have little chance of making any money from recordings in any event because i (well, anyone...not just me.) can't claim copyright over something that isn't scored. it would be good if the music biz became more diversified about more about touring. it'd be good if there were lots of performance venues all over the place. maybe something like the new deal for musicians. it'd also be good if many venues were given decent pianos, which they could have so long as they tended to them, water them when they get dry and sing to them if they have trouble getting to sleep because sometimes they do. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 12-20-2007 at 01:11 PM..

01-07-2008, 07:57 PM	#6 (permalink)
j8ear Gentlemen Farmer Location: Middle of nowhere, Jersey	David Byrne has always been one of my favorite artists ever since he "took me to the river" and asked me if I'm right or if im wrong...and...MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!!? A visionary in a sea of payola and simon cowell (in simon's defense he is unabashedly upfront about his motivation). I saw this happening in 1999 when someone showed me winamp and in a few weeks I owned digital copies of everything my imagination and the imaginations of those who asked could conjure up. I watched ~my~ prefered distribution mediums killed off only to be replaced by a newly minted preferred medium. It became almost embarrassing for the labels...and I began to feel pity for them. So antiquated, so foolish, so...so...so irrelevant to the process. I'd never quite seen the six different possibilities so outlined, but I imagined them none the less...although from my prospective, the closer to one your possibility, the worse off you are as a musician. I'm curious Roach about your "new deal" for musicians. Obviously we're polar opposites politically, but I'm intrigued by your floating of this concept none the less. Please elucidate. -bear __________________ It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

01-07-2008, 08:28 PM	#7 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	huh....well j8ear, i have to confess that i dont remember what i meant by that. i suspect i had in mind something like the canadian arts council funding system. music could be seen as type of art-making that has enough benefits to merit state support--why not?---hell, i'd settle for even a federal directive that organizes or prompts private foundations to increase the amounts and types of grants that are available. in this respect, i dont particularly care about the sources--you can do the same things with public or private dollars. the arguments for it would run something like music is an important cultural resource, an index of the space (level, i suppose, but i hate that terminology) attained by a collectivity. like architecture but smaller. and it is also the case that you find some of the best most innovative players working in forms that not alot of people know about, and they should have more options (rather than fewer) for acquiring funding to carry out projects. projects could be anything from recordings to building new instruments to commissions for large-scale works that include the possibility of the composer's actually hearing the piece (i know ALOT of composers who have never heard the large-format pieces they have written...it's kinda sad.) there could be underwriting for tours, backing for the formation of new small labels that distribute music in forms that aren't really commodified (it seems to me that one of the main things we're seeing with the collapse of the old music industry is a decommodification of music--outside the mainstream of course, which it itself a commodity--one result of that is now even fewer people can make a living...)---mostly, though, i would support a radical decentralization of music, the proliferation of performance venues and sources of recordings, more new music rather than less. as it stands in the states, there are not a whole lot of options, particularly not for emerging artists in non-commercial genres, to get funding...and so far as i can see, there's no reason for it. music markets are not rational. never were: demand has been structured by the main audio media and related print media almost from point where audio reproduction technologies became widely available. and conservatism in music programming is not a new phenomenon. generally, in the states folk who are doing new things wait until they are dead to get their music heard. even then, it doesn't work as it could. but that's only trying to fill in what i think i meant. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-25-2008, 01:48 PM	#10 (permalink)
jvwgtr Completely bananas Location: Florida	I'm so glad you linked this article - I'm a huge David Byrne fan, and this was a very interesting read.