Shafted ARTist -know your enemy

It has been a pet gripe of mine hearing radio presenters complain about money that their radio station plays to musicians to use their music.

It goes something like this:

‘without the radio station there would be no exposure for artists…’

What they’re actually saying is:

‘Music is the filler between the ads, and of course, between hearing those incredible DJ’s and their always-witty banter.’

How could musicians survive without the radio?

The first example  I can think of is Norah Jones -without radio support she reached the international top 40 charts. Radio stations were left playing catch up when feeding their audiences with the Music she wrote

Another big influence is the new modes of communication. The internet now has lessened the audience that radio has and so lessened the impact that radio has on your success as a musician.

it would seem that without music, there would be less radio stations.

Radio stations chose their content and many of them do chose to talk only -but when the station chooses to play music, then -like paying presenters and radio DJ’s for their contribution, musicians should also be paid. As if a radio station can say ‘You are an important part of the radio station content’ but not important enough to be paid.

In Conclusion…

There are certainly positives for both parties to be working together, the radio allows music exposure to a geographically targeted audience while the music distracts and entertains between the DJ drival and the commercials. What really is frustrating is when either party thinks that they owe nothing to the other.

Get real!

This isn’t an opinion that I hold by myself.

Lets try and find the balance for this process -after all, with the internet having such an impact on our industry, both of our income streams are changing.

STOP. IT. NOW!!!Here is an open letter on the DRM open letters that have been flying around lately.When I was 15 and buying about 2 albums a week the music industry introduced the first of their many attempts at DRM – 8 track.  Guess what!  Didn’t work.

The cassette players / recorders became prevalent.  And the response from the recording industry was, “This is going to kill the recording industry!  No one will buy records anymore because they can just copy them from their friends!!”Guess what happened?  The recording industry made a bazillion dollars over the next 10 years.Then CD players came out and that was going to be the saviour of the industry.

Clean sound, virtually indestructible media and the end to copying (again, except to tape, which had none of these features – how many of you remember pulling a whole spool of a tape out of the machine when it got sucked into there??)But guess what??  The media was certainly destructible (I have about 17 discs that are unplayable because of scratches) and then CD recorders came out.  And the response from the recording industry was “This is going to kill the recording industry!  No one will buy CD’s anymore because they can just copy them from their friends!!”

Guess what actually happened?

The recording industry made a bazillion dollars over the next 10 years.  But it did allow me to make copies of the disc so that I could store the original and play the copy.  That way, when it got scratched and was unplayable, I could make another copy and continue to enjoy the music that I paid the right to listen to.Then the Internet exploded.  And P2P was born.  And the response from the recording industry was, “It’s too easy to copy music and send it all around the world.  No one will by CD’s or movies anymore because they can just copy it from an anonymous person in *pick your favorite 3rd world country*”Guess what continues to happen?

The recording industry makes billions of dollars a year.  Now, here is what I know to be true

1. It is easier to get illegal music and I did get some that way several years ago,
2. It was a pain in the butt to get illegal music, plus I didn’t like the thought of other people having access to the stuff on my machine so I shut it off,
3. I  deleted all the illegal tracks I downloaded ’cause the thought of the Rolling Stones not having enough money to live on after they stop touring (which will likely be when they die) made me sad,
4. People slowed down buying music, not because they can copy it, but because a lot of music really, really stinks!

But all this DRM stuff did make me come to the following conclusions -

1. I will only buy music off the Internet from sites that provide that music in a non-DRM MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format
2. If a recording is not available from a site that accomplishes #1 then I will buy it on a CD
3. I will continue to make backup copies of the music in my collection onto a media of my choosing in a format of my choosing so that in the event that the media is damaged or destroyed, I will have the original to use to make another backup copy

Thank you,

John

This was an open letter found at http://jcconnor.wordpress.com

This story was found on www.MACSLASH.org visit for more information.

Jody Whitesides writes “My name is Jody Whitesides, I’m an artist that is about to be brought to the Apple iTunes Music Store. Of course I recently heard about BuyMusic so I decided to point my Mac browser at it (with Javascript turned off you can see the site).” Jody ran into some trouble with BuyMusic that is very troubling: they’re ripping him off. Dig Deeper for the whole story.

I did a search for one of my old CD’s that will be going onto iTunes and It turns out my CD was there on BuyMusic.com. As were the CD’s of several other bands that I’m friends with. All of whom were not contacted about being placed for sale there.

Here’s what I’ve deduced… BuyMusic.com (which I will refer to as BM) got their “vast” music library of 300,000 plus songs from a company called the Orchard. The Orchard is a distribution company that has consistently shafted artists by not paying them for CD’s sold nor returning unsold CD’s or cancelling contracts. So, without the express consent of what is likely lots of the Orchards catalog, BM has put it up for sale at the bargain price of $.79 a song.

So now, they can tout they’re selling tracks at $.79 and they can say they have a library of music of over 300,000 songs. But what they don’t tell you is that it comes from musicians/bands that were not asked for permission, and who will likely not see a penny of any sale made through BM. By their very own site policy they are committing copyright infringement. They have done this to lure PC/windows users to their site in hopes to sell the few major label aquired songs they do have, at a price that is much higher than Apple’s $.99.

I’m currently looking into legal means to have my music removed from their site and strongly encourage users to not browse BM’s site nor purchase from it.” We contacted Jody this week to discuss his story, and he’s promised to keep us informed in his battle with Orchard and BuyMusic.com.

He also gave us the following information: “At that time I did a distribution deal (1997-98). The original contract was to set me up with Brick and Mortar distribution, nothing else. Fast forward a couple of years. I dissolved the band, but kept the disc and still sold it, since I own it. At one point I was notified. That I had some sales with the Orchard, but since it was so random and I hadn’t dealt with them in so long, I never got paid. Though they asked for more CD’s. Then they announced they were having financial troubles and were going to go out of business. At this point lots of artists with them were having difficulty getting their merchandise back. I just decided to “screw it” not worry about it, that I would never see the small amount from the sales and call it a loss. Fast Forward again to last week. It came to my attention that BuyMusic was up. So I tried to get in to see the hubbub. Mostly cause I’m so excited to be finally getting onto iTunes. Immediately I wasn’t happy with BuyMusic, being a Mac lover. I then got word that anyone who was with the Orchard may very well be on BuyMusic. I went to double check and sure enough my old CD (Amalgam – Delicate Stretch of the Seems) that I still control and own was up there, for sale without my permission. This made my blood boil. I contacted several of my friends who had also done deals with the Orchard and found they are on BuyMusic as well, not mention that they were not told of this either and all of them thought the Orchard was out of business. I started going to the Orchard’s site, found that they still seem to be conducting business, unfortunately I can no longer get into my account cause the information there is so old that I don’t have it anymore. I also started going through their catalog and searching for Orchard artists on BuyMusic. I’m finding about fifty percent to be up there and to this point, everyone I’ve contacted had no idea they were on BuyMusic, and also though the Orchard wasn’t around anymore.”

All of this is coming on the heels of the problems with the BuyMusic service, USA Today is reporting that songs can’t be transfered to portable devices, and it appears their their ads are a bit of a play on Apple’s own ad campaign. Even the Washington Post’s Rob Pegararo gets into the game this week, taking their service out to the woodshed for some abuse.