deefstes wrote:
I know exactly what you're saying and I'm not disputing it. That is exactly how licensing works and I won't argue that. My point is, because of that licensing, music is being killed, not kept alive. I'm upset because, if I want to listen to my favourite Justin Bieber song on my iPod today, I have a few archaic options:
1. I can go to a music store and buy the CD (uber schlep)
2. I can buy the song on iTunes and load it to my iPod (less schlep but still schlep)
3. I can tune in to some online radio and hope they happen to lay my favourite Justin Bieber song some time today
I can not simply stream it once off from a service like Spotify like my friends in superior locations (like the UK and US) can. Hence my argument that this licensing is killing the music, not keeping it alive as it claims to.
What will kill music is when musicians can't afford to make music because they have to do other things to keep a roof over their heads. (OK... we're talking about music that is recorded, distributed etc, not Dax Butler playing a fine set at TJ's).
PJ O'Rourke once wrote that the enemy of democracy is not the Chinese, the Russians or Godless communists, but an electorate that puts it's hand out and says "gimme". Streaming and "sharing" and the modern culture of feeling entitled to stuff are what will kill music.
The pressure is on. Since XRB's law has been proposed I might as well just steam on using the only musician whose career I actually pay attention to as an example. Some long-time working guitarist, we'll refer to him as "Thompson" recently spoke and played at a digital media forum in the USA. During the talking part of the presentation he asked if anybody from Spotify was in the audience because he'd like to chat with them about where his money is (he mentioned Beyonce getting a cheque from Spotify for a whopping $600). He also made the point that current business and cultural practices are putting pressure on artists, and that they are thus seeking to make more money through other means. He was blunt about it - he's put up ticket prices for his live shows, and so have a lot of other performers. They make less money from CD sales, and thus from various royalties, so they have to compensate for that.
The other reason Thompson is an interesting study here is that he's been at it for so long. He's been writing, performing, recording on a near continuous basis since 1967 (he took a couple of years off in the 70s for religious reasons, and even then he kept on playing sessions). He's never done well enough to lie in a hammock on his private island, he's had to constantly engage with all aspects of the music business. So when somebody with that sort of career starts talking about changes in the industry and how they effect musicians then it's worth giving what he says some consideration.
[edit]
Now, yes, some of us just want to use streaming services to get a taster and then decide if we want to buy the CD or not. Good for you if you're one of them. Unfortunately a lot of people don't and there's no way to figure out who is who. Thompson again: He goes to some trouble to discourage taping at his shows and so does his sound guy. They're not worried about the crappy clips that you record on your cell phone and put on youtube, but haul out a microphone and they get concerned. He allows that in some cases it's just fans wanting to make a recorded souvenir of a gig for their own use, but in other cases it is people who want to bootleg the show and sell the bootleg recordings with Thompson and his band getting not one cent. So his only option is to err on the side of the prohibitive and say "no recording".
