The cost of being in the business (and the cost of free downloads)

Bob-Dubery

Ever heard of Dayna Kurtz? She's an American singer/songwriter with a good reputation. Like the majority of recording artists she's not selling multi-platinum, but her live work and her CD sales mean that she can carry on doing what she loves. Like the majority of recording artists she is a real person with a family who needs to put food on a table and a roof over the family's collective head.

She has separate deals in Europe and the USA. With her first three albums the sales in Europe effectively financed the printing and distribution in the USA.

Now she's run into problems. Her most recent release sold just 900 in europe. But free downloading of that title from european sites has been substantial. So there people who enjoy her music and want to listen to it - but they're not going to pay when they can get it for free. Dayna Kurtz has not made her album available for download, some kind person has bought a copy and decided to share it with the world. This reminds me of some lines from Loudon Wainwright's song "Something for Nothing"

It's OK to steal
'Cos it's so cool to share

So Dayna Kurtz is now staring down the barrel of a financial gun. She has launched an appeal to her fans to ask for assistance with funding (she's not the first artist to go this route). She needs $12500 to be able to cover the cost of getting the album out in the USA. Fans can pledge amounts from $10 upwards.

Note that every donation gets you something. There are extra tracks that are made available to all donors. $25 gets you a personally signed copy, delivered to your door ahead of the official release date etc etc.

See for details of the scheme.

This is NOT an appeal for y'all to go stick your hands in your pocket for some artist that you've never heard of. My aim here is just to present a view, from the artist's perspective, of the business and the way it works and what some of those nice things that we like to do cost the artist.

Of course somebody responded to the appeal by writing to Ms Kurtz and telling her how she's sold out and he has no respect for her now that her art is tainted.

The correspondence can be viewed on Facebook.

Here are some points from Ms Kurtz's reply to the irate fan. (bold for emphasis is mine)

those 2 records you bought? lots of people bought those. more than 30,000. not rock star numbers. but i was, for the first time in my life, scraping the bottom of the middle class. i paid off my debts. i looked forward to being an equal breadwinner with my husband. we bought a modest house and i paid my half of the monthly bills. my third record, put out 4 years ago, sold maybe half as much. not great, but i could make it work. but 'american standard'? in 6 months, i've sold 900 copies in europe. 900. now if i were losing my audience because my music was getting shitty or boring, i'm not stupid - i'd figure it out: say, if i'd gotten more bad or indifferent reviews than good, and if my crowds were getting smaller with every tour - i'd suck it up and look elsewhere to make a living. but reviews have been mostly great. people are still coming to shows. and then there's this: a short scan today of 4 random bit torrent pirate music sites showed that over 50,000 copies of this record have been downloaded. for free. on just 4 pirate sites. out of hundreds.

a growing number of people decided it was ok to just steal something that cost me tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours both creative and technical to make. perhaps people thought that because there's a couple of countries in the world (spain, and the netherlands) where my name's in magazines and people pay money to see me play live in big clubs and theaters - that such a little theft wouldn't hurt me. they're wrong.

re: africa, haiti, nepal - are YOU not going to the cinema or out to see a concert because haiti needs that money more?

Whoever it is whose music you cherish, get out your wallet and pay for the damn CD.

Bob-Dubery

One last word from Dayna Kurtz

ps: it's clear you don't love my music anymore, tainted as it is. but if there's any other music you love - please buy it, or you will kill it.

Keira-WitherKay

ahmen..Bob ......... great post ......and so appropriate ............

pay for cd's .......... yes yes yes...............

also if i may add.............. PAY FOR LIVE MUSIC it's the general publics lack of willingness to shell out couvert charge that leads to venues using the solo artist with backtracks.. that killed the live 4 piece band market

it's amazing how people just easily accept this loss of live bands and allow mediocre musicians to work in venues that if they never had backtracks could never hold down the gig .....since these days the backtracks have all the parts down and even backing harmonies and yes some even the main vocals and guitar parts....including solo's on some .... i recently saw a guitarist who "jammed "along with a full guitar track on backtracks and even the solo's it was shocking to see this in a "better ' venue and when i told a fellow musician (jazz vocalist and pianist) she said no shock there she had performed at a function where the vocals were mimed, to a large live show .......... so the industry is imploding fast .......

and venue owners admit to that....the backtrack bands are cheap .... cos the live band would cost so much more and the customers won't want a R30 -R60 a head couvert charge on their bill............

so yeah a viscious circle........... no money no full band..........

but there is already talk in jhb of a group of musicians mostly pro musicians starting a "real live music" collective... so thats promising ...

cos really just as downloads is killing the record industry......so is "canned" bands using backtraxs killing the live band industry ........

but the irony is both of these problems are similar but both can't be prevented cos most people...i say most NOT all won't pay for art .......... in any form ........... if they can get it free ...... so i don't see a solution but like any cause they need to be highlighted .......... and shouted from the rooftops every now and then ..........

chris77

Good thread Bob. Back before the internet and when funds were scarce me and my mates used to copy music among us like crazy. The justification was along the lines of, aagh I cant buy it anyway so he/she/they already aren't getting my money.... so I might as well copy it. I reckon its the same for todays youngsters, but now you dont have to have an original anymore and instead of copying 2 or 3 a month you can download ten times that many in a day. Scary stuff if its your livelihood being distributed so freely. I cant speak for the other okes, but I have seen the light at least and am now buying maybe 2 or 3 cds a month, sometimes more, and have amassed quite a nice collection by now. On the plus side, having had copies of cd's I liked back then has meant that I have in most cases by now bought the originals as well as the artists other stuff. Then again I might have bought them anyway, who knows. It really is a tough situation for artists and what the best way to adapt is I honestly dont know. Appealing to Joe Public's morals and trying to regulate it wont work imo - society has moved beyond that point. Its a mindset now that you must have as much as possible for as little in return as possible. I have no doubt the music industry will survive, but I havent the answer as to how.

Bob-Dubery

chris77 wrote Good thread Bob. Back before the internet and when funds were scarce me and my mates used to copy music among us like crazy. The justification was along the lines of, aagh I cant buy it anyway so he/she/they already aren't getting my money.... so I might as well copy it.

Speaking for myself, I can't even say that I thought much about it. It was mostly the impulse to share something you thought was good with your friends. The big difference (in the days that I'm thinking of) was that you had to make a copy using a tape deck and a turntable, which meant having a hi-fi and having to do it all in real time. No quick copies, no easy way to spread the joy around.

The key difference today is that we have file sharing sites and internet connections and can rip a CD to MP3s in very little time at all. I think the level of "thought" is about the same, so I go easy on the current generation. They're not more greedy than my bunch, they just have access to better technology.

vic

[quote author=Keira WitherKay link=topic=7583.msg81746#msg81746 date=1274594677

PAY FOR LIVE MUSIC it's the general publics lack of willingness to shell out couvert charge that leads to venues using the solo artist with backtracks.. that killed the live 4 piece band market
it's amazing how people just easily accept this loss of live bands and allow mediocre musicians to work in venues that if they never had backtracks could never hold down the gig .....since these days the backtracks have all the parts down and even backing harmonies and yes some even the main vocals and guitar parts....including solo's on some .... i recently saw a guitarist who "jammed "along with a full guitar track on backtracks and even the solo's it was shocking to see this in a "better ' venue and when i told a fellow musician (jazz vocalist and pianist) she said no shock there she had performed at a function where the vocals were mimed, to a large live show .......... so the industry is imploding fast .......

but there is already talk in jhb of a group of musicians mostly pro musicians starting a "real live music" collective... so thats promising ...cos really just as downloads is killing the record industry......so is "canned" bands using backtraxs killing the live band industry ........
but the irony is both of these problems are similar but both can't be prevented cos most people...i say most NOT all won't pay for art .......... in any form ........... if they can get it free ...... so i don't see a solution but like any cause they need to be highlighted .......... and shouted from the rooftops every now and then ..........
[/quote]
I agree fully with all sentiments expressed here...however the killing of live music (bands) started way back in the mid '70s with the advent of Disco and appropriate sound equipment to play recorded music at high volume. Suddenly we were (almost) out of gigs as clubs, corporates functions and wedding venues for example, converted to Disco set-ups. Up to this day you'll find your DJ at most venues of entertainment, playing downloaded stuff (well, maybe he/she is payng for it..? I dunno). I believe that most of the public don't care about live music...as long as there's music and a dop, Joe Soap is happy. ?. If we take this Forum for example, how many members actually play in a gigging band AND get paid for what they do ? (the pro and semi-pro scenario). During the '50-early 70's almost every town in SA had a semi-pro band ? We had the Battle of the Bands comps back then ! Those were good days. ? Sadly that's all gone now. All that's left is the odd one-man band playing at the odd restaurant and pub , many of who, use backtrax. ☹ So yeah, the Technology to which Bob refers has a wide-spread affect...it touches all of us and it's real bad.

Gearhead

X-rated Bob wrote The key difference today is that we have file sharing sites and internet connections and can rip a CD to MP3s in very little time at all. I think the level of "thought" is about the same, so I go easy on the current generation. They're not more greedy than my bunch, they just have access to better technology.

I do not agree entirely. I bought music I could afford and copied all I could get my hands on. When CDs came, I sold my LP albums (had no singles) and started buying CDs. I reckon of the first 100 CDs there must have not been more than 20 I did not already have on tape. Just the idea of having the album, in your hands, the sleeve notes, 16bit/44KHz quality, wow.

With all the better technology today's youngsters are just copying entire harddisks at an appalling bitrate since then they have 20.000 songs, never mind that it is all sh!t music and sh!t sound quality.

I also do not blame the younger generation, but for a different reason: ethics are taught not genetic. With every new technology there is a requirement for new ethics and it usually takes some time before everyone accepts the change. It now is considered shouting if you write your mail/post in capitals, who would have figured that at Berkeley when they were developing the net? It is up to us all to teach all of us to behave, with paying for music like all other things.

vic

Gearhead wrote
X-rated Bob wrote The key difference today is that we have file sharing sites and internet connections and can rip a CD to MP3s in very little time at all. I think the level of "thought" is about the same, so I go easy on the current generation. They're not more greedy than my bunch, they just have access to better technology.
I do not agree entirely. I bought music I could afford and copied all I could get my hands on. When CDs came, I sold my LP albums (had no singles) and started buying CDs. I reckon of the first 100 CDs there must have not been more than 20 I did not already have on tape. Just the idea of having the album, in your hands, the sleeve notes, 16bit/44KHz quality, wow.

With all the better technology today's youngsters are just copying entire harddisks at an appalling bitrate since then they have 20.000 songs, never mind that it is all sh!t music and sh!t sound quality.

I also do not blame the younger generation, but for a different reason: ethics are taught not genetic. With every new technology there is a requirement for new ethics and it usually takes some time before everyone accepts the change. It now is considered shouting if you write your mail/post in capitals, who would have figured that at Berkeley when they were developing the net? It is up to us all to teach all of us to behave, with paying for music like all other things.

Agree...it will certaily help the recording artist....but will that get proper live bands back on the stages in SA for eg , when it's so much cheaper to pay for a DJ ? . Will that ensure that most of the established recording artists (solo singers like you-know-who) make use of live bands backing them instead of singing to backtrax ? :-\

Bob-Dubery

There are two kinds of event involving music. The one is where the music is there as a backdrop to eating, talking, drinking, throwing up, getting a date etc etc.

The second is where people go to listen to the music.

The first type of gig there's little hope if you want to hear real musicians playing real music without backing tracks, software to turn one singer into several, drum machines etc.

Support the 2nd type of gig.

Well that's what I say, but then I'm a music nerd. I had rather less .... errrmmmm.... "fun" than some of my friends at school because when we went out to listen to a band I actually listened to the band. All night. This is not good for your social advancement.

Renesongs

My 2c worth. Artists need to move with the times. In the old days recording and producing music for sale required equipment the was financially way out of the reach of the individual, only large corporations , record companies could afford such equipment. Record companies set the price of the recorded media at a rate as high as the market would bear. If the recording sold well the artist could look forward a lucrative 6c in the $1 for every album sold. Now-days the same if not better recording and producing equipment is well within the budget of the artist thus making the record company a redundancy. So the real question here is why would I pay $30 for CD When I know that less than $2 would be received by the artist I appreciate. I would rather give the artist say $5 to legally download the CD from their site. There always will be cheaters who pride themselves on how much they can get for free but I think the majority of us would like to show appreciation for the artist but not at the expense of filling the coffers of the unscrupulous corporation clowns of the music industry.

Bob-Dubery

Renesongs wrote My 2c worth. Artists need to move with the times. In the old days recording and producing music for sale required equipment the was financially way out of the reach of the individual, only large corporations , record companies could afford such equipment. Record companies set the price of the recorded media at a rate as high as the market would bear. If the recording sold well the artist could look forward a lucrative 6c in the $1 for every album sold. Now-days the same if not better recording and producing equipment is well within the budget of the artist thus making the record company a redundancy. So the real question here is why would I pay $30 for CD When I know that less than $2 would be received by the artist I appreciate.

It's one of those "power of one" things. Sort of like putting energy saving globes in your house. You do it then the impact on energy consumption and the production of greenhouse gasses from energy consumption is negligible. But if enough of us do this then all those little reductions in consumption add up to a big deal (I'm allowed to say this - I have solar water heating).

Dayna Kurtz puts downloads of her album at 50 000 - and that's a conservative figure. If one in 5 of those people had bought a CD she'd have, by your figures, an extra $20 000 and would be able to get the album out in the USA, and pay off some other debts.

And I think there are all sorts of changes in the model these days - things don't necessarily work the way they did in the good old days. Some artists now choose a business model where they are using the record company really to do promotion and distribution. They record themselves, at their own cost, select the songs, get the artwork done etc etc. Now this gives them a lot more freedom AND they own the recordings (which is a big deal), and they make more per CD sold. But they lose more if the CD doesn't sell.

Working like this is not necessarily a choice. Record companies increasingly are only interested in acts they make a lot of money from - big stadium tours and so on. So a lot of artists, in a smaller league than U2 or West Life, wouldn't get a deal at all if they didn't self-finance things more.

I didn't quote Dayna Kurtz's reply in full here, but it's clear that she took on some risk with this album. She talks about how SHE (not the label) is currently unable to pay the engineer in full, she talks about hiring specific studios. It's clearly not a situation where the label is paying for everything up front and she's getting so many cents in the dollar back. Even if it were such a deal she could still end up out of pocket if the CD does poorly enough. She might end up with no deal at all, or having to hand over copyright on the songs.

Thinking of the CDs I have in my study, a good number are made by artists who are not operating under the traditional sort of recording contract. Many of them have to find finance for recordings and for touring.

I'd agree that artists might do better to provide digital downloads. However this creates another problem for them some times in that the record company is now unhappy because the rug is being pulled out from under them. And besides, even if you offer the album as a download for $5 you're still up against the torrent sites that will make it available for free.

Wizard

You do have to be a little careful about assuming what % of those 50,000 downloads would have become sales.
An interesting habit amongst teenagers is to download songs just to increase their iPod song number count ... without necessarily wanting to actually listen to the music.
They do it with facebook friends too ... collect hundreds that they never chat to

Bob-Dubery

Wizard wrote You do have to be a little careful about assuming what % of those 50,000 downloads would have become sales.

It's a fair cop, Guv'nor, I just used a thumb suck figure.

But my overarching point is that for each person who does do the decent thing there is extra money for the artist. Not a big amount for each CD, but if Dayna Kurtz had sold 9000 CDs rather than 900 she'd be quite a bit better off.

Renesongs

I really empathise with Dayna Kurtz it seems that she got burned from both side. The record companies put a lot of pressure on artist not to go the Indie self finance route. West Life et al are IMO a creation of the rcord companies and deserve to be pirated to death It's a war out there between Hollywood the Record companies and the torrents you have to pick sides very carefully to survive.

Bob-Dubery

Renesongs wrote I really empathise with Dayna Kurtz it seems that she got burned from both side. The record companies put a lot of pressure on artist not to go the Indie self finance route.

I wouldn't put them all in the same boat. I think the big companies do have reservations about artists financing recordings. Presumably this doesn't fit well with their usual business model. This doesn't just become a problem for artists on the first run of the ladder. Some years ago I read an interview with David Gilmour in which he talked about the making of the first post-Waters Floyd album. Whilst lawyers were still fighting over who owned what Gilmour and Mason got an album made. When the legal dust had settled they had a finished album with artwork etc ready to go and the record company were unreceptive to the idea.

However there are companies that have different ways of doing business. Cooking Vinyl is a good example. They are quite content to take on artists on a deal where they just distribute and market.

So let's not assume that all record companies have the same ethos and business practices. There are so many labels around these days operating in all kinds of ways.

West Life et al are IMO a creation of the rcord companies and deserve to be pirated to death It's a war out there between Hollywood the Record companies and the torrents you have to pick sides very carefully to survive.

Well my attitudes are hardening (I hope). That's not much of a choice really. It's like saying that if you're looking for a new car radio your choice is between the retail stores in the malls and shady guys who deal only in cash and give no receipts.

I'm no fan of West Life and such bands, but hey! It is their income. I'd resent it if it were my income that were being threatened by download sites.

The proposition is actually a simple one there: I don't buy their albums or go to their shows. I spend my money on the artists whose work I do appreciate and we should do the same - spend the money on whoever it is whose work we appreciate. If you want a musical world full of boy bands then that's where you should put your money.

Ray

I'm a good boy! Never downloaded a song in my life apart from the 20 free ones with the Nokia phone. But I've thought about it hey. Like I've thought who is going to get shafted by people downloading SRV music. I dont think SRV. But at the same time I'm not a great fan of the system. The one we live in, the business against crime one, the one that tells you that if you buy a pirate dvd on the corner you're funding international terrorism. Just lately they're telling us that if you do this you're also supporting car hijacking.

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote I'm a good boy! Never downloaded a song in my life apart from the 20 free ones with the Nokia phone. But I've thought about it hey. Like I've thought who is going to get shafted by people downloading SRV music. I dont think SRV. But at the same time I'm not a great fan of the system. The one we live in, the business against crime one, the one that tells you that if you buy a pirate dvd on the corner you're funding international terrorism. Just lately they're telling us that if you do this you're also supporting car hijacking.

Well what you are doing is supporting people who sell pirate DVDs.

The word for these people is "crooks".

I'd stop short of calling file sharer's crooks because there's no tangible gain in it for them, but for sure they don't help put food on the artist's table.

I'd agree that people overstate the case for not buying pirate DVDs with lurid tales involving Al Qaeda and international car snatching rings, but that doesn't make the goods being sold on those corners any more respectable.

DonovanB

Wizard wrote An interesting habit amongst teenagers is to download songs just to increase their iPod song number count ... without necessarily wanting to actually listen to the music.
They do it with facebook friends too ... collect hundreds that they never chat to

I went through a stage of buying a huge amount of cds. Every month I would be spending my pay on new music and I remember being at a party, where some guy was bragging about all the new music he has. He mentioned a certain album that I had as well and I commented on the artwork and he couldn't answer me because he had downloaded them all. He had made himself out to be a huge music fan, when all he really was, was a cheapskate and a thief. That's akin to impressing girls with all your money by driving a stolen car.

I, personally, like the download with intent to buy scenario. I have done a lot of that. if I like it, I buy it. If I don't I delete, or keep the really bad ones to annoy people with (can anyone say Whigfield?)

I tried downloading a torrent recently, it's not as easy as it is made out to be. I do not feel safe and secure with it and I truly don't like it. I don't understand how one can not only download something for nothing (aka steal) but have this potential virus bearing, computer killing, hacker feeding program on your pc.

But we have to move with the times. Maybe there's a new innovation out there waiting to be discovered that can cure this.

Bob-Dubery

Donovan Banks wrote I remember being at a party, where some guy was bragging about all the new music he has. He mentioned a certain album that I had as well and I commented on the artwork and he couldn't answer me because he had downloaded them all. He had made himself out to be a huge music fan, when all he really was, was a cheapskate and a thief. That's akin to impressing girls with all your money by driving a stolen car.

Some years ago my stepson was given "The new U2 CD" for his birthday. By a friend. What said friend had actually given was a blank CD with a copy (source unknown) of Bono and Co's latest. He had gone as far as photocopying the front of the CD sleeve (in black and white).

I annoyed a few people by observing that in fact this gift didn't amount to very much. I stand by that. Yes, I know it's the THOUGHT that counts, but that lead me to question just exactly what this generous person was thinking, and how much he really thought of my stepson.

IceCreamMan

it should be recognised that the world has changed ... recognising this and making a plan around it is what is needed. Being all sanctimonious aint going to alter that fact.

possibly this exposure this artist is getting would not of been gotten otherwise and her next album may go viral because of this exposure.

hands up who has never pirated or copied something illegally.