Please Explain to a Dummy!

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Steinar..

I dont disagree with ya....

t

Steinar Gregertsen · From: Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.

No, but I do.... I'm terribly confused on this matter....

Steinar

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 02 July 2005 at 11:31 AM.]

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

That's a true story, Jason, you only left out the part about the band also insisting on and paying for a personal tour bus for each member and a couple more more for the overflow entourage. Of course when they later figures out that their multi-platinum album didn't really make them any money they blame their loss on the manager instead of their own foolishness.

I produced two products for Balafon Marimba Ensemble in the 1990's. The first was a simple thing we recorded in an empty dance hall, had a bunch of copies made, the band came up with some nice artwork and they sold them off the bandstand and at a few indie record stores for $10 each. Cost of goods sold was about $3.00 each so there was $7.00 profit in each unit, they sold about 3,000 units the first year - they cleared over $20,000 in sales in that time with no label involvement at all. Of course, it didn't do much in the way of exposure for them but they had total control of their destiny at that point.

The next year they signed a two-album deal with Shanechie Records and into the studio we went. The first Shanechie album was recorded fairly inexpensively at a local studio and Shanechie sold about 38,000 units, from which the band received about $0.30 apiece, which totalled out to about half what they made selling their first home-made product off the bandstand, but they did get lots of exposure worldwide, travelled to Europe to play at the Womad Fest, vacation in Greece, etc. and came home flat broke but reasonably well-pleased with the experience.

For the second album Shanechie wanted a big-time producer's name on the album cover (to increase sales, they said) so the label brought in a guy who had had some success at Windham Hill. He moved them into a more expensive studio, turned up the chorus and reverb and the "new-age" atmosphere and generally rearranged everything until the band didn't recognize their own music. Not being professional musicians for the most part but "ignorant" part-timers, they ($6500 or so later) ditched him and re-recorded most of the material on their own with only the studio engineers to assist them. In the end they were happy with the album but it didn't sell nearly as well (the label was not so excited about promoting them at this point, what were those uppity hippies thinking?) and the cost of producing it pretty much ate up the few cents per copy that they received in royalties.

Another friend of mine who wrote and produced a song that was in the Top 10 on the R&B and CHR charts for several months in the mid-1980's made some pretty good money initially but crooked bookkeepers and Wall Street investment advisors took him for about a quarter million bucks before the smoke cleared.

At least he had the good sense to practice fiscal responsibility in the studio and on tour, but when Atlantic Records found out that the band's girl singer (who happened to be his wife) wasn't really interested in being marketed to the world as a sex kitten they pulled the promotion budget for the second album, then went out and found a new skinny girl artist with only one name to spend it on. She did whatever they told her to do and didn't write her own material so this time the label, writers, producers, studios, etc. got to keep most of the money.

Edited to clean up my usual bad spelling

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 02 July 2005 at 11:50 AM.]

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Dave, your friend, and I think this one can drive the whole dang arguement here..he wrote and produced a song..he was not the Artist...the song sold big time..( top 10 ) he made 1/4 million buckaroos...do ya think he would have been happy if folks were downloading that song for free and sharing it across the land..? I'm thnking probably not...

t

[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 02 July 2005 at 11:52 AM.]

Jim Phelps · From: Mexico City, Mexico

I wish every highschool and college kid, and anyone else thinking about quitting their regular job to be a full-time musician would read Jason and Dave's posts.

Steinar Gregertsen · From: Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.

What has me really confused here is this,- how much do downloads really hurt sales? I read somewhere that a survey among US students showed that the people dowloading the most music also bought the most music.

Just like live bootlegs,- I'm totally against them, but that's because the artist has absolutely no artistic control over the release and also makes no money from it.
I don't think anybody who's a big enough fan to buy a bootleg with crappy sound and everything that goes along with it, won't also buy the legit releases.

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 02 July 2005 at 11:56 AM.]

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Tony, Balafon wrote a couple of songs on the first and most of the second Shanechie album - writers royalties were included in the $0.30 they received. Most of the rest of the material was written by the great Thomas Mapfumo of Zimbabwe, who did receive appropriate mechanicals from the label.

You are correct in surmising that my other friend would not be too thrilled to have his market diluted by the current file-sharing craze, any more than Nathaniel Phillips, the fabulous bass player who received a flat $200 for creating and recording the opening bass lines of the song's demo, is happy that his work is repeatedly played over the PA at nearly every NBA basketball game in the country. ASCAP gets paid for it, though, as part of their blanket agreements with those arenas.

Of course, the fact that the song ever made prime time is a matter of the most bizarre circumstance in the first place, but that's another story for another thread.

dg

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 02 July 2005 at 12:05 PM.]

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Speaking of "bootleg" copies. I bought a bootleg cassette at a flea market several years ago. I don't remember who it was but I think it was a Mark Chestnutt album. The quality was bad (typical) but I liked the album so I bought the "real" album.

If I had not bought the bootleg copy, I doubt that I would have ever bought the "real" copy.

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Jack, that's generally the argument in favor of music "file sharing" and there is some considerable merit to it.

What has the industry up in arms is the fact that the file-sharing practice replaces the traditional copyright protection system with total anarchy. Naturally the individuals and corporations who hold these copyrights see their property rights (and thus income from such) infringed, also an honorable position.

It now appears that some new approaches are beginning to take hold that will allow for everyone involved to be satisfied, at least in principal if not in actual pratice. If I own the material I feel that I should have a choice whether or not to opt for exposure over income, not have the issue snatched from my hands by some raging hipsters who have grown up expecting the world to be their oyster, no matter at whose expense it may be delivered.

As for the young folks who both buy AND download music, many kids who have purchased hundreds of CD's have also downloaded tens of thousands of songs illicitly over the Internet "because they could" - somebody has to be losing out in that scenario....

Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

This is indeed a confusing and multi-layered issue. Nearly every post here makes some truly valid points about the situation. We're in a period when some shaking-up and paradigm changes are happening, and everybody's just trying to figure out where they fit in the big picture, or what that picture even is!

When we released the last Blueground Undergrass CD, we considered releasing internet only as free downloads, since so many of our fans were download nuts. But then there were the folks without computers, and the necessity of promo, airplay... made my head hurt.

Just as somone mentioned, most of us thought little about copying friends' LPs onto cassettes, trading them back and forth to get hard-to-find steel albums, etc. One of the big problems with internet piracy is the (largely kids) doing it love the use of technology (it's kind of like a video game in a way), of being the first to have the "new hip thing", and of getting something for free. Efforts by lawmakers or the Record Industry to police this are seen as attacking "the people" as in "everybody's doing it", rather than combatting piracy. In fact I would be willing to bet that a number of songwriters who desperately need/want their product to stay "download free" have copied more than one tape or CD sometime... very complicated indeed. We live in interesting times.

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Stop by the Steel Store at: www.markvanallen.com

Steinar Gregertsen · From: Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.

I may be terribly naive, but I hope that as buying and downloading albums and individual tracks direct from labels and places like iTunes gets more common the piracy will be reduced.
I think the music industry has been much to slow in catching up with this new reality and relied too much on finding ways to stop the piracy through laws and 'copy protection' devices, instead of challenging it in its own playground and presenting an alternative. I really don't think most people mind paying a few dollars to get the songs they want.
But as I said,- I may be terribly naive....

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 02 July 2005 at 01:41 PM.]

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 02 July 2005 at 01:47 PM.]

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

www.cdbaby.com

Jason Odd · From: Stawell, Victoria, Australia

When I'm trying to wring out a miserable existance as a writer I'm working a fairly menial job at a record co., which I might add, I quite enjoy all the same.

So one would suppose I'd be against internet downloading, but I'm not.
I personally spend a fair bit on music, I also get quite a few freebies, so I do okay.

I don't download much, usually a sample to check out something.
People have been taping stuff off the radio as soon as the technology was there, it's much the same thing.

DVDs are massive now, and I suspect games and DVDs are attracting a massive consumer base, which in the past would have gone more into rentals and arcades, but also cuts into sales on other items like CDs.

And don't even get me started on dodgy overseas distributors who don't pay royalties on albums they license.
Indie labels and artists get the shaft from that sort of thing all the time.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

This probably has nothing to do with the "illegal" downloading.

But, I've got a singer friend that has an Indie label CD. He was contacted by a radio station in England (he didn't contact them) about playing his album. But, the kicker was they wanted money to play it!!

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Jack, has Alan Freed resurfaced in England ?

t

ps..thanks Smiley...

[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 03 July 2005 at 11:52 AM.]

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

A recording artist coming out in favor of free music downloads means nothing if the artist isn't a songwriter. That's my biggest problem with all this. People forget that a songwriter has rights to a song and deserves to be paid no matter who is performing it.

I don't care much what record companies or singers say. The songwriters have the most to lose because they are the least visible part of the package. Most teen pop music fans have no idea who's writing their music. They figure that Britanny or Christina or whoever is so gawd-awful rich that the download won't hurt them, and the record companies are so greedy that they deserve to be screwed. Never a thought of the 7 cent mechanical royalty that the songwriter is using to feed his kids...

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Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6)

Steinar Gregertsen · From: Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.

Bill Llewellyn · From: San Jose, CA

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

the comments pertaining to ARTIST/WRITER do come back to Janis..sorry..She wrote that only folks like Celine Dion are effected by downloads when in fact Celine Dion is not effected one bit..

THE WRITER OF HER SONGS is...

Don't be offended by comments that may be as a result of what Janis said..she said it..she wrote it..and she is wrong..

I'n sure in her world she is ok with this scenario..but I can guarantee that the writers of Celine, Brittany, Christina etc..songs ARE NOT happy with free downloads..

Alan Jackson sold over 60 million CD's..he mostly sings songs by celebrated writers..save a few..

If the writers do not get paid..there will be no writers..they will all be at Wallmart or the Waffle House working 60 hours/week to get by..

Then one day AJ wants to make another smash CD..but can't find any quality songs..because all the writers went under...now what does he do ?

Writers incomes are based on sales/distribution..not shows and performances.

and I'll say this again..for the second time..
Janis Ian knows this....

this has nothing to do with whether Janis is a fine artist or not..she is..She just has a skewed vision on this topic..one that fits her world...

Steinar Gregertsen · From: Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.

Yes, I agree, the songwriter (as in "songwriter, not touring artist") viewpoint is often overlooked in this debate.
I'm only trying to keep an open mind and see this from both/all sides, I refuse to believe it's as black and white as the record companies portray it. I really don't think the free downloading hurts record sales all that much more than cassette copying and taping from the radio used to do.

And more importantly,- how do we beat it, is it possible at all? I don't believe in 'copy protection' devices on CDs and stuff like that, it'll only generate more hostility from the end users and probably contribute to even more downloading (the 'copy protection' doesn't protect anything, only restricts what you can play the CD on).

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 04 July 2005 at 03:31 AM.]

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Things have changed, they are changin' again. Bob Dylan, more or less.

I recall hearing in the 80's that you tour to sell records. Now it seems you sell records to tour. Jason's scenario may be what happened to change it. So it seems that this is another transition.

Label support was huge then; it was venture capital. Rock n roll was already a dinosaur waiting to fall over, tho it happened more slowly than the dot.com boom and bust. Now, the Dixie Chicks spend a million on their stage, they own it.

Writers for Elvis and Sinatra tunes stood to win because other artists wanted to record those tunes. Kiss wrote their own, and nobody else wanted to record them. Many versions of 'Fly Me to the Moon', only one of 'Love Gun' (thank goodness). Vinyl was final; you could count the records.

The internet has changed everything, not just music marketing.
What do we do to get on board in the digital age? I don't know, just musing....
In the meantime, Dave got to tour with WOMAD (too cool!), and his life is enriched beyond money. Some royalties would be nice tho....

Does Janis Ian have it right? Or will Bill Gates be the new Alan Freed?
More privateers, more indie labels? More local control, less money paid to agents and producers? That may be the dream (or the pipe dream) that is unfolding. Whatever the new paradigm will be, the details are in the making at this moment.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

I would say that Janis Ian does not have it right..

She is giving her music away so folks will come to her shows..

She is not even selling her OWN songs...ok, maybe a few CD's sold at her shows..

With this philosphy..only the performing artist can win to a certain degree...and thats ony if folks show up at her shows which she herself said is between 500 and 1500 folks...

At an AJ show, Celine, Brittany etc..1500 is the first row....

Janis has figured out how to survive in her own right..but that formula does not work for GLOBAL acts and Music we hear and want to hear on the radio...and for Music we are willing to buy...

In Janis's world you have to go out and find her music..then download it..

For the rest of the world the Music finds us...

ok..here is the test..
How many of us here in this debate have downloaded Janis Ian songs lately ?

Do we even know anybody who has ?

Can you even name a fairly recent Janis Ian song ? I know I can't...

t

[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 04 July 2005 at 06:27 AM.]

erik · Posted 4 Jul 2005 5:44 am

quote:

Alan Jackson sold over 60 million CD's..he mostly sings songs by celebrated writers..save a few..

[snip]

Then one day AJ wants to make another smash CD..but can't find any quality songs..because all the writers went under...now what does he do ?

He writes most of his hit songs. He knows the game.

erik · Posted 4 Jul 2005 5:47 am

John, I can't believe you're still using WebTV. I thought I was the last hold-out. You must be shut out of many web sites.

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-johnson

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