Woman fined to tune of $1.9 million for illegal downloads

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by dplax True. I must have been speaking from my dislike for certain pop artists a couple years back who seemed more interested in fame than in music.

Yeah but you can bet someone cared about the "dud" songs. Either the songwriter or the producer, or even the engineer that mixed it (who's name goes on this mix - at very least they'd care about their reputation and try and do a good job).

[Gabrielles blades]

Yes, i feel 1 dollar per song is ridiculous
Even if you tell me they did this this and that and so they deserve it. Really, if the song is good, it will sell well. If its selling well they should be making so much money they dont know what to do with it all. Do all musicians really need to have million dollar a year incomes? i dont think so. I have always wondered why there arent recording studious out in the middle of a very quiet nowhere instead of in a place where the cost of the land that the building is laying on is worth an insane amount of money. Really, just buy some dirt cheap land in the middle of no where and start recording artists there - just make sure its within an hour or two of tranportation.

The costs of distributing songs through the internet is very slim compared to the cost of distributing songs through the old CDs so really they ought to cut the price back some more to be more reasonable.
And no they cant catch you through that program you discussed if you download and upload using programs that are P2P in a more direct manner. The programs i am talking about are basically the equivalent of a group of friends who share files rather than a group of the entire internet.

As far as the CD vs single thing...I honestly can go either way - there are artists who i liked the whole CD of and i would feel i was missing out if i hadnt bought it, but there are also CDs where i am truly dismayed at how horrid all of the tracks are except for the one. I will say however, that no matter what the artists want a lot of people prefer making their own playlist of various artists instead of a single artist so that it wont become a bore to listing to.

As far as music goes, do you know of anyone comparable of sarah mclaughlin, sinead oconnor, charlotte church, garbage etc? basically I prefer female artists with strong voice or lyrics.

[Firestormalpha]

But how much of that $1 million a year net goes into their manager, and to the publishers/record companies, bus and tech equipment maintainence and or rentals, and recording costs. It's not free, and from what I've been told, not exactly cheap either.

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Gabrielles blades 1. Yes, i feel 1 dollar per song is ridiculous Even if you tell me they did this this and that and so they deserve it. Really, if the song is good, it will sell well. If its selling well they should be making so much money they dont know what to do with it all. Do all musicians really need to have million dollar a year incomes? i dont think so. 2. I have always wondered why there arent recording studious out in the middle of a very quiet nowhere instead of in a place where the cost of the land that the building is laying on is worth an insane amount of money. Really, just buy some dirt cheap land in the middle of no where and start recording artists there - just make sure its within an hour or two of tranportation.

Are you serious or are you just dicking around?

1. Musicians who sell lots of CDs don't all have million dollar a year incomes.
If you can sell a million CDs you're doing very very very well. However, thanks to the death of the album, what was $15,000,000 would now be $1,000,000.
So, say the band is 4 members, that's $250,000 each right?

Well, no. Of the $1 iTunes takes 30c. so that's 70c.
Of the rest of the pie, because the band had a record company, the band get just 8% to divide 4 ways, the songwriters get 15% divided however they agreed, and the publisher takes 50% of the songwriters 15%.

So even if the band wrote the song, they're still getting around 16% of 70 cents. Which maybe means, if they did so well they sold 1 million CDs they're getting $112,000 divided 4 ways, less managers 20% commision - so that's a cozy $22,000 for the year or two it took to make and promote the CD.

$22,000 is hardly a million bucks per year.

However, you haven't factored in, that the record company paid a very cheap $25,000 to make the CD that sells the million. Before the band see any money that needs to be paid back FROM THE ARTISTS PERCENTAGE. Plus there's the costs that go along with touring etc etc.

And if the band don't have a record company it's a whole different ballgame.

------------

2. Why don't you try it then? Build a studio out in the middle of nowhere and see how many musicians travel out whenever they can get time off their days jobs or their gigs, and save up enough to pay for the air/train ticket or car/gas to come out to you.

Seriously you don't think people have tried that already? Some have worked, others haven't. It has to be a pretty special studio for people to undertake the time and cost to travel to record, which means it's also going to be an expensive studio, not because of the real estate, but because of the equipment.

You're forgetting that the EQUIPMENT that records music costs money. Outboard gear, computers, monitors, headphones, cables, microphones, hardrives, tape, plus the instruments themselves.
Good mics can be thousands of dollars.
The computer needs software, and plugins. Again, thousands of dollars.

It's not cheap, even though it's much cheaper than it used to be.

Plus, you're not allowing for the hire of professionals. It's not just about renting a studio. Engineers who operate it cost money. So do producers.

My first CD through Polygram cost around $250,000 including music videos, and that was cheap compared to American artists at the time.
A later CD I did through BMG cost around $80,000 as it was a band, and we bought the recording gear with the advance and recorded it in one of the guys houses. Half of that money went on paying the engineer who mixed the album.
14 years ago, a CD I funded independently cost me $10,000 of my own money for studio time, and engineers. The drums and a few other things were recorded at a good studio, while the majority of the music was recorded in the engineers house. However, I ran out of money to get the CD mastered, and so never released the music. At which point I decided to engineer my own recordings from then on.

It's not cheap to make music, and more CDs lose money than make it back bro. Most musicians do not make music "for the money", but we need to be paid to feed out families. So when you grumble about a $1 sale it really is like whinging about giving pennies to paupers.

The costs of distributing songs through the internet is very slim compared to the cost of distributing songs through the old CDs so really they ought to cut the price back some more to be more reasonable.

Except as said, this is offset by single sales rather than album sales.
Plus, gigging hasn't gotten cheaper. Nor has taking out press advertising etc. Nor has actually the cost to manufacture CDs. What exactly is so much cheaper? Putting songs onto iTunes? That's just one piece of the puzzle bro, for no-one goes to iTunes to search for a band they've never heard of.

And no they cant catch you through that program you discussed if you download and upload using programs that are P2P in a more direct manner. The programs i am talking about are basically the equivalent of a group of friends who share files rather than a group of the entire internet.

if it's Kazaa and Limewire etc. yes they can and do, by using the programs themselves.

As far as the CD vs single thing...I honestly can go either way - there are artists who i liked the whole CD of and i would feel i was missing out if i hadnt bought it, but there are also CDs where i am truly dismayed at how horrid all of the tracks are except for the one. I will say however, that no matter what the artists want a lot of people prefer making their own playlist of various artists instead of a single artist so that it wont become a bore to listing to.

Nothing wrong with that. How people chose to listen to music is their own business. How an artists distributes their work is the artists business though.

As far as music goes, do you know of anyone comparable of sarah mclaughlin, sinead oconnor, charlotte church, garbage etc? basically I prefer female artists with strong voice or lyrics.

Yes, loads. For every Sarah or Sinead there are literally hundreds of talented singers the public don't get to hear of.

When I was with the record companies, there were hundreds of CDs of, at the time, current acts, who WEREN'T getting airplay and becoming household names. And they were the small percentage of artists with deals.

There is so much great music out there.

[Firestormalpha]

To quote the lyrics from a band I like:

"Rockstars Need Money" by Downhere-

Critics, this is our most serious song…

Rockstars need money
We can't live on baloney sandwiches
Rockstars need money
And it comes from you!

Rockstars need money
We can't live on baloney sandwiches
we can try, but really rather not, you know

Rockstars need money
We can't live on baloney sandwiches
Rockstars need money
And it comes from you!

And here is how that you can help:
Oh, buy our album; oh, or a t-shirt,
Oh, a sticker, a poster, whatever, just help us get thru, do it.

Rockstars need money
We can't live on baloney sandwiches
Rockstars need money
And it comes from you! And you, and you, and you, and you.

[Gabrielles blades]

thats just more proof that the music industry needs to get with the times. Part of that is the fact you dont really need to promote in the same tired way as before. There are much cheaper alternative methods of getting your music heard to make it popular.
It is simply ridiculous that the artists receive such a small amount of the pie - it may have been more justified before since it was i think a lot more work to get a band out there, but now it seems much more like them being greedy.
As far as the band not making money on a tour i dont think that has to be the case - i just did a search online and found some latin artists who are making 500k+ per show.

As far as the hiring of professionals goes - thats basically you having other people make your music for you. I hardly see why an artist should complain about their cost if they are using them. Really their music should be their music not some professionals remixed whatever.

[Bungleau]

Originally Posted by Yorick *snip* The last thing I put out, an electronica CD: "Refraction", I didn't even print up CDs. Just straight to iTunes.

And ironically, although I've got several of your CDs, I don't have that one... *specifically* because I prefer to have the physical CD and then load it into itunes

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Bungleau And ironically, although I've got several of your CDs, I don't have that one... *specifically* because I prefer to have the physical CD and then load it into itunes

Touche.

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Gabrielles blades thats just more proof that the music industry needs to get with the times. Part of that is the fact you dont really need to promote in the same tired way as before.

What tired old ways would they be? Radio airplay? MTV? Gigs?
What's the new way? Limewire? Which basically gives people the thing they're supposed to be buying? LOL

There are much cheaper alternative methods of getting your music heard to make it popular.

And they are...?
Care to elaborate and give details instead of shooting your mouth off from the sidelines with no solutions, no evidence, no person experience etc.

It is simply ridiculous that the artists receive such a small amount of the pie - it may have been more justified before since it was i think a lot more work to get a band out there, but now it seems much more like them being greedy.

So tell me why artist after artist was prepared to sign?
Because, like any other capitalist venture, the person putting money up-front calls some serious shots. You still need a record company to get airplay or a spot on Conan O'Brien or to get a booking agent or support slot. Record companies earn their share fair and square.

As far as the band not making money on a tour i dont think that has to be the case - i just did a search online and found some latin artists who are making 500k+ per show.

Gross or net?
$500 per show for a whole band is not a lot bro. If there are 5 ppl in the band and they play once a week, then they're getting $100 a week, which may be fine if you're 17 but crappy is you're 40 with three kids.
Furthmore are these "latin bands" cover bands or originals? Different rates of pay. And seeing as we're talking about CDs we're talking about originals bands, which charge less than unknown cover bands.

As far as the hiring of professionals goes - thats basically you having other people make your music for you. I hardly see why an artist should complain about their cost if they are using them. Really their music should be their music not some professionals remixed whatever.

Gabrielle, to be blunt this is naive...

Was Mozart supposed to sit down and play all his instruments at the same time, or did he hire specialists to play his compositions before an audience?
Did you the collaboration make the music any less "his" because other professionals were making his music?

Should Jackson, director of Lord of the rings, have been cameraman, editor, acted every role, done the props, etc etc or, in hiring professionals to work with him, was his vision accomplished with greater accuracy?

Your comment "their music should be their music and not some professional's remixed or whatever" is actually ironic, in that a REMIX is often done by a one-man-does everything approach. Closer to your proposed ideal. But we're not talking about remixing. We're talking about the initial production, or say a band who are skilled at writing songs, and playing their instruments, but have no idea how to record them, mix them, balance the parts etc. Additionally a producer is like a film director or athletes coach, in that they push the artist to perform at their best.

So should all sportsmen abandon coaches in your ideal world? Should everyone be motivated enough to be skilled in every skill so that they can do any job by themselves without other specialist performing tasks?

Should the architect of a house also do the plumbing, electrics, bricklaying, tiling, painting etc or does a team of specialists make the house?

Is a school taught by one teacher? The headmaster who teaches every subject, and also cleans the toilets, answers the phones and coaches the baseball team?

Want me to go on?

Being a recording engineer is a specialist skill. Being a music producer is also a specialist skill. Some musicians are producers, and some engineers are producers, and some people are able to make CDs by themselves, but this is far from most, and should never be a requirement.

Collaboration created so many things in human possession, including the internet, and also some of the most amazing music every heard.

[Gabrielles blades]

You misunderstand my statement.
I didnt say that a professional approach with many specialists would not get you a superior product. I said if you want that, then sucks to be you that you have to pay for it, and so shouldnt complain that the money your spending to make your music better through other peoples work doesn't line your pocket. Its almost like a landlord complaining they arent making any money from their tenants when they hire contractors to do all of the repair work for the place. sure its easy, and probably has higher quality workmanship but you arent likely to make money that way.
As for advertising, i dont watch conan obrien or anything else music related for that matter - i hear new tunes through youtube and internet radio (Pandora). Regular radio is SO messed up its just garbage - a lot of stations play the same 3 songs every hour and then have either talk or commercials take up the rest of the hour, but i digress. If you want to advertise in todays music market i would say the best way would be to set up small rolling banners at the bottom of the screen of music people are currently listening to. For example, if i am listening to Sarah mclahlan on pandora currently it would have a listing of a few artists who are similar to her style and would be searchable to listen to, but if in addition to this it would list new relatively unheard of artists who have a similar style it would make getting out there easier for new artists.
As far as why artists are willing to do stupid things like sign when its unlikely they will ever make any money off of the deal, well thats just human nature - a gambler is going to gamble.
I dont know if its gross or net or whatever, but even if it is split 10 ways that is still 50k for just 1 show, and that is twice what i make in an entire year.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_music_a..._with_CD_sales
http://dinero.aol.com/fotos/latin-artists-salaries

If i was a new artist (not a chance in hell i would be!) i would make a few music videos with my friends and post them on youtube. If i am good, despite my crappy production values i would gain a following. With that following i would approach a record label produce a CD with my own hands as cheaply as possible and then go back to youtube and post in the commentary with a link to my myspace or whatever website that could link to various online music sellers or whatever.

And please shoot whatever executive decided to make radios play a set number of songs by the new super promoted artist per hour. I really dont want to hear miley cyrus & the black eyed peas all friggen day. Its one huge reason never to listen to broadcasted radio instead of internet radio.