Category: artist rights

Mythbusting : Music Is Too Expensive!?

Music has never been less expensive to own, legally. We often hear that if music were cheaper, artists would sell more, but this is simply not true. Myth busted, read on.

Digital Music News – Worse Than Worst Ever? Tommy Boy Starts Number-Crunching Again…

“The first Beatles album in America came out in 1964 at $4.98 list,” Tommy Boy continued. “In today’s dollars that would be $35 for a 28 minute, monophonic 8-song album.”

In other words, using today’s pricing of $9.99 for an Itunes album would have only cost $1.35 in 1964… Even if you wanted to entertain a $20 CD (are there any $20 CDs these days?), the same would have only cost $2.70 in 1964. That’s nearly half of what it actually cost then.

So in the very worst case scenario, music is STILL 45% less expensive today than it was in 1964! And that’s calculated on a $20 CD! If you calculate the difference for an Itunes download, and full album today costs 86% LESS than it did in 1964…

Inflation Calculator: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Today’s $8.00 hr Min Wage equates into only $1.08 in 1964. But, the Federal minimum wage in 1964 was actually $1.25… so today’s minimum wage, adjusted for inflation actually has MORE buying power than it did in the 60s.

This is the weakest argument ever for the decline in music sales… the weakest… And, low ticket items (like 99 cent songs) or the most resilient in a bad economy. It’s durable goods like cars and washing machines that take the big hit.

Let’s look at 35 years of historical data 1973 – 2008 (Source IFPI). *

73-08salesnapsteritunesSo it looks like the economy and consumer competition really isn’t that big of a factor after all, again, looking at 35 years of data… the late 90’s may have been the peak, but that’s only because of the onset of illegal exploitation of content without compensation that began at the turn of the century.

Let’s also remember that each decade saw it’s own added consumer competition.

The 70s saw the initial release of VCRs and Video Cassettes as well as video game consoles and cartridges.

The 80s saw home video boom as VHS matured, cable tv boomed, new types of youth sports took hold.

The 90s saw the introduction of DVDs, home computers became household items, people started paying for internet service, and cell phones began to be common place… each offering competition to music sales, but not free music itself.

Yet through each one of those decades (without rampant online piracy) sales grew steadily until p2p sharing and broadband reaches ubiquity at the turn of the century…and then, the sales plummet.

It’s also important to note that sales of recorded music (in all formats combined) started dropping with the onset of Napster and affordable broadband. Many assign the decline of recorded music sales to the introduction of ala carte song sales and Itunes. However, Itunes didn’t launch until the end of 2003 and this introduction of legal ala carte song sales did not accelerate the decline of paid sales (nor did it slow it).

* Chart includes all formats including Track Equivalent Albums whereby every 10 songs = 1 logical album unit.
by trichordist

Amex must really like advertising on #1 copyright infringing and illegal porn linking site Filestube

<<<Editors note.  This story is from Aug 30th,  we didn’t run it because we expected to hear something from American Express after the initial story.  We never did.  Maybe this time we will get an explanation from American Express.>>>

Aug 30th.

A couple of weeks ago the Trichordist along with http://www.Adland.tv  caused a little bit of a fuss by showing Amex was advertising on the #1 copyright infringing site http://www.filestube.com. They were giving money to the shysters ripping off my music.

As shitty as that is, we know that most of brouhaha  had nothing to do with Amex getting caught advertising on yet another file-sharing site. No, http://www.filestube.com is not just any disreputable copyright infringing site. It goes a step farther. It likes  to promote it’s “recently watched videos” on virtually every page and A LOT of the time these “recently watched videos” appear to be  illegal pornography.   So you have an iconic American brand like AMEX sitting right next to some pretty disgusting links.  (Screenshots were provided.)

Our post seemed to generate a good reaction.  Indeed, it appears the mother of all ad networks DoubleClick stopped advertising on the site, at least as far as we can see into the labyrinth of ad networks.

We tweeted out our post and follow up to @AmericanExpress and notified their ad agency. We figured that was the last we’d see of American Express on that site.

We were wrong.  Apparently someone working for or on behalf of American Express  must really like advertising on this site, cause they are still advertising there. If DoubleClick stopped serving ads  at filestube.com did Amex switch to a different company that serves ads at fielstube!!? WTF?

Now I’m not an advertising expert  maybe people who don’t want to pay for music AND watch bestiality videos are American Express’s ideal target audience.  But it doesn’t seem likely and…

How stupid do you have to be to get caught doing this twice?

More amusement follows if you look at the website for the company that served the AMEX ad the second time:

Drive results with Sojern

With greater scrutiny than ever on advertising strategies, budgets and results, Sojern is the powerful partner you need to reach premium audiences in ways that no one else can.

  • Exclusive audiences – Sojern reaches the most desirable demographic groups: with higher incomes, more frequent travel for business and leisure, more income to spend – and a greater inclination to do so.

Pure comedy gold. Or out and out fraud.  I don’t see how whoever is doing this to American Express could keep their job.  We wrote Sojern to alert them of this situation and try to get a comment for this article but as of this morning we have heard nothing from them.  I dunno maybe you can get them to comment:

http://www.sojern.com/contact_us/pr-media

Also Ogilvy and Mather appears to be the ad agency for American Express.  Perhaps they can explain the rationale behind advertising on this site.

Amex–stop giving money to people in Moldova that exploit my work.  Stop giving money to people who appear to  distribute illegal pornography.  And if you didn’t intend to advertise on this site?  Do your shareholders a favor and demand an audit and rebates from your advertising agency and the advertising networks.

We still haven’t seen Coca Cola, Pepsi or Apple advertising on any of these sites. It can be done.

filestube lyric page with search for camper van beethoven.

by Dr. David C Lowery

Sign the @musiciansunion (AFM) Letter: Friends don’t let friends get IRFA’d!

If you’ve been following the growing opposition to IRFA, the Internet Radio Fairness Act (aka the “Pandora Shakedown Act”), you won’t be surprised to know that Pandora has now enlisted the Über National Association of Broadcasters to help them screw musicians.  (NASDAQ: P)

You’ll remember the NAB–they are the ones who led the dirty tricks campaign against the Performance Rights Act that would have really leveled the playing field by paying American musicians and singers for the same rights that every other country pays them for when records are played on the radio.

So it’s not surprising to see Pandora lining up the lobbying muscle and huge political donations of the dreaded NAB, one of the few trade associations that has a news outlet in every Congressional district.

Do we just have to take it and get bullied?  Not without fighting back.

Here’s a start, a few things you can do:

First–make sure you and your band are registered to vote.  Can I Vote? is a good place to start if you’re not.  If you’re going to be on the road on election day, be sure you find out about early voting or getting an absentee ballot.

You can look up your representative at Tweet Congress and tweet them to vote against IRFA.

You can follow us on Twitter and search for #opposeirfa, then you can decide if you want to retweet our tweets or RTs to Members of Congress, especially members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, or

You can use the letter to Congress interface that the American Federation of Musicians has put together for you.  The link will lead you to an interface to enter your zip code to find out who your representatives are, then it pulls up an editable suggested form letter.  You can either use that letter or write your own using the web page.

And remember–friends don’t let friends get IRFA’d!

by thetrichordist

Weekly Recap & Links Sunday Sep 30, 2012

Grab the Coffee!

Trichordist Recently Posted:
* Why are Internet Freedom Fighters always fighting against the Internet Freedom of Artists?
* Is The New Internet Association Really Just A Pro-Corporate Version Of The Pirate Party? No It’s a Transparent Ploy by Google To Curry Favor With Congressional Republicans.
* Artists Utilize Power of Internet to Get Paid …
* Ad Sponsored Piracy Gains Attention and Awareness in Europe
* Is it The Pirate Party, or The Pirate Lobby?
* Mythbusters, Why Internet Pirates Will Not Win (and should just get over it)
* Class Act: Amanda Palmer.
* Pandora, Please Stop discrimination against Musicians!
* So much for Post-Scarcity, unless Electricity is free?
* Google Pro-Artist Policy Changes Challenge Allegations of “Net Censorship”

From Around the Web:

FastCompany:
* Samsung Muscles In On New Territory – Providing Digital Content

VoxIndie via NPR:
* via NPR-How Much do Artists Make on Youtube?
* YouTube Shares Ad Revenue With Musicians, But Does It Add Up?

CopyHype:
* Friday’s Endnotes 09/28/12

Digital Music News:
* Spotify Is Almost Profitable in Europe?
* Deadmou5 witholding latest album from Spotify
* Gee, That’s Funny: Grooveshark Has the Entire deadmau5 Album…

Torrent Freak:
* Canadian Government Learns about the rogue nature of Ad Networks
* Six Strikes Cooperative ISP/Content Initiative coming soon?
* More pirate convictions, this time Jail and 1.1m Euros Fine

Ethical Fan:
* Comcast May Owe Content Owners $1.6B A Year Or More

Music-Tech-Policy:
* Not So Stoopid After All: Firedoglake Reports that Google Pulls Utoopi App
* Updated: A New Twist on Artist Consent Provisions: Protect Your Right to Say No to @mcdonalds ads on pirate sites
* The Wall of Shame Diaspora Jumps the Pond: UK Authors Speak Out on Brand-Supported Piracy

Copyright Alliance:
* Internet Freedom and Protection of Authorship: A Winning Ticket

by trichordist

Why are Internet Freedom Fighters always fighting against the Internet Freedom of Artists?

We’re always a little amazed when site like Hypebot takes up the fight for internet freedom, as long as that freedom does not include artists rights. Recently the site has confused the difference between a $20 settlement for illegal downloading, versus a $9,250 per song judgement for copyright infringement.

It seems to us, that getting off the hook for $20 per song is a pretty good deal. Should a person downloading also be found to be uploading and distributing (you know, infringing copyright) than they might want to think twice before pushing back too hard or they could end up like Joel Tenenbaum and Jammie Thomas. Both of whom were found guilty of copyright infringement by a Jury of their peers and awarded damages upheld by the courts.

It’s troubling when sites that state they are trying to help musicians are actually making arguments to support the people who exploit artists and rip them off, but not the artists themselves.

by trichordist

Is The New Internet Association Really Just A Pro-Corporate Version Of The Pirate Party? No It’s a Transparent Ploy by Google To Curry Favor With Congressional Republicans.

I’m just reading through some related documents for the “new” Internet Association.  It has really struck me that it is very similar to the Pirate Party. Except  it’s views are even more extreme than the Pirate Party.

Here is an example. PP Germany only supports non-commercial filesharing.  But in the Internet Association’s view there should be no enforcement action on any copyright infringement including commercial exploitation. In fact they are gonna defend those breaking the law!  The reason? Apparently enforcing property rights will break the internet. Cause remember the Internet did actually break after Kim Dotcom was locked up. Didn’t it? Sorry I wasn’t paying attention.

From this we can only assume that the Internet Association will soon be rushing down to Florida to defend  Hotfile from the Internet Breaking Forces of Copyright.  I mean there are already lawyers who work Google’s interests in other cases down there defending Hotfile.  And the other big tech  funded astroturf group Public Knowledge is already sending Prof James Boyle to defend the  arms dealers-oops I mean  cyberlocker businessmen  from this terrible threat to free speech and/or the arming of child soldiers.  You remember Public Knowledge from the Google Shill List, right?

Seriously, this press release is one of the funniest things I’ve read since I read the FSF’s hospitality rider for Richard Stallman.  These serial violators of online privacy are now going to be defending our privacy online?!!  I almost wet myself again typing that last sentence.

These sort of shenanigans are making me like the Pirate Party. Yes you heard that right.  At least the Pirate Party are only deluded idealists. Like 70’s revolutionary  maoist college professors in berets with pictures of Che Guevara dreaming of a perfect classless society.    There is some collectivist idealism underlying their hope that freely sharing (aka redistributing) all cultural goods will lead to some imagined utopia. They are totally wrong but  they are at least  (mostly) sincere  in their beliefs.  And as far as I know not many of them are getting rich advocating pirate policies.

However the Internet Association is nothing like that.  On one hand it’s nothing remarkable : craven opportunists and political operatives  cashing in on some recent political clusterjam™ (SOPA).  But on the other hand it’s a remarkably brazen maneuver  even by Washington standards. As Jane Hamsher carefully explains at Firedoglake.com , this is simply a  ham-fisted and amazingly transparent attempt  by tech industry-especially Google- to curry favor with Congressional Republicans, and in particular Rep. Upton.

Basically Google, Amazon et al already have Net Coalition, EFF, Public Knowledge, Tech Freedom, Fight For The Future,  Internet Defense League, Pirate Freedom, Tech Pirate Freedom, Pirate Knowledge, ex-KGB Freedom Pirates, Belarus Institute For Credit Card Fraud, Electronic Failed State Coalition, Moldovan SPCA, Russian Brides  Foundation and  Offshore Pharmacy Coalition  lobbying for their interests in Washington.   So why do they need yet another lobby shop in Washington?

Because they really really pissed off some powerful Republicans in the Anti-SOPA fight.  They now need to build a “Republican friendly” version of the same organizations they already fund.

To quote Walter in the  TV version of the Big Lebowski:

“Do you see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the alps?”

This is what happens Larry:

You have to spend millions of dollars building yet another fake organization, this one fronted by a Republican. All this to  make Congressman Lamar Smith forget you put those  billboards in front of his office during the SOPA fight.  You really think that’s gonna work? Can I have some of what you are smoking?

I say if you  have this much money to spend on the vote of one Republican congressman you  don’t need any help from Washington! And speaking of The Big Lebowski ,  I would  love to see the Congressman get all Walter Sobchak on your ass.

by Dr. David C Lowery

Artists Utilize Power of Internet to Get Paid – Community Activism moves the needle for Artists Rights.

We’ve already posted how pleased we are that Amanda Palmer is a class act and did the right thing by recognizing her error in not wanting to pay her local pick-up musicians. The part of this story that really excites us however is that the creative community came together to effect positive change. No part of this story involved the RIAA or the MPAA. No part of this story involved an evil record label (unless you include Palmer as the Label). This story was very simply about artists expressing sadness and anger at the continued exploitation of their labor. The swift movement started with one letter, in a single blog post by Amy Vallincourt-Sals of Classical Revolution Portland.

The most important take away here is that many artists added their voices to this discussion for fair compensation, even if they were not directly effected. It’s time for more artists and creators to learn from this experience and support each other as a community. As we posted last week, many artists are being affected by an attempt from internet corporations to weasel out of paying royalties to artists on sites like Pandora.

Now artists are faced with the intentionally mistitled “Internet Radio Fairness Act” which is designed to be a transfer of wealth from artists to internet companies in a wall street style bail out attempt to prop up their failing business models on the backs of artists. We hope that all artists and creators see this as a community issue and not one that just effects musicians.

We’re excited to see the community of creators, artists, and musicians recognizing that we are all in this together, and when we work together we can create positive change as witnessed by Amanda Palmer rethinking her position this past week on paying her musicians.

by trichordist

Is it The Pirate Party, or The Pirate Lobby?

It’s endlessly fascinating to witness the double standard of the internet companies and pirate communities. The conversation is, was and will always be about money. So much so, that the tech industry has created yet another lobby to prop up it’s interests to exploit artists and creators in the aptly named, Internet Association. This in addition to the record breaking lobby spends by just Google. At least this time the shills are out in the open. Author Scott Cleland posts, The Top False Claims of the New Internet Association to add some balance (and transparency) to the conversation.

Let’s be clear about this, the conversation is not, nor has it ever been about free speech as IP scholar Adam Mosoff writes in The Statesman,

“The right to free speech is the right to express one’s thoughts without censorship by the government. Copyright does not prohibit anyone from creating their own original novels, songs or artworks. Importantly, copyright does not stop people from thinking, talking or writing about copyrighted works.”

by trichordist