The Sky Is Rising : Magic Beaver Edition

It’s unfortunate that some people are gullible enough to take a tech lobby funded Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) sponsored report “The Sky Is Rising” researched by a tech blogger as fact. As we detailed in our post about the SF Gate blundering the facts (obviously without fact checking!) here are some quick responses to the grossly selective and highly biased reasoning that enables such propaganda, and should have everyone questioning the credibility of such work.

Eventually there will a complete break down of the fallacy’s presented by a real economist but until then here are five quick standouts of absurdity:

#1 :  This is not an academic study or serious scientific study. It is a tech / internet industry commissioned (CCIA) lobby report.

#2   : The report falsely claims that the value of global music business grew from 130 billion to 160 billion. They do this by including iPod and music instrument sales. We are not joking about this!!

#3:  To claim that the entertainment business grew 50%  they include revenues from computer and video games.  Video gaming has exploded over the decade. And global gaming revenues are about 5x the size of global recorded music revenues. Console Gaming also has very robust DRM booting users off console networks if pirated or cracked copies are detected (Xbox, Playstation, Wii).

#4 :  Instead of showing the fact that gross recorded music revenues which have fallen over 50%,  the report uses the number of transactions.  Of course there are more transactions since a single album is now available by tracks which can contribute 10-15 times more “transactions.” Clearly the use of this metric is intended to deceive. This chart from The New York Times represents the actual facts.

#5  : Number of tracks cataloged?  Pointless.  This is mostly hobbyists using Tunecore and CD baby to “release” their tracks.   How do we know this?  Of 75,000 albums released in 2010, 60K sold less than 100 copies. Here’s more info spelled out by Ted Cohen and Tom Silverman from a Midem Presentation.

This all really begs the question, if the internet is really working for musicians than why are there less musicians working professionally?  Salon reports a decrease of over 45% less working “Musical groups and artists” from 2002 – 2011 according to the Bureau Of Labor Statistics. The tech / internet community it seems has confused  the democratization of distribution with the democratization of talent.

Of course coming from people who insist that “the internet is different,” (different from what?) and “old economic laws do not apply to the cyber economy,” (despite Google’s Chief Economist disagreeing with them) it’s not hard to take the leap to such absurd and nonsensical beliefs that a magic beaver lives in a space ship under the googleplex, which could also lead to the distorted magical thinking that produced The Sky Is Rising.

It’s also important to understand the near religious devotion some in the tech and internet community have taken to these issues. There is a fanaticism that is blind to all logic and reason that can only be described in the cult like obsession of “The Singularity,” as Jaron Lanier comments.

###

[ THE 101 ] [NEW BOSS / OLD BOSS ] [ SPOTIFY ] [GROOVESHARK ] [ LARRY LESSIG ]
[ JOHN PERRY BARLOW ] [ HUMAN RIGHTS OF ARTISTS ] [ INFRINGEMENT IS THEFT ]
[ THE SKY IS RISING : MAGIC BEAVER EDITION ] [SF GATE BLUNDERS PIRACY FACTS ]
[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ]

by trichordist

The Human Rights of Artists

By Chris Castle

Given the plight of Chinese poet Zhu Yufu today is a good day to think about the human rights of artists. The human rights of artists is a different concept from intellectual property rights, such as copyright. Intellectual property rights are created by national laws, and the human rights of artists are recognized as the fundamental rights of all persons by all of the central human rights documents to which hundreds of countries have agreed.

These rights resonate in a number of international and national documents, but a good international agreement to consider first is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that was ratified by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966. It is important to remember that human rights are fundamental, inalienable and universal entitlements belonging to individuals, individual artists in our case. As a legal matter, human rights can be distinguished from intellectual property rights as intellectual property rights are arguably subordinate to human rights and actually implement at the national level the human rights recognized as transcending international and national intellectual property laws.

The Covenant recognizes everyone’s right—as a human right–to the protection and the benefits from the protection of the moral and material interests derived from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he or she is the author. This human right itself derives from the inherent dignity and worth of all persons. The Covenant recognizes these rights of artists (in article 15, paragraph 1 (c):“The right of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he or she is the author.”

These human rights are transcendent and timeless expressions of fundamental entitlements of humanity that safeguards the personal link between authors and their creations as well as their basic material interests. These rights are personal to the authors and artists concerned and are arguably of broader scope than the rights that can be enforced under particular national intellectual property regimes.

The human rights of authors are recognized in a multitude of international agreements, including article 27, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: (“Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author”); article 13, paragraph 2, of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man of 1948 (“Every person has the right…to the protection of his moral and material interests as regards his inventions or any literary, scientific or artistic works of which he is the author”); ; article 14, paragraph 1 (c), of the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1988 (the Protocol of San Salvador) (“The States Parties to this Protocol recognize the right of everyone…[t]o benefit from the protection of moral and material interests deriving from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author”); and article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1952 (the European Convention on Human Rights) (“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law”).

These precedents clearly enunciate the goals of the international community. The Covenant is closely linked with the right to own property (recognized in article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and workers’ rights to adequate remuneration. The “material interests” protected by the Covenant are protected under the right to an adequate standard of living.

These moral rights include the right of authors to be recognized as creators of their works and to object to any modification of their works that would be “prejudicial to their honor and reputation.” The protected interests of artists include the right to just remuneration for their labor as well as the moral right to the “intrinsically personal and durable link” between creators and their creations that survives even after the passing of the work into the public domain. This rule will no doubt come as a shock to those wishing to sell consumer electronics devices to the “remix culture” bent on perpetuating regurgitative “art.”

And what bothers me the most about the massive, worldwide infringement of artist human rights is not just that major multinational corporations like Google are knee-deep in perpetuating this exploitation economy. It is that the governments of the world have—until last year—done very little or nothing to stop it. And in that regard, these governments have failed to protect the human rights of artists.

If there seems to be a coordinated effort in many countries to oppose the rights of creators, that’s because there is—a complex effort very well described in the book Winning the Web, written by the former head of the Open Rights Group and sponsored by the Open Society Institute (www.soros.org). (The Open Rights Group (or “ORG”) is essentially the UK version of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is a voice in the opposition to artist rights protection under the UK Digital Economy Act.)

But these coordinated attacks on artists’ rights also extend to some unlikely places—such as the United Nations Human Rights Council. This is not surprising because there has been a sustained effort to define away an artist’s ability to protect these transcendent rights (“it’s not really theft”)–the success of the anti-copyright crowd in destroying artists is in part dependent on getting over this issue. If the ORG, EFF and Google can define away an artist’s right to protect their rights through ridicule (such as Lessig’s obliging piece “The Starving Artist Canard“) , or by making them small as Lessig said on a Pirate Party UK video, “we” should not “break the Internet” to protect a “tiny industry” such as the hated “Hollywood”, then it will be easier for Google to roll over artists. Then it is easier to define an artist’s human rights out of existence altogether. And doesn’t that just sound like a human rights violation? Their reach is deep–I find it very strange that the Special Rapporteur for the UN Human Rights Commission fails to address the human rights of artists even once. The Special Rapporteur’s conclusions would impose grave burdens on artists, yet bends over backwards to protect the rights of corporate intermediaries online–and specifically mentions Google.

Of course it is not enough that the States of the General Assembly merely recognize these rights of artists in a number of international agreements—the States also have undertaken the affirmative obligation to protect these rights of authors. Those protections include adequate legislation and regulations, as well as making effective administrative, judicial or other appropriate remedies available to authors within each jurisdiction. Access to such remedies must be affordable, or as I have said in the past—violations of moral rights cannot be remedied only if the rich seek to enforce their rights.

Anyone who takes seriously the international human rights of artists will find “Big Tech’s” dismissive use of “moral panic” to be deeply offensive to professional creators. It is Orwellian to describe as a “moral panic” an allegation of immorality being associated with massive illegal downloading that deprives creators of their ability to pursue work which they freely chose and remuneration for that work enabling them to achieve an adequate standard of living.

Google’s Patry has, in fact, travelled the world speaking to NGOs and universities trying to make his case that using the language of morality to describe massive online theft is somehow insidious and that it should stop immediately. Or, as his employer Google might say, “Don’t be moral.” This “don’t be moral” admonition obscures much more than mere lusting for commercial gain on the part of Google and the Pirate Bay. The protection of artist rights—many of the rights of the professional creative class—are entitled to protection as human rights.

The human rights of artists have nothing to do with intellectual property laws that apply to corporations, or “Big Music”, or the even bigger “Big Tech”, it has nothing to do with superstars. A national artist in the smallest country has equal protection with the global superstar under the U.N. human rights treaties.

This is a complex topic that is well worth studying further.

###

[ THE 101 ] [NEW BOSS / OLD BOSS ] [ SPOTIFY ] [GROOVESHARK ] [ LARRY LESSIG ]
[ JOHN PERRY BARLOW ] [ HUMAN RIGHTS OF ARTISTS ] [ INFRINGEMENT IS THEFT ]
[ THE SKY IS RISING : MAGIC BEAVER EDITION ] [SF GATE BLUNDERS PIRACY FACTS ]
[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ]

by thetrichordist

The Trichordist Random Reader Weekly News & Links Sun May 13

Grab the coffee!

Last week the UK ordered it’s ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay, the Dutch are getting fed up too…
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404269,00.asp

[Related]Pirate Bay angered over Faux Pirate Bay Proxies…
http://louderthanwar.com/the-pirate-bay-advising-fans-to-use-the-authentic-original-the-pirate-bay-and-not-the-rip-off-sites/

ASCAP President Paul Williams gives an impassioned speech to membership about Artists Rights…
http://www.ascap.com/Playback/2012/05/action/membership-meeting-speech.aspx

Facebook removes Grooveshark App…
http://digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120508grooveshark

MP3 tunes files for bankruptcy, owner/founder still on the hook…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57432278-93/emi-says-bankruptcy-wont-protect-mp3tunes-from-copyright-suit/

Music Industry discusses improved music discovery via TV Co-Viewing Apps…
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/tech-types-tackle-tv-music-tie-ins-at-narm-1007018352.story

Copyhype Debunks the Copyleft Theory of Hollywood Built On Piracy…
http://www.copyhype.com/2012/05/was-hollywood-built-on-piracy/

Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe Speaks Out for Younger Bands…
http://loudwire.com/lamb-of-god-randy-blythe-claims-record-industry-dying/

The Onion Reports on the “Bold Move” or “Charging for Content”…
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nytimescoms-plan-to-charge-people-money-for-consum,19847/

Support the people supporting Artists Rights on the Hill, the Trans Pacific Partnership progresses…
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/226215-overnight-tech-industry-urges-obama-to-negotiate-tough-intellectual-property-protections

and… then there’s this…
http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/white-house-pushes-voluntary-anti-piracy-efforts-senators-want-legislation-20120509

Fantastic talk by Robert Levine author of “Free Ride” on the Failure of The Internet to create better opportunities for Artists & Creators and the work to be done.

by trichordist

The Paradox of Pirate Logic : Music Versus Music Software – Full Post

by Chris Whitten
(Copyright in the Author, Posted with Permission)

The bottom line for many in the often heated piracy debate is this: “Give us a good product at a fair price, make it convenient and easy to obtain and we’ll buy it”.

There is a digital product that ticks most of those boxes. So by comparing two products I wonder if we can learn anything about the chances of reducing music and movie piracy by making it better quality, more affordable and easy to download?

I’m of course talking about music production software.

About 7 years ago I was involved in creating a virtual drum instrument in collaboration with a Swedish music software producer Toontrack. Our product has been critically acclaimed, is a best seller, but is also unfortunately a favourite with software pirates. The pirate’s ‘advice’ to “adapt or die” appears then to ring hollow. As a performance musician I added music software creation to my resume by adapting to new technology, but all that happened was the pirates followed me.

With a foot in each camp, music technology and music performance, I’d like to take a look at the claim that “if you build it they will come.” Let’s see if the available evidence supports that idea.

Straight away we need to acknowledge two things: firstly, no one has ever suggested music software has gone backwards in quality over the last few years. It’s also pretty easy to obtain, including plenty of free alternatives, often offered by new companies trying to build a customer base, or by hobbyist’s happy with the kudos of creating a popular plug-in. Secondly, music software is heavily pirated.

So the signs don’t look good, and the more you look at music software piracy, the more the excuses and arguments made by movie and music pirates seem questionable. Let’s look at a couple of them:

Entertainment pirates claim they are fighting corporate greed. Movies and music need to be liberated from the clutches of billionaires who remain powerful by buying political influence.

This rhetoric may sound compelling, but the reality is that most music software companies are small privately owned businesses, and/or collectives of young innovators and entrepreneurs. Most were founded no earlier than the late 1990’s and still retain the same management and design teams that started the business in the first place. In fact, many music software producers comprise one or two people working from home.

The biggest and longest established names like Spectrasonics and Native Instruments employ between 50 and 270 staff, but those are the exceptions. Even so, we are hardly talking ‘megacorps’ here. For example, one of the hottest names in computer sequencing and recording software, Cockos (producers of Reaper), has a staff of three. Cockos has an instant download demo of Reaper available. They also offer a discounted purchase price of $60 for Reaper, if you declare earnings of less than $20,000 from its commercial use each year. So you could be Donald Trump and buy Reaper for $60 as long as music is your hobby. And yet Reaper appears prominently for free download on piracy sites.

Entertainment pirates claim movies and music are overpriced.

Music software users though have many free options. Apart from the new producers and hobbyists mentioned above, many established software producers offer free products.

For example, Elysia’s Niveau Filter:
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/detail/elysia_niveau_filter.html

And Sonimus’ SonEQ:
http://sonimus.com/site/page/downloads/

One of my own offerings, a sample pack for Toontrack’s EZdrummer, has a retail price of $89.00, but regularly sells for $39.99 from certain online retailers.

To use these software plug-ins you need a computer audio workstation, known as a ‘DAW’. Technology giant Apple give you one free with every computer; Garageband.  Audacity is a multi-track audio recorder and editor that is also free. And as mentioned above Reaper is $60.  Even the more expensive DAW’s like Logic Studio (Apple) and Live (Ableton) come bundled with a host of free software instruments, fx plug-ins and audio loops – something not dreamed of 10 years ago.

So can we still claim music software is over priced? No, not reasonably so.

Entertainment pirates cite what they see as false barriers to access as a major factor driving them to pirate sites.

So is music software easy and convenient to obtain? The answer surely has to be yes. Most music software is available for instant download. Some music software can even be used immediately as a demo without payment.

I was working on some music a few months ago and realized late one night I needed a certain FM synth sound resembling a Yamaha DX7. Not having the keyboard to hand, I went to Native Instrument’s webshop, bought and downloaded FM8, a virtual instrument based on similar architecture to the DX7. Granted it’s quite a large program and I have a basic broadband connection, but I was using FM8 in my project about one hour later.

By the way, FM8 cost me a fraction of the original price DX7’s sold for in the early 80’s. And smaller programs like plug-in EQ’s and compressors are much quicker to download and even with anti-piracy security, you can be using them within minutes. Modern musicians are drawn to music software exactly because it is cheap and convenient.

Music pirates claim digital music has no value.                                                                                  

 MP3’s for example are just ‘1’s and 0’s’ that can be infinitely reproduced at zero cost. Well then I guess digital music software is the same, just 1’s and 0’s, something that can be copied endlessly at no cost. Music pirates say they expect free digital music because it is free to produce, but they will support music by buying concert tickets, which directly fund true performance.

If you superimpose this claim on to music software, the logic falls apart immediately. Would the people who pirate EZdrummer be likely to pay $40 to see EZdrummer live on tour? What form would that tour take? I’m imagining a ‘technerd’ onstage for 12 hours coding the software, or maybe 12 hours of me sampling drums, one drum hit at a time, both of which are akin to paying good money to watch paint dry. What about merchandising? Well I must admit there are some cool Ableton Live t-shirts, but I still feel it’s the incredible music tool I should be valuing, not a Hanes in XL.

And what about the zero cost of reproducing the product indefinitely? Well I don’t agree with that either. Music software has to be maintained, developed and supported full time by a team of workers. Like many things these days, customers demand answers within hours of contact, even if they’ve emailed their query at midnight on Easter Sunday.

Then there is the initial investment in the creation of the software. If a hobbyist doesn’t count their man hours, a basic software plug-in like a softsynth, or compressor can be produced at low or no cost – but only IF they don’t count their man hours. However, sample based music software is much more costly to produce. For example, my most recent EZdrummer sample pack was recorded over four days at a commercial studio in New Jersey. I don’t live in New Jersey, the recording engineer doesn’t live in New Jersey, the Toontrack production team don’t live in New Jersey. My drums and cymbals aren’t located in New Jersey.

So why work there? Well because it was the right studio for the product we wanted to create. But let’s be clear: the costs involved are significant. To produce the included midi content alone, I recorded my own v-drum performances over two days. Then I spent two weeks, working ten hour days editing that midi. So again, are we working for free, for the ‘fun’ of it, or is it a job, or better still a career? The answer according to the pirates is it’s up to me to decide, but don’t expect to be paid. They say if I don’t like the work conditions and lack of pay, someone else will, or at least be more flexible and accepting than me.

But there are no free equivalents to EZdrummer. Why? Because it costs a lot of money to record several drum kits over several days in a decent recording studio, and hobbyists, or the free software evangelicals, aren’t prepared to spend that kind of money, or work that hard, then give away the end product without recompense.  So I guess you can argue that digital copying is zero cost, but when people pirate music software, they aren’t just taking 1’s and 0’s without payment, they aren’t ‘paying back’ by contributing anything towards the production cost of the original product.

Put another way, our first EZdrummer customer could pay $25,000, then all subsequent customers could take it without payment. More fairly however, I’d suggest the first customer and every customer subsequently should pay the same small share towards the production costs, say $39.99?

Entertainment pirates claim Hollywood and the music industry have failed to innovate and failed to listen to their customers.

They go on to state they’ll pay for movies and music if the content industries offer “a good product at a fair price, while making it convenient and easy to obtain”.

Meanwhile, the music software industry has responded to customer demands. While continuously improving their products, they’ve priced them competitively and fairly, many producers encouraging customers to audition products freely first. Almost all music software is available for instant download, wherever you are and at whatever time of the day or night.

Those customers who buy their music software are funding new ideas from young innovators and entrepreneurs directly, not giving money to middlemen who keep most of it for themselves while passing on a pittance to the creative employees, as is claimed happens in the music industry.

And yet music software products like Live (Ableton), EZdrummer (Toontrack), FM8 (Native Instruments) and Omnisphere (Spectrasonics) all appear on unauthorized file sharing sites for people to download without paying. Are the pirates therefore sincere in their promise to buy if the product is right and the price is fair, or is the only ‘fair’ price no price?

###

you may also be interested in: You Can’t Have A Healthy Market Economy Without Property Rights
https://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/full-post-you-cant-have-a-have-a-healthy-market-economy-without-property-rights-why-do-so-many-in-tech-blogosphere-want-to-abolish-cyber-property-rights-and-cripple-the-cyber-economy/

###

[ THE 101 ] [NEW BOSS / OLD BOSS ] [ SPOTIFY ] [GROOVESHARK ] [ LARRY LESSIG ]
[ JOHN PERRY BARLOW ] [ HUMAN RIGHTS OF ARTISTS ] [ INFRINGEMENT IS THEFT ]
[ THE SKY IS RISING : MAGIC BEAVER EDITION ] [SF GATE BLUNDERS PIRACY FACTS ]
[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ]

by trichordist

The Paradox of Pirate Logic : Music Versus Music Software – Part 2

by Chris Whitten
(Copyright in the Author, Posted with Permission)

Entertainment pirates cite what they see as false barriers to access as a major factor driving them to pirate sites.

So is music software easy and convenient to obtain? The answer surely has to be yes. Most music software is available for instant download. Some music software can even be used immediately as a demo without payment.

I was working on some music a few months ago and realized late one night I needed a certain FM synth sound resembling a Yamaha DX7. Not having the keyboard to hand, I went to Native Instrument’s webshop, bought and downloaded FM8, a virtual instrument based on similar architecture to the DX7. Granted it’s quite a large program and I have a basic broadband connection, but I was using FM8 in my project about one hour later.

By the way, FM8 cost me a fraction of the original price DX7’s sold for in the early 80’s. And smaller programs like plug-in EQ’s and compressors are much quicker to download and even with anti-piracy security, you can be using them within minutes. Modern musicians are drawn to music software exactly because it is cheap and convenient.

Music pirates claim digital music has no value.                                                                                  

 MP3’s for example are just ‘1’s and 0’s’ that can be infinitely reproduced at zero cost. Well then I guess digital music software is the same, just 1’s and 0’s, something that can be copied endlessly at no cost. Music pirates say they expect free digital music because it is free to produce, but they will support music by buying concert tickets, which directly fund true performance.

If you superimpose this claim on to music software, the logic falls apart immediately. Would the people who pirate EZdrummer be likely to pay $40 to see EZdrummer live on tour? What form would that tour take? I’m imagining a ‘technerd’ onstage for 12 hours coding the software, or maybe 12 hours of me sampling drums, one drum hit at a time, both of which are akin to paying good money to watch paint dry. What about merchandising? Well I must admit there are some cool Ableton Live t-shirts, but I still feel it’s the incredible music tool I should be valuing, not a Hanes in XL.

And what about the zero cost of reproducing the product indefinitely? Well I don’t agree with that either. Music software has to be maintained, developed and supported full time by a team of workers. Like many things these days, customers demand answers within hours of contact, even if they’ve emailed their query at midnight on Easter Sunday.

Then there is the initial investment in the creation of the software. If a hobbyist doesn’t count their man hours, a basic software plug-in like a softsynth, or compressor can be produced at low or no cost – but only IF they don’t count their man hours. However, sample based music software is much more costly to produce. For example, my most recent EZdrummer sample pack was recorded over four days at a commercial studio in New Jersey. I don’t live in New Jersey, the recording engineer doesn’t live in New Jersey, the Toontrack production team don’t live in New Jersey. My drums and cymbals aren’t located in New Jersey.

So why work there? Well because it was the right studio for the product we wanted to create. But let’s be clear: the costs involved are significant. To produce the included midi content alone, I recorded my own v-drum performances over two days. Then I spent two weeks, working ten hour days editing that midi. So again, are we working for free, for the ‘fun’ of it, or is it a job, or better still a career? The answer according to the pirates is it’s up to me to decide, but don’t expect to be paid. They say if I don’t like the work conditions and lack of pay, someone else will, or at least be more flexible and accepting than me.

But there are no free equivalents to EZdrummer. Why? Because it costs a lot of money to record several drum kits over several days in a decent recording studio, and hobbyists, or the free software evangelicals, aren’t prepared to spend that kind of money, or work that hard, then give away the end product without recompense.  So I guess you can argue that digital copying is zero cost, but when people pirate music software, they aren’t just taking 1’s and 0’s without payment, they aren’t ‘paying back’ by contributing anything towards the production cost of the original product.

Put another way, our first EZdrummer customer could pay $25,000, then all subsequent customers could take it without payment. More fairly however, I’d suggest the first customer and every customer subsequently should pay the same small share towards the production costs, say $39.99?

Entertainment pirates claim Hollywood and the music industry have failed to innovate and failed to listen to their customers.

They go on to state they’ll pay for movies and music if the content industries offer “a good product at a fair price, while making it convenient and easy to obtain”.

Meanwhile, the music software industry has responded to customer demands. While continuously improving their products, they’ve priced them competitively and fairly, many producers encouraging customers to audition products freely first. Almost all music software is available for instant download, wherever you are and at whatever time of the day or night.

Those customers who buy their music software are funding new ideas from young innovators and entrepreneurs directly, not giving money to middlemen who keep most of it for themselves while passing on a pittance to the creative employees, as is claimed happens in the music industry.

And yet music software products like Live (Ableton), EZdrummer (Toontrack), FM8 (Native Instruments) and Omnisphere (Spectrasonics) all appear on unauthorized file sharing sites for people to download without paying. Are the pirates therefore sincere in their promise to buy if the product is right and the price is fair, or is the only ‘fair’ price no price?

by trichordist

The Paradox of Pirate Logic : Music Versus Music Software – Part 1

by Chris Whitten
(Copyright in the Author, Posted with Permission)

The bottom line for many in the often heated piracy debate is this: “Give us a good product at a fair price, make it convenient and easy to obtain and we’ll buy it”.

There is a digital product that ticks most of those boxes. So by comparing two products I wonder if we can learn anything about the chances of reducing music and movie piracy by making it better quality, more affordable and easy to download?

I’m of course talking about music production software.

About 7 years ago I was involved in creating a virtual drum instrument in collaboration with a Swedish music software producer Toontrack. Our product has been critically acclaimed, is a best seller, but is also unfortunately a favourite with software pirates. The pirate’s ‘advice’ to “adapt or die” appears then to ring hollow. As a performance musician I added music software creation to my resume by adapting to new technology, but all that happened was the pirates followed me.

With a foot in each camp, music technology and music performance, I’d like to take a look at the claim that “if you build it they will come.” Let’s see if the available evidence supports that idea.

Straight away we need to acknowledge two things: firstly, no one has ever suggested music software has gone backwards in quality over the last few years. It’s also pretty easy to obtain, including plenty of free alternatives, often offered by new companies trying to build a customer base, or by hobbyist’s happy with the kudos of creating a popular plug-in. Secondly, music software is heavily pirated.

So the signs don’t look good, and the more you look at music software piracy, the more the excuses and arguments made by movie and music pirates seem questionable. Let’s look at a couple of them:

Entertainment pirates claim they are fighting corporate greed. Movies and music need to be liberated from the clutches of billionaires who remain powerful by buying political influence.

This rhetoric may sound compelling, but the reality is that most music software companies are small privately owned businesses, and/or collectives of young innovators and entrepreneurs. Most were founded no earlier than the late 1990’s and still retain the same management and design teams that started the business in the first place. In fact, many music software producers comprise one or two people working from home.

The biggest and longest established names like Spectrasonics and Native Instruments employ between 50 and 270 staff, but those are the exceptions. Even so, we are hardly talking ‘megacorps’ here. For example, one of the hottest names in computer sequencing and recording software, Cockos (producers of Reaper), has a staff of three. Cockos has an instant download demo of Reaper available. They also offer a discounted purchase price of $60 for Reaper, if you declare earnings of less than $20,000 from its commercial use each year. So you could be Donald Trump and buy Reaper for $60 as long as music is your hobby. And yet Reaper appears prominently for free download on piracy sites.

Entertainment pirates claim movies and music are overpriced.

Music software users though have many free options. Apart from the new producers and hobbyists mentioned above, many established software producers offer free products.

For example, Elysia’s Niveau Filter:
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/detail/elysia_niveau_filter.html

And Sonimus’ SonEQ:
http://sonimus.com/site/page/downloads/

One of my own offerings, a sample pack for Toontrack’s EZdrummer, has a retail price of $89.00, but regularly sells for $39.99 from certain online retailers.

To use these software plug-ins you need a computer audio workstation, known as a ‘DAW’. Technology giant Apple give you one free with every computer; Garageband.  Audacity is a multi-track audio recorder and editor that is also free. And as mentioned above Reaper is $60.  Even the more expensive DAW’s like Logic Studio (Apple) and Live (Ableton) come bundled with a host of free software instruments, fx plug-ins and audio loops – something not dreamed of 10 years ago.

So can we still claim music software is over priced? No, not reasonably so.

____________________

End Part 1.

Coming Up Part 2.

____________________

by trichordist

Larry Lessig is Wrong, and should “Get Over It”

For the uninitiated, Larry Lessig is the outspoken and controversial former Stanford Law School Professor, and current director of Edmond J Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard, who is a leading voice for opposing artists rights on the Internet as expressed by the protections afforded in copyright law.

The two links below illustrate in painstaking detail just how far Larry Lessig (directly and indirectly) will go to be proven wrong. The first in Eldred v. Ashcroft and then again in Golan v. Holder.

ABA Journal – The Education of Larry Lessig.

From Eldred to Golan: The Traditional Contours Test.

Lessig writes of his public defeat in The Nation:

…the Supreme Court shut the door, finally and firmly, on any opportunity to meaningfully challenge a copyright statute constitutionally.

Read that again, Lessig was arguing on the grounds of the constitutionally of copyright… uhm… good luck with that.  Then compare to a recent lecture Lessig gave to a high school class where he told students that he lost Eldred for  “silly, stupid reasons” — because anyone who disagrees with him is silly and stupid? Surely he didn’t mean that his “reasons” in Eldred were silly or stupid?

So for those of you keeping score at home that makes it Copyright two, Lessig zero. It’s pretty simple math.

Also ironically it’s Lessig who is against money buying influence in politics but it is his causes that are being funded by a variety of major corporate interests, especially Google and offshore gambling interests.  That’s right–the same Google who is spending record money lobbying on capital hill–you know, what Politico calls “ambassadors to the Hill”, at least when it’s a tech company lobbying. Yet another case of “do unto thee, but not unto me.”

But the thing that is most interesting to us, is how Lessig suggests that anyone opposed to his views–especially the hated “Hollywood”–should just “get over it“, but yet he and his Google-financed interest groups seem prepared to outspend anyone on their tireless crusade against artists rights.

We think Larry should buy a guitar and “get over it”, it’s more fun on our side.

###

see also : Musicians For An Ethical Internet
https://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/roll-call-musicians-for-an-ethical-internet/

###

[ THE 101 ] [NEW BOSS / OLD BOSS ] [ SPOTIFY ] [GROOVESHARK ] [ LARRY LESSIG ]
[ JOHN PERRY BARLOW ] [ HUMAN RIGHTS OF ARTISTS ] [ INFRINGEMENT IS THEFT ]
[ THE SKY IS RISING : MAGIC BEAVER EDITION ] [SF GATE BLUNDERS PIRACY FACTS ]
[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ]

by trichordist

SF Gate Blunders Facts about Recording Industry and Piracy

It is with great disappointment that we see such a respected publication as the SF Gate (website for the venerable San Francisco Chronicle) would run a post sourced from Investopedia and ValueClick (an internet advertising sales company) that could have been paid for by the tech lobby.

The entire premise of the post is the kind of highly selective reasoning that can only be explained by bias so extreme as to overlook the obvious. And it looks suspiciously like the disinformation lead sheet cooked up by the “don’t be evil” Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) earlier this spring. The CCIA is a group that makes the RIAA and the MPAA look like Mary Poppins.

The full link to the SF Gate post,  “3 Reasons Why Piracy Isn’t Crippling The Recording Industry” is below. Let’s get started.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/05/02/investopedia80867.DTL#ixzz1twlOpchQ

In late March, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) released its annual estimates on recorded music industry trends. It detailed that global revenues fell 3% to $16.6 billion. For most industries, negative growth would be seen as extremely disappointing, but the demise of recorded music from stores through the sale of compact discs (CDs) has been on a decline that has lasted the better part of a decade. Overall, the annual declines continue to be less severe and indicate that piracy is no longer crippling the industry as a whole.

Well, they’re actually stating the opposite of the post’s headline.  Sales are in fact actually still down. But somehow being down only 3% from the prior year is not “crippling” despite the fact that recorded music sales in the USA have declined by nearly 60% since 1999.  As the New York Times correctly points out, the decline is due to the completely obvious proliferation of illegal online piracy.

Back to Investopedia’s lead sheet:

Online Music Continues to Grow

The saving grace in recent years has been the growth in online music revenue from legitimate sources. Pirated music from the Internet has steadily declined as appealing offerings from reputable (and legal) companies have become available. IFPI estimated that global digital revenues grew 8% to $5.23 billion, or nearly a third of total industry revenues. Apple’s iTunes has been a huge driver to online music, but new sources including streaming sites such as Pandora and subscription models including Spotify continue to burst onto the scene.

First, online piracy has continued to grow and there’s no attribution to where this contrary claim has come from, so the SF Gate’s assertion appears to be complete fiction.  See this chart by The New York Times from February 4, 2012.

This is followed by yet another fascinating and intentionally misleading claim. Digital music sales may be increasing, but not enough to off set the overall decline in the pie year over year, much less a decade of losses. Further more, Pandora and Spotify represent a fractional percentage of revenue. The overall revenues have been dropping steadily for over a decade dropping from $14.6 Billion in 1999 to $6.3 Billion in 2009, a net loss of $8.3 billion dollars a year in a decade as reported by CNN.

It’s interesting how the tech industry loves to move the goal posts of the argument. There are now so many varied and interesting ways to consume music legally, and yet piracy is still increasing. The argument of “no options” for consumption simply falls flat in the face of Itunes, Amazon Mp3, Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora and many, many others.

Now comes the miscounting part of the shell game:

Concert Revenue Increased

Though not officially a part of the recorded music industry pie [but they’re going to count it anyway], bands have learned [shocker–who knew?] that hitting the road can be quite lucrative and goes a long way in replacing lost CD sales. Industry trade firm [isn’t an industry firm and a trade firm kind of the same thing?] Pollstar estimated that the 100 largest tours in North America reported $2.3 billion in ticket revenues during 2011, up 6.3% from the previous year. The concert space had a tumultuous couple of years following the credit crisis, but has been a relatively steady and growing source of income for leading bands. The statistics detailed 3.7% international growth of the top 50 acts to just over $3 billion.

Investopedia states, concert revenue is not the recording industry–but don’t let that stop them. This like saying autosales are doing fine because cable subscriptions are up. But it doesn’t really matter because this selective use of stats overlooks the larger picture that concert ticket sales are dropping and have been for at least five years according Digital Music News who reports a 10.4% drop in global attendance since 2007.

And this brings us to the “greedy musician” meme–pretty brassy from venture capitalist wannabes at Investopedia:

Greed Isn’t Good


The growth of revenue-based online music sources could end up leveling the playing field for the industry, which could help boost total competitiveness [when?  2050?]. Last year, U2 reported nearly $232 million in revenue from touring across the world. Clearly, no one single band really needs to make that much, and the top bands garner a larger proportion of touring and recorded music sales.

Online music makes it possible for smaller bands to reach a wider audience, and also puts into play more obscure or older music that retail stores and concert promoters used to ignore. The concept also applies to movies, books and other media.

This is really funny, “Clearly no single band really needs to make that much.” Really? Does Google really need to have $50 billion in cash reserves? Aren’t venture capitalists in the 1% of the 1%?  The hypocrisy of the double standard is amazing.

So Greed isn’t Good unless you are Google or a tech company illegally exploiting artists for profit? Welcome to the “Exploitation Economy.” So it’s greed if artists are successful despite all odds, even when 95% of their work is being consumed illegally, as facilitated by the tech industry and Google?Furthermore, let’s remember Google’s YouTube was built on an a model of intentional and deliberate illegal exploitation of artists work.

As for the benefits to smaller artists, they might want to double check that as well, according to Ted Cohen and Tom Silverman from a talk at Midem, the benefits to unsigned and DIY artists are nearly negligible on an individual basis.

The Bottom Line


Several years ago, the music industry aggressively pursued consumers that downloaded pirated and other illegal music to their computers. It has finally discovered that creating legitimate, more competitive and appealing services, may have incentivized consumers to again start paying for their music. However, it will never be possible to replicate seeing a band live and in person. Finally, growing emerging markets are creating a new class of consumer that should continue to help the recorded industry climb out of its multi-year funk.

What in the world is he talking about?   “Finally, growing emerging markets are creating a new class of consumer that should continue to help the recorded industry climb out of its multi-year funk.”  What does that even mean?

The real bottom line is the desperation of the tech industry to continue to rationalize and justify its 13 year war on artists as it gets harder and harder to do so in the face of more and more empirical data that the livelihoods of artists have been catastrophically affected. In fact just this month Salon reported a 45.3% drop in “Musical groups and Arists” from Aug 2002 through Aug 2011 according to The Bureau Of Labor Statistics. This sounds actually pretty crippling to us.

One final thought is that as Investopedia states, “it will never be possible to replicate seeing a band live and in person.”   This very statement is an admission by these tech industry advocates that they have failed to innovate any substantive revenue streams for artists online. Touring and merchandise throw musicians back at least seventy years, prior to the ability to sell sound recordings.

There is nothing innovative by illegally exploiting artists to profit corporate interest–an income transfer program at best. The SF Gate, Investopedia and ValueClick only show the shocking arrogance and ignorance of those collaborating in the destruction of professional creatives’ careers.

###
see also: Musicians For An Ethical Internet
https://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/roll-call-musicians-for-an-ethical-internet/

###

[ THE 101 ] [NEW BOSS / OLD BOSS ] [ SPOTIFY ] [GROOVESHARK ] [ LARRY LESSIG ]
[ JOHN PERRY BARLOW ] [ HUMAN RIGHTS OF ARTISTS ] [ INFRINGEMENT IS THEFT ]
[ THE SKY IS RISING : MAGIC BEAVER EDITION ] [SF GATE BLUNDERS PIRACY FACTS ]
[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ]

by trichordist

The Trichordist Random Reader News & Links Sun May 6

Grab the Coffee!

Probably the biggest story of the week is the UK has ordered it’s ISP’s to block access to The Pirate Bay, the BBC reports:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17894176

You may recall that The Pirate Bay lost their final appeal back in February and are headed to jail, Time reports:
http://techland.time.com/2012/02/01/pirate-bay-founders-lose-supreme-court-appeal-going-to-jail/

Here is an insightful editorial from the Boston Phoenix on the new music “Super PAC” model and asks some very interesting questions about Amanda Palmer’s record Kickstarter campaign while giving a shout out to David Lowery’s, “New Boss / Old Boss”. Highly Recommended Reading.
http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/onthedownload/archive/2012/05/03/the-problem-with-the-future-of-music-amanda-palmer-and-the-rise-of-the-music-biz-super-pac.aspx

Digital Rights Corp will track and remove your titles from Torrent File Sharing sites, Contact them from more info:
http://digitalrightscorp.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&Itemid=466

Remix without Romance How Free Culture Get’s It Wrong, from Copyhype:
http://www.copyhype.com/2012/04/remix-without-romance-what-free-culture-gets-wrong/

Hypebot reports that Reddit is attempting to “Crowdsource” a hit song… isn’t that what labels have been doing for decades? Bookmark this one…
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/04/redditors-seek-to-create-a-top-10-pop-hit.html#comment-6a00d83451b36c69e2016765e67f23970b

Tech contradicts itself (again), “Freemium” no longer viable, must give away valued content, HypeBot reports:
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/04/the-problem-with-false-content.html

There was a major dust up this week as Prof. Jonathan Taplin of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab challenged the tech establishment on artists rights. The tech community’s hatred of artists seems to have come to boiling point. The situation is both disappointing and disrespectful, Fast Company and Tech Dirt report:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1834866/the-bands-ex-tour-manager-blasts-reddit-founder-alexis-ohanian-kim-dotcom-the-kickstarter-be
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120423/01452218599/bands-ex-manager-accuses-reddit-profiting-piracy-debate-with-co-founder.shtml

More evidence that Touring is NOT the solution for musicians in the digital age, Digital Music News reports:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120504easier#fq6yeUXeS0y6-QMrtd6f1Q

Google is watching you, believe it. While Google is spending record amounts of money lobbying, and trying to convince you that the protection of artists rights is a “censorship” issue, they continue to challenge the law by invading your privacy, Ars Technica reports:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/05/google-may-face-massive-fine-from-ftc-for-bypassing-safari-privacy-controls.ars

by trichordist