It’s Called Stealing
Where we goin’ wid dis?
The latest is called Spotify. Below are excerpts (text in orange) from an article from the Christian Science Monitor.
Spotify: A new bounty of free music
This European app streams free music and makes money for musicians.
“The downloadable gizmo is a virtual jukebox that allows users to listen to almost any song in the world without paying a dime. Legally, too.”
Another news flash! In the future, all food will be given away for free. You won’t have to pay for your eggs and ham, ice cream and pizza. Just go into the store, grab a cart and a load of food and skip the pay line. Haven’t you heard? The food’s now free!
It’s not free; it’s called stealing. We could steal all the food just because we like to eat. If everybody began to convince each other that the food was free, everybody might start believing it. After all, food’s too expensive anyway, so why should we have to pay for it?
We can steal it and no one seems to do anything about it. The police do nothing. It’s a windfall for all of us! Yippee!
But what about the farmers? The seed manufacturers? The distributors? The canning companies? The butchers, the bakers, the Haagen Daz makers?
How they gonna eat? Where we goin’ wid dis?
“The inspiration for Spotify came from another Swedish outfit: The Pirate Bay, whose online buccaneers were recently found guilty of copyright infringement in a Stockholm court. Mr. Ek wanted to somehow legally harness the massive demand for free, immediately accessible material.”
Well, of course he did. Why you could make a fortune! Make a fortune off of giving it away free. Is this twisted, or what?
“Right now, 95 percent of all downloads are illegal,” says Ek in an e-mail interview, citing a January report from the music trade group, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.“We’re looking to take this 95 percent of music fans and bring them into a user-friendly, legal environment where they can get exactly what they want while also contributing money to the artists by either listening to ads, subscribing to the service, purchasing downloads, or, in the near future, buying gig tickets and merchandising on Spotify.”
Resource: Christian Science Monitor
Where does it say here that the musicians get paid for the creation of their music? Now it’s called ‘contribution’. You can bet that the composers, arrangers, singers and musicians won’t see much of that ‘contribution’.
My own son, who has probably never paid for music in his life said to me about a year ago, “Well, Dad, now you’re probably happy because Napster was shut down and i-tunes is selling billions of 99 cent singles.” This is progress? In the 50s, a half a century ago, I would buy a 45 RPM single for a dollar. This means that as a musician, I haven’t had a raise in nearly 60 years!
On top of that, a dollar would buy you a lot more back then. Now we’re talking about makin’ it all free.
My partner, Jim Birch, President of Watchfire Music, and I sat with a young musician studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston not so long ago discussing the plight of the music business today. We were talking about illegal downloads and file sharing (another nice term for stealing) and he, a musician, actually said, “Well, it’s free. The music is free!” I explained to him that it was not and is not free, but it is, in fact, stolen goods. He looked at me bewildered and said innocently, “No, it’s free.”
I realized then that he had grown up simply understanding this falsity and living by it. It took us a half hour to finally convince him otherwise. I’m sure he’s still stealing it today because he can – and he won’t get caught.
If you go into a store and steal the food, you might get away with it a few times, but then, most of us know, you’ll get caught and go to jail. We know it’s wrong because it would cheat people on down the line out of their money and before long, if everybody started doing it, you’d have chaos.
Why is the music industry different than the food industry? I remind you, “Right now, 95 percent of all downloads are illegal,” the article in the Christian Science Monitor says. The powers that be in the music business are knuckling under and succumbing to this rampant greed.
They are saying, “Well, because the kids want the music for free, we’ll make the money off advertising.” Food is both advertised and paid for. Why not make the products free and just make the money off the advertising? Because that stupid idea would not support the industry and the farmers would get poorer (like the musicians) and the distributors would go out of business (like the two music distributors I know who are shaking their heads and wondering how they’re gonna make it), and Heinz and Pepsi and Haagen Daz and Nabisco and Kraft would go out of business (like Warner and Universal and Sony and EMI are about to).
Where we goin’ wid dis? Down the tubes, that’s where.
Somebody needs to stand up and say “No!” to the thieves. Somebody needs to get arrested because I’m watching droves of people exit the supermarket with their carts full and laughter on their faces and not even looking back over their shoulders because they’re convinced that it’s free.
It’s just the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen how we’ve become so duped by the greed of our younger generations. But it’s not the fault of youth. They just went with the program. It was free, so we took it. It was easy. Ya’ gotta blame it on the powers that be (or the powers that ‘was’ who looked the other way or paid no attention as the youth filled their baskets and ran giggling out of the stores).
It’s a mess. I don’t feel very Inspirational at the moment because we face a tough uphill climb to re-educate people to understand the integrity of ethics once again. It starts with each of us, individually.
Go out and buy some music. Feed a musician – they’re starving. Warner Brothers Music has not signed a new artist in over two years. My ASCAP royalty checks have shrunk to a 10th of what I used to make, yet my musical production is now 10 times what it used to be.
But music has never been more prominent in the world. Music is everywhere. Music is alive and well; it’s just the business that is in trouble. But if we’re not careful the trouble of the business will cross over to the music. Musicians who make a living at their craft will, of necessity, become hobbyists. The quality will decrease because the crafting of great music takes time and good equipment and education and promotion. All these things have to be paid for. Where will the money to do this come from if the music is free?
In the long run, we’re in trouble.
Go to Watchfire Music and purchase a song today. Feed the hungry. Heal the heart. While you’ve still got a chance…
A long, long time ago…
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.
So bye-bye, Miss American pie.
Drove my Chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“This’ll be the day that I die.”
From: American Pie – lyrics by Don McLean
Hey Peter, RIGHT ON! If it’s OK with you, I’m going to take your Music Piracy graphic and post it as my photo. By the way, I have had the same arguments with my nieces. I say, “you’re stealing money from people like ME!” They respond, “well, maybe, but so what.”
Thanks for writing in. Though I do not agree with all your comments, I heartily agree to your voicing them. Clearly we must think deeply and creatively about the problems at hand and we invite all ideas. Here at Watchfire Music we talk daily of just the issues that you raise. What do we do when music is free? Do we just go out of business? NO! We must learn where the supply is and how to negotiate the new model.
It certainly is a changing universe and we are pedaling as fast as we can to stay up on all the revolutionary ideas. Part of what I do is to try to raise consciousness. That starts by screaming that what is happening is simply screwed up. Thanks for your help with this effort.
This is really a dead issue. No-one is ever going to stop free downloads, just like no-one ever even wanted to stop the recording of albums off the FM back in the day. Everyone then thought of it as a promotional tool for promoting live performances, and it was, ah, is.
I’m sorry, but I think this situation is looking at the issue only from the short term. (Get our money now not get in the Hall of Fame later) Why not let the musicians recoup their costs from live performances whether they be on stage or TV or whatever, and make the musicians liable for paying the writers, producers, recording engineers, etc. who are involved? That way everybody wins. In other words, before a recording is ever made the artist enters into a contract which spells out exactly how he will share his/her earnings from any and all music business enterprises for as long as that person is involved in the artist’s enterprises. This will not only help all those involved, but will also give the artist a great tax write off. It has already been demonstrated that nobody even needs a record company any more except for promotional purposes, so why not let those big conglomerates become exactly what they are, press agents for the artists. They too can share in the revenues of the performances. The artist can lock down his performance so “No Cameras Allowed” can be enforced, instruct those in the know that not a single bit of footage, except a promo trailer, ever reaches the likes of “youtube” until say 6 months after the tour, and then the only way anyone will ever be able to see them is at the venue. The ideas are infinite.
I am open for more suggestions on this path of thinking, but one must remember that trying to stop free downloads is like trying to pour water uphill. It’s never going to happen, so the best thing to do now it to figure a way to profit from it. Got it? I hope so. Let’s all stop crying about something that we can’t do anything about and start looking for real life solutions.
You can start now by contacting your federal representatives and senators and ask them to support performance royalties for recordings played on the radio. So far, no musician ever gets paid when millions of people listen to their recordings, and this would be another way they could be compensated for their creations. It’s called “Performance Rights Act (S. 379)” and in the House it’s called, “Performance Rights Act (H.R. 848.) So, contact your senators and representatives, now. It’s important. They’re about ready to vote on this issue. Thanks for listening and keep the ideas coming.
Hi Peter, I totally agree with all you have said, and it makes me very sad to
think that the very people who make lovely music to cheer us and make our lives happy, are the ones who are being penalised. As you know I am not very
clever on the computer and also far prefer to buy a CD which I like, rather than try
to be clever and download or whatever people do. I am not sure what the solution is to this problem other than to claim man’s integrity as a child of
God, every single day, which is really healing the thought of dishonesty throughout the world.
Good for you, Peter! That’s why I like to buy a real CD and hold it in my hand rather than buying downloads because I know I’m getting the clearest, most beautiful music that way. Having worked in a law firm for so many years that tackles issues about intellectual property, I certainly know what you’re talking about. Keep up the good work!
Okay then…. Someone help me out with this…. (please avoid outright abuse and piling on….), cuz I’ve got no dog in this hunt, as my old acquantance who hails from “just a spit outside of Pea Ridge Arkansas” would say….
As the ever expanding “new media’s” develop at a mind-numbing geometric exponential pace, How exactly will the music industry put the brakes on it? I mean, as innovation evolves new technologies, is the theory that music should be booted (as in the Denver Boot….) and/or songs/creative artistic developments of all kinds be somehow un-decipherable without a key of some kind whilst being molecularly transmitted from sea to shining sea…..?
Perhaps the best answer is to let market forces prevail>? Let technology run asunder and drive out all but the best (eww.. maybe, most commercial?) artists who miay fall from the forefront… less artists, less supply?
Limit your supply and prices rise… isn’t that how it works?
Maybe tweak that philosphy some— perhaps dollars might only be generated through live performances, commercial re-creations, and shared ad revenues…
What exactly would happen— do think the world would stop its demand for new music? Maybe innovations would pop up… Lots of new untried, rough around the edges musical creations coming out of what we used to call garage bands (now more like individual software driven closet bands- ?)
Think of the cataclysmic revolution in music, driven by hectic, unrestrained (and untamed…) creative forces—not the tried and true Pop music labels and top 40 hits chart system that has been relied on to deliver to us what the Music Pro’s tell us we want……
Maybe state sponsered Music and Art—if everythings free, than a perfect Socialism in the Arts is in order, I would say… Let those ideally talented genius’s and creative sorts spend their life – well, creating….
Look now… if there is demand for good music- somebody is going to want to provide it- and they’ll figure out a way to profit from it..
In the long run—things are going to change— why not embrace it…
(Why were we ever allowed to record songs with cassette tapes and movies with Beta tapes – oops! I meant VHS tapes…. in the first place….? Look how the movies have gone out of business since then…..)
— that was a little longer-winded than i planned on… is it too late to sign in as “anonymous”??
I’ve got a solution. Bring back the Album’s, 33 RPM’s, and 45 RPM’s with the product album cover or record sleeve. Ban all internet downloads of music, and start the airwaves promoting real talent again instead of a lot of the synthetic crap we’ve been conned to accept as music the last twenty years.
People used to have to sing, they had to play an instrument. Today they want to use all the social bs, gimmick’s and fashion statements of yesterday, but there really isn’t much quality in what they are selling. The poor artist’s the one’s that get 500.00 or 6 for a ticket to one of their show’s, why not ditch some of the stage and fancy lite show, just try old fashion good ole music.
We’ve been ripped off for years by all this bs, the drug’s played a part in it, the culture went to flop. Just right for the future people who won’t have job’s or be able to afford a home because they spent to much on music growing up.
Music at one time was food for thought, maybe then worth buying, I have an eclectic ear and I’m starving for better quality music, maybe then ill consider the sounds of today. But mp3 and internet downloads, there’s definitely something left to be desired.
Thank you Peter! This needs to be said, loud & clear — no, shouted from the rooftops.