During this week, when all we hear about are actual pirates being hunted down on the high seas, I also came across an interesting multi-blog conversation around the long-time debate over music piracy. It originates over at musicianwages.com, where they posted this - possibly fictional - but interesting letter from a mother who’s son claims music piracy is “no big deal”.
I have a teenage son who tells me his pirating music is no big deal. Since he is a musician himself, I point out to him that someday that’s going to be his money people are stealing. But he remains unphased.
He tells me the record sales make money for the record label, not the artist. He says that the artists make all their money from touring and live concerts. He thinks the pirated music promotes the concerts and therefore helps the artist make more money. I still don’t allow pirating in my house.
But tell me what you think - as artists out there having your work “shared,” are you just glad to have it being enjoyed, or does it bother you? Admittedly, he is stealing music that is recorded by major record labels, so maybe its different than the independent musician working for his living. But I’d still like to hear what you think.
Thanks,
Valerie
The angle I’m interested in taking here at Serve The Song, is what are the opinions of the budding songwriters, the DIY music producers, garage bands, and online music fans?
My take is that music piracy certainly is a big deal. For better or for worse, it has transformed the music industry as we know it.
Exchanging music online - pirating or legitimately purchasing - has greatly widened and improved the independent musical landscape. There are so many more bands out there today than there were 10 years ago, and so much more music is accessible through the internet and social media. This is a good thing.
As far as illegal file-sharing websites go, it has been my experience that only the mainstream major label releases have enough popularity to make their downloads reliable. It’s often tough to find enough “seeders” to serve up the music from an underground independent band.
For songwriters and bands just starting to lift their music, following, and careers off the ground, I still make the argument that getting your music out there with as far a reach as possible should be priority number one. I argued this point in the previous article, To Sell Your Music or Give it Away for Free.
As your fanbase and popularity grow, eventually you will reach the point where you can sell your music independently through various online outlets, or bring your grassroots following with you to a credible independent label who can help you reach the next level in your career.
Open Question to Songwriters
What’s your opinion on the question that seems to never fade away: What’s your stance on music piracy? How do you feel about fans pirating and sharing your music?
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04/16/2009
11:08 am
Maestro Billy
Hi,
I’m a musical producer here in Sao Paulo - Brazil, and one of the biggest points of this issue in my country is about how one can be a songwriter and get money in this “new deal”.
Artists will surely find a way to get money prior to songwriters. Selling different materials or playing live, for instance. Even if they give their songs for free, some listeners/fans will buy rare material, remixes and other stuff.
But the songwriter. How can he/she make money on this ? They don’t play live, they aren’t directly connected to the listener/fan…
That’s one of the biggest issues here, since we have our local BMI/ASCAP that only cares about songwriters and, on the other hand, we have the editors that only cares about phonomechanical (?? In English?) rights, the ones regarding the artists and record companies.
How to conciliate this “free” for music when the songwriters, in this new format, probably will never see the color of any money ?
Best regards and congrats for the blog.
Maestro Billy
Sao Paulo - Brazil.
04/16/2009
11:22 am
Brian Casel
@Maestro (the name reminds me of that seinfeld episode ; )
Thanks for your comments. It does seem like the artist performing a cover always reaps most if not all the reward for a great song written by an unknown songwriter. Sad but true.
Writers still receive performance royalties when the music is played on TV, radio, etc. I’m currently posting a series of articles on this subject…
04/16/2009
11:59 am
Maestro Billy
Brian,
Seinfeld rules !
Here we also have royalties paid from TV and radio (sometimes radio, lots of legal issues and fights on this area), but regarding internet…
How to get paid for that ?
There’s an article about this in Portuguese saying that YouTube paid about US$ 16 for Stock, Aitken & Waterman due to Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley. That Rick Roll stuff generated 1,600,000 views for You Tube and all they paid was this ridiculous amount…
08/30/2009
10:46 pm
Dave Thompson
lets face it kids and ipods are the rule. records cds tapes forget it. The rolling Stones have the best biz mod sell out lodes of seats around the world the rest is soveniers.