Making a living as a musician
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I don't want to come off as justifying theft but: If a person cannot afford or will not pay what you are asking you are probably charging way too much. $25 for 10 tracks of hip hop is theft just as much as walking out of the store with the CD is. To debunk the car stealing analogy: if you steal an M6 the insurance company loses 60 grand, if you download a song you would never buy the music industry loses zero. To paraphrase Trey Parker or Matt Stone: "We love it when people download South Park, it means there watching it" Also see the South Park episode on stealing music.
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane
Then why isn't stealing an M6 okay, since you're just taking a car that you would never buy?
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
I don't want to come off as justifying theft but:
In fact, that's all that this sort of logic ever amounts to. You know, I actually have much more respect for those who hoist the Jolly Roger and proudly proclaim that they're theives than I do for everyday people who steal and then try to justify their poor ethical behavior.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
I think sharing should be a gift from the individual musician, not a global expectation from the public.
That's actually what I meant. Anyone demanding a riff of my creation would most likely end up with a finger in the eye. Or a headstock. Or a beer bottle. Pretty much whatever's at hand. :)
kulazfuk wrote:
would most likely end up with a finger in the eye.
Or at least a finger hoisted, eh? :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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I don't want to come off as justifying theft but: If a person cannot afford or will not pay what you are asking you are probably charging way too much. $25 for 10 tracks of hip hop is theft just as much as walking out of the store with the CD is. To debunk the car stealing analogy: if you steal an M6 the insurance company loses 60 grand, if you download a song you would never buy the music industry loses zero. To paraphrase Trey Parker or Matt Stone: "We love it when people download South Park, it means there watching it" Also see the South Park episode on stealing music.
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
If a person cannot afford or will not pay what you are asking you
... won't sell any product and go out of business. Law of supply and demand will bring the price down to a price people are willing to pay. After all, no one is forcing you to buy CDs are they?
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
if you download a song you would never buy the music industry loses zero.
So people are downloading all these songs they never listen to? There are Gigs of music being swapped that no one is listening to? If they listen to it they should buy it. Unless it's being played on the radio, is a sanctioned demo, etc. Do you also think it's OK to watch a movie before deciding to pay for it? How about paying for meals you didn't really care for? We buy all kinds of things before using them, most things in fact, but for some bizarre reason we think music should be available for in infinite trial mode, before we decide the song was worthy enough for our $1. About the price of a 16oz. Coke.
BW
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
-- Steven Wright -
That's per player of course, but still, wedding and country club gigs usually pay better. However, you're often treated like a minimum wage worker. I've played country clubs where they made the band sit in the kitchen with the dishwashers between sets. Really. As if that would make it harder for us to steal the silverware... :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Hmm, it's a shame really. Because I consider my time to be of a certain value, I consider other people's time the same way.
Logifusion[^] If not entertaining, write your Congressman.
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I agree with your statements. Most people try to find as much music to download for free. I did this for a long time and I have seen the error in my ways. Now I always purchase a cd and then I will put the cd on my ipod. I don't trade any music that I put on my ipod or go and download music from different sites. Most of the time if I am unsure about any music I always listen to samples on Amazon. I still see a few issues with the music industry. I have read a bunch of articles saying the record companies believe we should pay for every place we want to play our music. I also have a problem with downloading from iTunes because they try to control how many times you can copy the song. I am not looking to distribute my music but I don't think its fair to pay for multiple copies of the same cd/song. As usual I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The record labels are greedy and want everyone to pay for each place you can play the music and "the people" are looking to get music for free.
We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
BrockVnm wrote:
I still see a few issues with the music industry.
The corporate music industry is exactly what people think it is. If you think they screw you guys, you should see the deal that musicians get. Unfortunately, most people don't do the math. If we're getting screwed by the industry already, and then people screw the industry, we get it twice as bad.
BrockVnm wrote:
iTunes because they try to control how many times you can copy the song.
This is a big technical problem, and I believe that the solution is one of those Killer Apps just waiting out there for some programmer to get rich discovering. When you pay for music, you should be able to copy it to every one of your music players. You paid for it, that's what we care about. Where you want to listen to it is your choice. We hope you listen to it in lots of places and enjoy it thoroughly! Unfortunatly, from the technical side of things, without some form of copy protection it just ends up on a p2p site. In a perfect world, you can download the music one song at a time, and copy it to all the players you own, but you can't put it on the Internet for people to download for free. How do we make this happen? I hope the programmer who eventually solves this problem gets incredibly rich.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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One of the threads on /. today is about OLGA, an online guitar tab database, being shutdown by lawyers for copyright violation. I browsed the comments, and almost everyone decried this as an unjust move. The music industry is universally considered greedy and evil, and besides, now the Internet lets musicians go right to the people, so we should probably do away with all those corporate types anyway. So, I thought I'd do a quick check to see how much the Internet has improved life for professional musicians. All recorded music should be downloadable and free Although some people do seem willing to pay iTunes for downloads, that's dwarfed by the number of mp3s shared for free. If you try to block free download sites people throw a fit. Message? "We expect music for free." All lyrics, sheet music and tab should be posted online and free Sheet music and every other printed form of music is another tiny slice of income for songwriters. However, as in OLGA's case, protecting this revenue is seen as evil. Message? "We expect music for free." Bar gigs still pay the same as they did in 1976 I'm not kidding. If you thought it was hard making a living on $75 a night in the late 70s, try it with today's cost of living. And yet, across the country, pay for musicians in bars remains the same. For those of you without a pocket calculator: working 4 nights a week 50 weeks a year (a challenge to stay booked even that consistently) nets you a whopping $15k annual salary. Hope you didn't want fries with that. Message? "We expect music for (almost) free." Let's review. You can't really make a living playing bar gigs, and if you write or record music it should all be made available for free on the Internet. However, I continually read that "the Internet is ushering in a bold new era, giving musicians tremendous opportunity by enabling them to bypass the traditional music industry and go right to the people." Wow, that would really be great. I mean, you know, if "the people" were actually interested in paying for tbe music that they so obviously enjoy. However, they're hostile to the idea of musicians making money from any aspect of recorded music, and live performance doesn't pay squat for 99.9% of all working musicians. So, since it's socially unacceptable for us to expect money from recorded or live music, I'm curious. What's an acceptable way for us to make a living with our trade?
Author of
Christopher Duncan wrote:
However, as in OLGA's case, protecting this revenue is seen as evil.
It's been years since i've used OLGA. At least since '98, when i last remember taking an interest in this whole mess (yes, Harry Fox was suing them back then already). I thought the tactic stunk back then, and i think it stinks now. (if you're already thinking, "Oh, it's Shog the commie again, always against anyone making a living off their ideas", then just stop reading. I'm sick of that argument.) There were, last i checked, more companies out there selling Office toolbar lookalikes than i can count on my fingers. On top of that, there are scores of free knock-offs, complete with source, on sites like this one. Why? Because lots and lots of people saw Microsoft's implementation, liked it, and tried to figure out how to do the same thing on their own. I've yet to see anyone make the case that these people are all evil free-loaders, trying to take advantage of poor Microsoft's hard work. If bar gigs aren't paying much, it's probably due more to 1) people not properly supporting their local bar scene and 2) every kid and his brother wanting to start a band as soon as they turn 13. Much as i'd like to believe i can make a living on raw skill, the biggest reason i have a shot at a job in this industry is because my oldest two brothers, who are a fair bit better at coding than me, gave up programming for guitar playing/building. ;)
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
If a person cannot afford or will not pay what you are asking you
... won't sell any product and go out of business. Law of supply and demand will bring the price down to a price people are willing to pay. After all, no one is forcing you to buy CDs are they?
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
if you download a song you would never buy the music industry loses zero.
So people are downloading all these songs they never listen to? There are Gigs of music being swapped that no one is listening to? If they listen to it they should buy it. Unless it's being played on the radio, is a sanctioned demo, etc. Do you also think it's OK to watch a movie before deciding to pay for it? How about paying for meals you didn't really care for? We buy all kinds of things before using them, most things in fact, but for some bizarre reason we think music should be available for in infinite trial mode, before we decide the song was worthy enough for our $1. About the price of a 16oz. Coke.
BW
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
-- Steven WrightA new CD costs a little bit more than $1.
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane
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A new CD costs a little bit more than $1.
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane
I meant a dollar for a single song. But even a full CD is only about $15. Which is about the same price it's been for 20 years. At least here in the states.
BW
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
-- Steven Wright -
BrockVnm wrote:
I still see a few issues with the music industry.
The corporate music industry is exactly what people think it is. If you think they screw you guys, you should see the deal that musicians get. Unfortunately, most people don't do the math. If we're getting screwed by the industry already, and then people screw the industry, we get it twice as bad.
BrockVnm wrote:
iTunes because they try to control how many times you can copy the song.
This is a big technical problem, and I believe that the solution is one of those Killer Apps just waiting out there for some programmer to get rich discovering. When you pay for music, you should be able to copy it to every one of your music players. You paid for it, that's what we care about. Where you want to listen to it is your choice. We hope you listen to it in lots of places and enjoy it thoroughly! Unfortunatly, from the technical side of things, without some form of copy protection it just ends up on a p2p site. In a perfect world, you can download the music one song at a time, and copy it to all the players you own, but you can't put it on the Internet for people to download for free. How do we make this happen? I hope the programmer who eventually solves this problem gets incredibly rich.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
without some form of copy protection it just ends up on a p2p site
even with copy protection, it's going to end up on a p2p site. unless you encrypt the signal all the way to the neuron, it's going to exist as good ol' sound waves at some point - and that's where the microphone goes.
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I meant a dollar for a single song. But even a full CD is only about $15. Which is about the same price it's been for 20 years. At least here in the states.
BW
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
-- Steven WrightI see CD's marked over 20 all the time, here in the states. Also don't forget the number of tracks. Some of my CD's have 18+ tracks on them and cost only $12 whereas 10 seems to be the target for a lot of new $25 a CD artists.
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane
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I don't want to come off as justifying theft but: If a person cannot afford or will not pay what you are asking you are probably charging way too much. $25 for 10 tracks of hip hop is theft just as much as walking out of the store with the CD is. To debunk the car stealing analogy: if you steal an M6 the insurance company loses 60 grand, if you download a song you would never buy the music industry loses zero. To paraphrase Trey Parker or Matt Stone: "We love it when people download South Park, it means there watching it" Also see the South Park episode on stealing music.
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane
>>I don't want to come off as justifying theft but:<< But you are justifying theft. >>>If a person cannot afford or will not pay what you are asking you are probably charging way too much. $25 for 10 tracks of hip hop is theft just as much as walking out of the store with the CD is.<<< How do you figure that? The music is property. It belongs to the publishing company who has secured the rights from the creator. Most people around here are involved in the creation of intellectual property, and if people could justify stealing it if they thought the price was too high, then software developers would be making the same as bar musicians ($15K per year). Mind you I find it hilarious that hip hop (what an odd name) musicians who base their art on giving the finger to the "man"... quickly turn around and cry to the "man" for protection and enforcement when people steal their music. They want the law to protect their music which wantonly promotes lawlessness... too funny. Chad -- modified at 11:56 Monday 14th August, 2006
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
However, as in OLGA's case, protecting this revenue is seen as evil.
It's been years since i've used OLGA. At least since '98, when i last remember taking an interest in this whole mess (yes, Harry Fox was suing them back then already). I thought the tactic stunk back then, and i think it stinks now. (if you're already thinking, "Oh, it's Shog the commie again, always against anyone making a living off their ideas", then just stop reading. I'm sick of that argument.) There were, last i checked, more companies out there selling Office toolbar lookalikes than i can count on my fingers. On top of that, there are scores of free knock-offs, complete with source, on sites like this one. Why? Because lots and lots of people saw Microsoft's implementation, liked it, and tried to figure out how to do the same thing on their own. I've yet to see anyone make the case that these people are all evil free-loaders, trying to take advantage of poor Microsoft's hard work. If bar gigs aren't paying much, it's probably due more to 1) people not properly supporting their local bar scene and 2) every kid and his brother wanting to start a band as soon as they turn 13. Much as i'd like to believe i can make a living on raw skill, the biggest reason i have a shot at a job in this industry is because my oldest two brothers, who are a fair bit better at coding than me, gave up programming for guitar playing/building. ;)
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Shog9 wrote:
if you're already thinking, "Oh, it's Shog the commie again,
Well, you don't sound like a commie to me but with respect, I think your logic is somewhat flawed. :)
Shog9 wrote:
There were, last i checked, more companies out there selling Office toolbar lookalikes than i can count on my fingers.
They're not using Microsoft's source code, the created original works. Nothing wrong with that. And since they're for sale, if you want to use them, you should pay for them.
Shog9 wrote:
On top of that, there are scores of free knock-offs, complete with source, on sites like this one.
Once again, this is the creator's source code and therefore their intellectual property to do with as they please. If they want to give it away for free, that's generous of them. However, it's their choice to offer it free or sell it, not ours to make for them. In both cases, programmers wrote code and therefore own it. It may be inspired by Microsoft, and it may even require a Microsoft product to interact with, but the code is their intellectual property. They didn't steal it. Now just for the record, I think that RIAA, et al are handling the copyright matter in a very clumsy and heavy handed way. Admittedly, I have no better solution to offer. I wish I did. Still, singling out 13 year old kids at random and suing them makes all of us in the music biz look like Nazis. Not good, even if they are in the right. That said, the OLGA folks (serving as an example to the larger issue) are in black and white violation of copyright laws. They don't own the material, and they don't possess rights to publish it. There is no grey area here. That's why we have copyright laws. The solution in their case would be to obtain permissions from the copyright owners for each set of tabs that they'd like to offer. However, they don't want to do this because it's a lot of work, so instead they simply publish the intellectual property of others without their consent. That's theft, no matter how delicately people want to spin it. And of course, the real tragedy here is that in the case of OLGA, a great many musicians would probably not only say, "Hey, no problem man, you can post tab of my songs for free," they'd probably send them the tab so that it would be accurate. But the musicians are never asked or given the option. Consequently, although I
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
without some form of copy protection it just ends up on a p2p site
even with copy protection, it's going to end up on a p2p site. unless you encrypt the signal all the way to the neuron, it's going to exist as good ol' sound waves at some point - and that's where the microphone goes.
Chris Losinger wrote:
and that's where the microphone goes.
Yep. That's why the solution to this industry problem is a certified, authentic Killer App. Not only will it make some programmer gloriously rich, we'll probably erect a statue in honor of the accomplishment! :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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BrockVnm wrote:
I still see a few issues with the music industry.
The corporate music industry is exactly what people think it is. If you think they screw you guys, you should see the deal that musicians get. Unfortunately, most people don't do the math. If we're getting screwed by the industry already, and then people screw the industry, we get it twice as bad.
BrockVnm wrote:
iTunes because they try to control how many times you can copy the song.
This is a big technical problem, and I believe that the solution is one of those Killer Apps just waiting out there for some programmer to get rich discovering. When you pay for music, you should be able to copy it to every one of your music players. You paid for it, that's what we care about. Where you want to listen to it is your choice. We hope you listen to it in lots of places and enjoy it thoroughly! Unfortunatly, from the technical side of things, without some form of copy protection it just ends up on a p2p site. In a perfect world, you can download the music one song at a time, and copy it to all the players you own, but you can't put it on the Internet for people to download for free. How do we make this happen? I hope the programmer who eventually solves this problem gets incredibly rich.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
The corporate music industry is exactly what people think it is. If you think they screw you guys, you should see the deal that musicians get. Unfortunately, most people don't do the math. If we're getting screwed by the industry already, and then people screw the industry, we get it twice as bad.
I never really believed this until I heard Sugar Ray doing an interview on the radio. They were saying how they make like 8 cents per cd sold or something like that. It was really crazy. They also said that a lot of the money they make comes from tours. I also agree that something has to be done to stop the p2p sharing, I just don't know how it can be done. I also think alot of the music downloads happen because it does not "feel" like you are doing anything wrong. Part of me thinks we are in to deep and may not be able to go back.
We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
The corporate music industry is exactly what people think it is. If you think they screw you guys, you should see the deal that musicians get. Unfortunately, most people don't do the math. If we're getting screwed by the industry already, and then people screw the industry, we get it twice as bad.
I never really believed this until I heard Sugar Ray doing an interview on the radio. They were saying how they make like 8 cents per cd sold or something like that. It was really crazy. They also said that a lot of the money they make comes from tours. I also agree that something has to be done to stop the p2p sharing, I just don't know how it can be done. I also think alot of the music downloads happen because it does not "feel" like you are doing anything wrong. Part of me thinks we are in to deep and may not be able to go back.
We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
BrockVnm wrote:
They were saying how they make like 8 cents per cd sold or something like that.
Not only that, but these guys are a highly successful act, which means they were able to negotiate a much better deal than the average recording artist.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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just to play Devil's Advocate... what makes you think "musician" should be a viable career ? after all, it's a very crowded field, with a very sketchy business model.
Chris Losinger wrote:
just to play Devil's Advocate... what makes you think "musician" should be a viable career ?
Fair enough. :) There's a massive, worldwide demand for the product and musicians are the creators of that product. Seems to me that this should justify a career.
Chris Losinger wrote:
it's a very crowded field,
Sounds a little like the global software market, don't it? :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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One of the threads on /. today is about OLGA, an online guitar tab database, being shutdown by lawyers for copyright violation. I browsed the comments, and almost everyone decried this as an unjust move. The music industry is universally considered greedy and evil, and besides, now the Internet lets musicians go right to the people, so we should probably do away with all those corporate types anyway. So, I thought I'd do a quick check to see how much the Internet has improved life for professional musicians. All recorded music should be downloadable and free Although some people do seem willing to pay iTunes for downloads, that's dwarfed by the number of mp3s shared for free. If you try to block free download sites people throw a fit. Message? "We expect music for free." All lyrics, sheet music and tab should be posted online and free Sheet music and every other printed form of music is another tiny slice of income for songwriters. However, as in OLGA's case, protecting this revenue is seen as evil. Message? "We expect music for free." Bar gigs still pay the same as they did in 1976 I'm not kidding. If you thought it was hard making a living on $75 a night in the late 70s, try it with today's cost of living. And yet, across the country, pay for musicians in bars remains the same. For those of you without a pocket calculator: working 4 nights a week 50 weeks a year (a challenge to stay booked even that consistently) nets you a whopping $15k annual salary. Hope you didn't want fries with that. Message? "We expect music for (almost) free." Let's review. You can't really make a living playing bar gigs, and if you write or record music it should all be made available for free on the Internet. However, I continually read that "the Internet is ushering in a bold new era, giving musicians tremendous opportunity by enabling them to bypass the traditional music industry and go right to the people." Wow, that would really be great. I mean, you know, if "the people" were actually interested in paying for tbe music that they so obviously enjoy. However, they're hostile to the idea of musicians making money from any aspect of recorded music, and live performance doesn't pay squat for 99.9% of all working musicians. So, since it's socially unacceptable for us to expect money from recorded or live music, I'm curious. What's an acceptable way for us to make a living with our trade?
Author of
Perhaps I'm going to be a minority here, but I don't think sharing guitar tabs should be a copyright violation, at least not as bad as music industry tries to make it look. It's just guitar tabs, it's not music. When you listening CD, you're not listening a computer syntesized music, you are listening to "performance". If you seriously think some kid playing "hurt" is going to sound the same as Trent Reznor or Johnny Cash you are gravely mistaken. Music is not just tab data, it's performance, it's an art, it cannot be reproduced in tabs and music sheets.
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I see CD's marked over 20 all the time, here in the states. Also don't forget the number of tracks. Some of my CD's have 18+ tracks on them and cost only $12 whereas 10 seems to be the target for a lot of new $25 a CD artists.
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane
$25 for a single CD? Where are you shopping? Sometimes I see places charging $17-8, but I don't shop there. Even still, if people are buying them at $25, I guess that's what they are worth.
BW
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
-- Steven Wright -
Chris Losinger wrote:
just to play Devil's Advocate... what makes you think "musician" should be a viable career ?
Fair enough. :) There's a massive, worldwide demand for the product and musicians are the creators of that product. Seems to me that this should justify a career.
Chris Losinger wrote:
it's a very crowded field,
Sounds a little like the global software market, don't it? :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
There's a massive, worldwide demand for the product and musicians are the creators of that product.
but that doesn't mean the typical musician should expect to earn a living from it. plus, the demand for copies of songs is pretty big when the cost is close to zero. that demand will change, if the cost goes up.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Sounds a little like the global software market, don't it?
yep. that's why the best market is in selling huge customized applications to huge corporations.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
The corporate music industry is exactly what people think it is. If you think they screw you guys, you should see the deal that musicians get. Unfortunately, most people don't do the math. If we're getting screwed by the industry already, and then people screw the industry, we get it twice as bad.
I never really believed this until I heard Sugar Ray doing an interview on the radio. They were saying how they make like 8 cents per cd sold or something like that. It was really crazy. They also said that a lot of the money they make comes from tours. I also agree that something has to be done to stop the p2p sharing, I just don't know how it can be done. I also think alot of the music downloads happen because it does not "feel" like you are doing anything wrong. Part of me thinks we are in to deep and may not be able to go back.
We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
BrockVnm wrote:
They were saying how they make like 8 cents per cd sold or something like that. It was really crazy. They also said that a lot of the money they make comes from tours.
This article should be mandatory reading.