Making a living as a musician
-
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.
exactly. when i heard about the troubles OLGA was having, i posted a copy of a tab of Jimi's Red House on my blog. it's a pretty typical tab, has all the famous licks, the basic chords, just a few of the tricks, etc.. it'll help get beginners started, but it's not going to turn anyone into Jimi. the guy who transcribed it gets a few bars into the big solo and then says
"[and then] Hendrix repeats the 10p7, 7 lick a bunch of times, then does a bit or two that I've got no idea how to play"later, he says"Now play a little blues "see ya" riff, and then play something else."yeah, that "and then play something else" is a big threat to the record industry. -
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.
Chris Losinger wrote:
when the cost is close to zero.
Well, that's not entirely true. You can easily blow a million or so these days between the recording studio and the MTV videos, so when you factor in the comprehensive cost for producing the product, the cost of goods sold is non trivial.
Chris Losinger wrote:
that's why the best market is in selling huge customized applications to huge corporations.
Yeah, dig it.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
-
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
Why don't more musicians sell their music from their own web sites? Post 30 second samples or send out a free song from the album on bittorent or relase a whole album free with some words mixed in like "this is shareware. purchase at www blahblah" Shareware registration services could probably even sell and distribute the songs without any technical changes to their systems. Of course there's also PayPal which only costs a little more than 2%. Newsreader
-
Why don't more musicians sell their music from their own web sites? Post 30 second samples or send out a free song from the album on bittorent or relase a whole album free with some words mixed in like "this is shareware. purchase at www blahblah" Shareware registration services could probably even sell and distribute the songs without any technical changes to their systems. Of course there's also PayPal which only costs a little more than 2%. Newsreader
Binary Boy wrote:
Why don't more musicians sell their music from their own web sites?
It doesn't change the equation. If people are unwilling to pay for music because they think they should be able to download it for free, then it's the same whether the music comes from a record industry label or the musician's own label.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
-
Chris Losinger wrote:
when the cost is close to zero.
Well, that's not entirely true. You can easily blow a million or so these days between the recording studio and the MTV videos, so when you factor in the comprehensive cost for producing the product, the cost of goods sold is non trivial.
Chris Losinger wrote:
that's why the best market is in selling huge customized applications to huge corporations.
Yeah, dig it.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
the comprehensive cost for producing the product, the cost of goods sold is non trivial.
i meant the cost for duplicating (ie. copy an MP3) is near zero
-
Christopher Duncan wrote:
the comprehensive cost for producing the product, the cost of goods sold is non trivial.
i meant the cost for duplicating (ie. copy an MP3) is near zero
Chris Losinger wrote:
i meant the cost for duplicating (ie. copy an MP3) is near zero
True. Even for CD replication, cases, etc. they can be done for around a buck per.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
-
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
Christopher Duncan wrote:
That said, the OLGA folks (serving as an example to the larger issue) are in black and white violation of copyright laws.
Perhaps i'm misunderstanding the issue; as i said, i haven't really paid attention to this in a while. I was under the impression that OLGA was composed of tabs written and freely contributed by users, their attempts to imitate songs they enjoyed. Perhaps there are those who just copy off of sheet music they've bought (which i would agree isn't kosher), but i seem to remember their being a few more wildly-differing takes on Clapton songs than could be attributed to typos. So, has this changed? Am i just terribly, terribly naive WRT the whole thing? Or is music "special" somehow in this regard?
---- Scripts i’ve known... CPhog 1.8.2 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.2 - printer-friendly forums Expand all 1.0 - Expand all messages In-place Delete 1.0 - AJAX-style post delete Syntax 0.1 - Syntax highlighting for code blocks in the forums
-
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
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Hey, if they can make as good a living as they did coding, I want to sit at their feet and become a student!
Naw. Last i heard, one was working in a restaurant, the other was doing some sort of childcare thing. The guitar playing just let them sit on porches and noodle on all night brooding and looking troubled. Apparently the gals really dig that. :rolleyes:
---- Scripts i’ve known... CPhog 1.8.2 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.2 - printer-friendly forums Expand all 1.0 - Expand all messages In-place Delete 1.0 - AJAX-style post delete Syntax 0.1 - Syntax highlighting for code blocks in the forums
-
Christopher Duncan wrote:
That said, the OLGA folks (serving as an example to the larger issue) are in black and white violation of copyright laws.
Perhaps i'm misunderstanding the issue; as i said, i haven't really paid attention to this in a while. I was under the impression that OLGA was composed of tabs written and freely contributed by users, their attempts to imitate songs they enjoyed. Perhaps there are those who just copy off of sheet music they've bought (which i would agree isn't kosher), but i seem to remember their being a few more wildly-differing takes on Clapton songs than could be attributed to typos. So, has this changed? Am i just terribly, terribly naive WRT the whole thing? Or is music "special" somehow in this regard?
---- Scripts i’ve known... CPhog 1.8.2 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.2 - printer-friendly forums Expand all 1.0 - Expand all messages In-place Delete 1.0 - AJAX-style post delete Syntax 0.1 - Syntax highlighting for code blocks in the forums
Shog9 wrote:
Perhaps i'm misunderstanding the issue
I don't use tab myself (Q: What's the quickest way to get a rock guitarist to turn down? A: Put sheet music in front of him!), and of course IANAL, don't even play one on TV. However, my understanding is that the copyright holder owns all rights to a work, so if you try to reproduce that work, you need permission. For instance, if I wrote sheet music that allowed you to play a song from the radio and published it, for free or for pay, I'd be in violation because I used it without permission.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
-
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Hey, if they can make as good a living as they did coding, I want to sit at their feet and become a student!
Naw. Last i heard, one was working in a restaurant, the other was doing some sort of childcare thing. The guitar playing just let them sit on porches and noodle on all night brooding and looking troubled. Apparently the gals really dig that. :rolleyes:
---- Scripts i’ve known... CPhog 1.8.2 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.2 - printer-friendly forums Expand all 1.0 - Expand all messages In-place Delete 1.0 - AJAX-style post delete Syntax 0.1 - Syntax highlighting for code blocks in the forums
Shog9 wrote:
The guitar playing just let them sit on porches and noodle on all night brooding and looking troubled. Apparently the gals really dig that.
:laugh:
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
-
exactly. when i heard about the troubles OLGA was having, i posted a copy of a tab of Jimi's Red House on my blog. it's a pretty typical tab, has all the famous licks, the basic chords, just a few of the tricks, etc.. it'll help get beginners started, but it's not going to turn anyone into Jimi. the guy who transcribed it gets a few bars into the big solo and then says
"[and then] Hendrix repeats the 10p7, 7 lick a bunch of times, then does a bit or two that I've got no idea how to play"later, he says"Now play a little blues "see ya" riff, and then play something else."yeah, that "and then play something else" is a big threat to the record industry.Chris Losinger wrote:
when i heard about the troubles OLGA was having, i posted a copy of a tab of Jimi's Red House on my blog.
Now you tell me. If I'd known this when I was younger, I could have learned to play just like Jimi and become rich and famous. Dang! :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
-
Why don't more musicians sell their music from their own web sites? Post 30 second samples or send out a free song from the album on bittorent or relase a whole album free with some words mixed in like "this is shareware. purchase at www blahblah" Shareware registration services could probably even sell and distribute the songs without any technical changes to their systems. Of course there's also PayPal which only costs a little more than 2%. Newsreader
Binary Boy wrote:
Why don't more musicians sell their music from their own web sites?
With today's technology it is easy to sell music on the internet, the traditional argument was you can sell, but you can't market, and if you don't/can't market you won't sell. That's what RIAA was for, for marketing artists. Although, currently it doesn't feel if they market anything other than "top 50 hits".
-
Chris Losinger wrote:
when the cost is close to zero.
Well, that's not entirely true. You can easily blow a million or so these days between the recording studio and the MTV videos, so when you factor in the comprehensive cost for producing the product, the cost of goods sold is non trivial.
Chris Losinger wrote:
that's why the best market is in selling huge customized applications to huge corporations.
Yeah, dig it.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
> You can easily blow a million or so these days between the recording studio and the MTV videos Videos are strictly a marketing tool--nobody's forcing anyone to blow a million on video promotions. If it sounds like a poor investment, then don't do it. As far as I'm concerned, music is an uncertain a business as any other.
-
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
How do you explain how (despite all this rampant music piracy) modern day Pop/Rock singers/bands are awfully rich - a lot richer than their counterparts from 20 years ago?
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. Also visit the Ultimate Toolbox blog (New) -
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
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Then why isn't stealing an M6 okay, since you're just taking a car that you would never buy?
Stealing an M6 is not okay - but if it were possible to clone it (like creating an illegal Mp3 out of a legal audio track) - then stealing the cloned car (leaving the original car intact) may not be a crime in the same league :-)
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. Also visit the Ultimate Toolbox blog (New) -
How do you explain how (despite all this rampant music piracy) modern day Pop/Rock singers/bands are awfully rich - a lot richer than their counterparts from 20 years ago?
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. Also visit the Ultimate Toolbox blog (New)Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
How do you explain how (despite all this rampant music piracy) modern day Pop/Rock singers/bands are awfully rich
Most top tier bands make the bulk of their money from concerts. See the previous post about Sugar Ray making 8 cents per record sold - and that's a good record deal. Besides, the guys who make millions represent .0000001 percent of all recording artists, and probably a fraction of that amount in terms of regular, working class musicians.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
-
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
but I don't think sharing guitar tabs should be a copyright violation
I know what you mean, but the publishing guitar tab is yet another meager source of income for musicians.
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
at least not as bad as music industry tries to make it look
I feel strongly that musicians should be paid for their work, but I swear, the way RIAA and others go about "protecting us" makes us all look like Nazis. Even so, if I wrote it, I own it, in all forms. I'd probably give people permission to use my tab for free, but it should be my choice, not thiers.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Even so, if I wrote it, I own it, in all forms. I'd probably give people permission to use my tab for free, but it should be my choice, not thiers.
Not if you sign into a contract. I haven't read one firsthand (I wonder why those aren't available), but from what I hear the terms are draconian, artists do not own music anymore, the music label does, as an artist you are only guaranteed that nobody else can perform your work, that's about all.
-
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:
$25 for 10 tracks of hip hop is theft just as much as walking out of the store with the CD is.
Charging too much is not theft. The person has a choice whether to pay the money for the disc or walk out the store. If people don't pay the money the price will come down because the companies involved have to recoup some of their losses. I went into a record store the other day and they were selling some discs for £3.00, and other discs were selling for £20.00. The discs at £3.00 were obviously not as popular and the store needed to encourage people to buy them. The store obviously thought that £20 (currently that's $38US) would indeed get people buying the discs.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
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.
Why would you download a song you would never buy. If you would never buy it there is an implication that it has no value to you. If it has no value to you, what would be the point in wasting time to download it?
* Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
-
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
What does the number of tracks have to do with it? I bought Mike Oldfield's Amarok a couple of years back for £12 ($22) and it only has one track. Personally, I think that was one of the best CDs I ever bought.
* Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
-
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
How do you explain how (despite all this rampant music piracy) modern day Pop/Rock singers/bands are awfully rich
Most top tier bands make the bulk of their money from concerts. See the previous post about Sugar Ray making 8 cents per record sold - and that's a good record deal. Besides, the guys who make millions represent .0000001 percent of all recording artists, and probably a fraction of that amount in terms of regular, working class musicians.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Besides, the guys who make millions represent .0000001 percent of all recording artists, and probably a fraction of that amount in terms of regular, working class musicians.
True.
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. Also visit the Ultimate Toolbox blog (New)