There are quite a few huge bands these days who owe all their success to the internet and more specifically Myspace. The Artic Monkeys are the first that come to mind, but I know there are a few others I could list if I thought about it.
"Third, if the recorded music industry goes down, concert sales will not grow – they will shrink"
Also wrong and with no reasons why he believes this. The record industry and the concert promotion industry are separate yet complementary industries. The loss of the record industry will almost certainly have no huge effect on the concert industry.
I'll be honest I stopped reading at the end of that paragraph.
I am the article author. Actually, the arctic monkeys do not give away their music free on their website or on myspace. Second, the group is successful because along with making great music, they have a great, very hard working 15 year old label called Domino, who also have for example, Franz Ferdinand. So Arctic monkeys is not internet based despite what you may think, has a real record label that puts money and marketing efforts behind them, and doesn't give their music away free. I am not saying that artists that have websites or myspace pages cant succeed obviously. Almost all artists have myspace pages so that would be silly. I am saying you cant just put your stuff up on the net, do nothing else, and expect to make a living -- particularly if you are giving away your music which is where Arrington thinks everything should go.
The Arctic Monkeys have a label because of Myspace, they signed to Domino after achieving success not before it. Myspace was their main source of promotion in making them famous and well known not Domino. I also didn't say they gave their music away free, I said they were a band that got popular from the internet only.
Myspace is indeed effective in getting artists signed. The internet is a primary tool today for labels to find artists to sign. It is the primary A&R mechanism. That said, the definition of success here is "getting signed". They did not sell much of anything until they were signed. After they were signed they went to #1 in UK. I can tell you I never heard of the Arctic Monkeys in 2004 for example.
Also you may not have said the arctic monkeys give away their music, but you were refuting my article, and my point is about giving away music on the internet. So if we are not discussing giving away music, then you are not really being responsive to the subject of the article and your disagreement is seemingly misguided.
specifically, the relevant paragraph is as follows:
"Second, there is no evidence at all that free music on the Internet is an effective (i.e. successful career building) marketing tool. There have been no blockbuster successes that have come from, for example Garageband availability. I don't think you could even count more than a handful – if that – Internet-based artists making a living from music."
The arctic monkeys are not "internet based" and they certainly are not giving away their music.
With a limited number of CDs available, fans began to rip the music back onto their computers and share it amongst themselves. The group did not mind, saying "we never made those demos to make money or anything. We were giving them away free anyway — that was a better way for people to hear them. And it made the gigs better, because people knew the words and came and sang along."
The Arctic monkeys gave away their music in the form of the Myspace player. I think your view of success in music is very narrow indeed hence where our disagreement comes from. For you a band is only successful when it sells a lot of records. Well by that standard of course the removal of the record industry will make you think no band can be successful but thats not the only measure of success.
Yes. You are absolutely right. I view everything through the lens of economics. My view of success is making money. I don't think anyone has yet been able to make money without first selling records. That may come, but it has not yet.
It's not even that because you can be economically successful as a band without selling a single record.
Plenty of bands make a decent wage just by touring lots. To say no one does implies that you think of the music industry as only the top 0.01% of megabands. Unless you're a megaband negotiating an awesome contact odds are you will make most of your money from touring not CDs.
You're basically saying that "it hasn't worked before, it won't work in the future". This actually reminds me of startups.
1) What other options you had in the past sharing and selling your music than joining a record company?
2) If you're successful artist, why wouldn't you have a label? Labels would pay millions upfront and help you with everything. It's easy money, like an exit, even it hurts you in the long run. Probably most artists are not interested in building a business.
We usually forget that artists actually get their fame without labels, but labels are pretty good and quick luring these potential artists in. Who knows what would happen if so many artists didn't take their exists.
I would say that many DJ:s are quite successful and touring artists, even they don't usually have labels behind them. Ofc they are not mainstream. You really cannot be the next Rolling Stones, since internet and other options has been around just for few years. You have to remember that copyrights and labels history is aswell relatively short.
In Finland, Poets of the Fall are still independent, and got their fame over internet and/from there playing a title song in Max Payne. I think Jonathan Coulton has build his music over internet and got featured in Portal.
You're looking at it the wrong way, in the current world popular bands get signed to labels so pretty much all major touring bands will be signed to a major label. It doesn't however mean that an absence on labels will kill touring since the labels for the most part aren't into touring. It's another set of companies that handle that.
I am very familiar with how this works so I promise you I am not "looking at it the wrong way" but describing how things actually work. I am not making this up.
Labels create band demand. Concert promoters do not. I promise you this is causation and not correlation. People go see shows because they have the record and know the band. I am sure you have never gone (willingly) to see a show from a band whose music you didnt already have and/or or know pretty well. The band marketing (the label) created the market environment for you to know and like their music. People do not go see artists because they saw some add in a local paper advertising an artist. It doesnt happen. Promoters only provide awareness so that if you are a fan you will know that this band you like is in town.
Labels don't create demand, they might want you to believe that since it makes them sound important but they don't not anymore anyhow.
I have actually gone to lots of concerts where I had no clue who the band was as have many people I know. Most cities have a pretty active live music scene with lots of people who will go to just about any show they can, and those people start spreading the news.
Also getting rid of the labels removes nothing at all except for mass commercial cd distribution. Even then I doubt the online music stores would disappear since a lot of people will pay for the convenience.
Hank, I agree with you overall on this issue, and I liked your article, but your argument in this comment is terrible. You are appealing to your own authority and you're not provably right in any sense.
You are right. But sometimes authority and experience are relevant. I cant help that I really do know what I am talking about on this matter. I guess I could go out and interview some other people about how this part of the industry works so that I would be relying on someone else's authority and not mine, but we don't all have equivalent knowledge on everything. I have been involved in music for a long time and know how this part of the business works.
I am not sure how, other than expressing that, that I can explain this. This is not really a judgment issue but about explaining the dynamics of an existing market. If you would prefer to believe that I don't know what I am talking about that is fine. But at minimum I would suggest, if you are really interested in how artists today become successful that you do a little independent (and therefore not tainted by my bias) investigation from people that are really in the biz. The funny part is that there really is nothing to argue about here. No one in music will tell you that concert promoters create demand for artists. It feels a little surreal to even be arguing the point.
If you read what I said I never said concert promoters were the people that create demand, just that labels aren't the only way to create demand and the disappearance of labels will not cause the disappearance of promoters or live music either.
I am not sure exactly why, but it just doesnt work. The numbers are very clear. With very young artists, free music can get them exposed enough to get a record deal, but not enough to sell performance tickets. You can of course always fall back on the "well it hasnt worked but it will" argument, but as of today, it has not worked. There is no argument at all about this. The statistics are very clear. Of course I cannot see the future, but there is little reason after quite a few years of the internet, for me to believe the economics and behavioral dynamics are going to change. Of course anything can happen but it doesn't seem like a good bet.
First, what is with the "music goes down"-statement. Arrington just said that "a new era of free recorded music and paid live performances is a very good thing". Lots of things are free and still up and running (eg. this site, tv, radio..).
"Second, there is no evidence at all that free music on the Internet is an effective". Ok, but there is. Next.
"Third, if the recorded music industry goes down, concert sales will not grow – they will shrink." There is no evidence that it would happen like this. First, marketing efforts results are usually hard to measure. Second, cleary marketing isn't the only thing, or even the most important thing on creating demand. It's the music.
If we get back to the original Youtube-Viacom case, what's the harm if you watch some clips of the Office from Youtube? It isn't like you were going to buy the dvdbox, just for watching it at work while sipping your coffee, but you might buy it afterwards, because it got your attention again.
Ok, I understand that Viacom has the copyrights, and Youtube is making money of them. This dispute, as many others, isn't about ethics, morale, downgrading our culture, terrorism or ripping of the artists. It's just about money. You can even watch South Park for free on their own site
Our visual entertainment would be confined to things like Star Wars Kid.
He forgot "Ow, My Balls", I think.
Seriously though, I think live music and recorded albums are actually disconnected and septate products. What will happen is that there will be no more soccer moms going to $100 million dollar REO Speedwagon reunion tours and instead there will be a resurgence in small venue, local music scenes."Pop" music as we know it today, when it becomes a free commodity, will be seen by most people as a product for children.
This can be good because although there will be no more "Madonnas", hundreds of smaller acts will take her place and offer much more variety. I can't wait.
There was art before copyright and there will be art after it as well.
The rights afforded artists under copyright laws are not natural rights, but were created for the specific purpose. If that purpose is no longer served by these laws then they should be eliminated.
It is a federal crime now to take a camera into a movie theater. You can receive jail time for this. When will the insanity stop?
"The rights afforded artists under copyright laws are not natural rights"
There are no such thing as "natural rights" - only rights that we as society agree are beneficial. IP rights are no different than the rights for you to own your shoes or your house. They are just social contracts.
No more $100000000 movies is a small price to pay for no more copyright. I could happily live the rest of my life without another professionally made book, program, or song. In fact I would be ecstatic.
You might, but seemingly you'd be in the vast minority. There is currently any number of bands and film producers making stuff available for free legally. But even with the threat of prosecution, and the hatred for copyright, these bands can barely make an impression.
Time has arrived where original content creator/artist (musician, writer etc.) has to decide how they want to publish their content and make money. Self-publishing is gaining momentum in the book arena, the same can happen in music, movie and tv - the only thing is someone has to make self-publishing and internet distribution eco-system simple and affordable (wow! here is the business idea).
The other platform that can be explored is creative commons. Licensing under creative commons and sharing content freely with the support of some kind of revenue generation is one of the best option (i think).
"Third, if the recorded music industry goes down, concert sales will not grow – they will shrink"
Also wrong and with no reasons why he believes this. The record industry and the concert promotion industry are separate yet complementary industries. The loss of the record industry will almost certainly have no huge effect on the concert industry.
I'll be honest I stopped reading at the end of that paragraph.