BBC Blog Network

User Profile

Solomon2008

Listed below are comments made by Solomon2008 between Wednesday, 26th November 2008 and Friday, 25th September 2009.

«Newer
Older»

Lily unites musicians against file-sharing 8:37pm on 25 Sep 2009 I do some work for a very small record label and do I love music. Until recently I was buying over 200 albums a year. I have never and will never download an illegal music file, but the industry and artists have been extremely stupid about the file sharing.

The effect of illegal file sharing on the music industry has been largely overstated. The industry had faced illegal copying of their products for almost 100 years and has survived by changing its business model.

The golden era in financial terms for the music industry was between 1986 and 2000. This was fuelled by the introduction of CDs with people replacing existing vinyl and other factors. This resulted in a bloated industry with very high overheads. As revenue has reduced, the overheads have not been cut back enough. The music industry employees (excluding the artists) generally have a high average salary. Decca Music (part of Universal Music), the average employee earned £76,000 per year in 2008 (Source: Decca Music Group Ltd Annual Accounts 2008).

When you look at year on year sales of similar types of albums, the largest falls have been in best selling albums, which sell in the millions. While the fall in sales for the other albums have been much smaller. Although total sales are still historically high.

You need to remember that these multi million selling albums by likes of Lilly Allen are more likely to be purchased by the casual music buyers.
There has been increased competition for these buyers disposable income by other leisure goods and activities especially DVDs and Computer Games. Both of these sectors have seen large increases in sales during this decade, this money need to be diverted from somewhere, in this case it has been the music industry.

The way in which music sales are calculated has been changed to have a negative effect on reported sales.
In the last decade in the UK the sales have changed from number of units invoiced by the record companies/ distributors to retailers less returns. The album sales recorded was not the number of albums sold but the actual units contained within the album. e.g. a single CD counts as 1 sale, a double CD counts as 2 sales.
This has now changed to the number of albums sold (double CD now counts as 1 sale) as recorded by the Official UK Chart Company (half owned by the trade organisation the BPI). Therefore if the retailer/website does not provided information to the OCC or the artists selling directly to their fans, these sales are not included.
Therefore these changes in the accounting processes does result in a fall in album sales, even if the quantity of albums purchased by the public remain the same.

The record companies by allowing the inclusion of premium products on free CDs with newspapers and magazines have reduced the perceived value of music. The consumer wonders why should I pay £10 for something that is free with a £1 newspaper

In the UK and most other markets, the record industry in the late 1990s became more concerned with the supermarkets rather than the independent retailers. The supermarkets were able to sell large amounts of the bestsellers, but at a price lower than the independent retailers could buy them from the distributors. Besides devaluing the perceived value of the product, the independents lost a large share of their income and therefore profit, resulting in them closing down. The independent music retailer did help numerous acts and records to reach an audience that the supermarkets and online retailers are unable or unwilling to.

The supermarkets now treats music like a can of bake beans, with a very limited range of music available to consumer in the high street with the closure of the independents, Woolworth and Virgin/Our Price/ Zavvi.

Legal digital downloads from sites such as itunes are too expensive, why would a rational consumer pay the same or more for a digital download than a CD which has better sound and you have a physical backup.

The industry should stop chasing shadows, because sales will not increase even if everyone who ever downloaded an illegal file is disconnected. This will lead to even less sales due to an even larger consumer backlash against the industry.
They have been treating their customers/ fans as criminals by installing DRM and rootkits on their CDs, which is highly insulting to the consumer.

It has also been argued that the music produced has become more formulaic, with 50% of people interviewed for a recent survey thought that music had become "samey".

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038749&c=1

If they spent the same money and effort producing music which people want to buy rather than trying to change the law, this will lead to an increase in sales.
The trouble is it is easier for the record companies and artists to blame others (i.e. their own or potential customers & fans) than face the truth. If they do not, there will be no industry in ten years time.
Copyright - the empire strikes back 2:12pm on 22 Dec 2008 Andy Burnham stated there is a moral case to extend the sound copyright protection to 70 years because “most people make their best work in their 20s and 30s”. Although he does not provide evidence to support this point of view, nor does he explain what they were doing between their 30s and retirement and why they have not saved for their retirement like everyone else is expect to do.

http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/minister_speeches/5685.aspx

Andrew Gowers has written in the FT that “Copyright is an economic instrument, not a moral one” and Burnham’s “moral case” that copyright should be extended because performers who recorded their best work in their 20s and 30s is “pretty silly”. Therefore using the same logic, sportspeople have “a moral case to a pension at 30”, because their best work were in their 20s and 30s.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba280756-ca07-11dd-93e5-000077b07658.html

Andy Burnham responded in an article for the FT about why the “moral case” for the extension is important, although he did not dispute any of Gowers’ other points against the copyright extension.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ca0a7c6-cadd-11dd-87d7-000077b07658.html

Burnham stated “Should an artist who is a vegan, for example, have to put up with seeing their music used to promote fast food burgers? Or the music of an environmental campaigner being used to promote cars or airlines? I do not think so.” At first glance, this is a powerful argument. If you start checking the facts, it becomes clear that this situation could not happen in the UK to a living individual for three reasons.

1) The defamation laws (libel) can be used against the advertiser and the ad agency, because the advert implies through the use of the music, that the performer backs what the advert is selling.

2) No company/ organisation would allow music to be used in their adverts, if there is the remotest possibility of bad publicity e.g. the performer campaigning outside their offices, AGMs and in the media.

3) The UK advertising codes already stops this. In the TV Advertising Standards Code, section 6.5 Protection of privacy and exploitation of the individual, states that “…living people must not be portrayed, caricatured or referred to in advertisements without their permission.“
The recording refers to the performer, therefore can not be used in adverts even when it is in the public domain.

[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

Andy Burnham should have known about the advertising code, as his department is responsible for the advertising industry.

His department is also responsible for sport, but he stated in response to Gowers’ sportspeople pension comment that "No one is going to profit from someone winning the 100 metres decades on from that victory". This comment is inaccurate. Footage of historical sporting events are very popular, especially football. Sporting footage have been used in television programmes, films and DVDs decades after the event. Payments are only made to the copyright holders (e,g, FIFA and the IOC), who do have strict control of the footage. The sportspeople do not receive a penny due to the copyright law, although all performers receive payment every time when a music recording is played in public.

So there is a very clearly no moral case to extend copyright length for sound recordings.
Conflict over copyright 11:24pm on 26 Nov 2008 The four major record companies will benefit the most from a copyright extension. They can charge a higher price for these recordings because they do not face any direct competition. Also it restricts the amounts of recordings in the market, therefore the majors keep their share of the market (approx. 85%) and they assume that you will buy one of their newer recordings.

The record major company do not stop selling recording when they enter the public domain, e.g. the early Elvis Presley recordings are still available on Sony BMG and Frank Sinatra’s 1950s Capitol recordings are available from EMI. Although they have reduced their prices due to the competition, but they are still making royalty payments to the estates. EMI will continue to pay royalties to Cliff Richard for its sales of ‘Move It’ (which enters the public domain on 1st January 2009) in line with their contracts.

It has been estimated by PWC (commissioned by the BPI) that a 45 year extension will increase the record industry income in the UK by between £8.4 and £163 million, this money can only come from one place, the consumers.

The performers do not “lose” anything, they knew when they were recording that the protection was for 50 years. They should have saved for their retirement like everyone else in society.

Performers do very well out of the current copyright law. They receive free copyright protection for 50 years based upon another person’s copyright (the singer songwriter is consider legally to be two separate legal entities). While inventors only receive 20 years of patent protection which costs thousands of pounds and is very time consuming.

Most performers (especially on older recordings) only receive a few pounds royalty each year. The performers’ two main sources of royalty income are from sales of recording (CD and download) and from public performance. The later is controlled in the UK by the PPL, which charge broadcasters and locations that play pre recorded music a fixed amount based the size and turnover, this does not reduce if they play some public domain recordings. Assuming the PPL do not increase rates due to the extension, the revenue paid to new performers will be reduced because of the extra payments to the estates of dead performers.

According to the last annual report of the PPL out of its 38,000 performer members (which included featured and session musicians) only 23,000 were eligible for the minimum payment of £5.00 during 2007.

For performers (including session musicians) who made recordings over a number of years or even decades will experience a gradual reduction in income, due to the recordings’ copyright protection finishing in a number of different years. Any performer who royalties do completely stop due to 50 years term, must have done something else in the last 50 years.

The majority of recordings released in the last 50 years are currently unavailable. The majors will not re-release them, because they consider them to be uneconomical. You just need to check the high prices that some deleted records and even CDs are making on ebay to show there is demand for these recordings.

Under the existing law anyone can release the recording after 50 years, these include the original performers and estates. Therefore it is possible for the performers to earn more from the recording when they re-released than in the previous 50 years. Also small labels are releasing deleted public domain recordings that would otherwise would be forgotten and lost forever. The composers (or their estates) are still paid royalties on these releases.

The current copyright law is a complete mess, one simple solution is for all copyright protection to be reduced to 50 years after creation or first public performance/ publication.

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

Solomon2008