Some artists are banning phones at concerts because people are often distracted and disengaged from the music while staring at a device half of the show. Additionally, and more importantly, when someone is holding their phone up to record the entire concert it can obstruct another fan’s view of the stage. Several comedians have found it hinders their ability to develop and evolve jokes when their sets get posted online immediately following a set. Of course many artists have no problem with it and see it as free promotion.
I can see both sides of the argument, but personally I’m all for banning phones at concerts or using the Yondr pouches. A couple of years ago at a concert at the Ryman Auditorium the guy with seats in front of me recorded the entire concert on his phone using a selfie stick. Up until that point I didn’t see the harm of snapping a picture to remember the moment. I think we stare at these things a little too much and a performance from a favorite artist is a great reason to take a break and be in the moment.
The current Tool tour is implementing a no phones policy which is lifted during the final song of the encore. I’m kind of surprised that they’re enforcing it at arena sized shows. It’s funny that when I was a teenager security would search the crowd looking for weed smokers, in my 20’s it was cigarette smokers, and now it’s people on their phones.
Copyright is a strange branch of the law. And as one who made a music documentary the laws about use of music in film is different from the laws regulating music recording. The lawyers for the film industry must of had a different relationship to the politicians who rested these laws. It all seems arbitrary to me. Google copied all the books in major libraries without any permission from authors. Too big to get caught? Defending copyright takes expensive lawyers. Those without means will have less ability to protect their IP.
As others have noted, I believe vinyl sales have gone up as people enjoy retro. 1950’s original furniture has also been very popular and worth serious money for a good while.
If music was suddenly only released on vinyl and digital technology continued to exist, I would expect vinyl rips (what an odd phrase) to proliferate, especially given people want their music on their phones, etc.
When we only had vinyl, people did copy albums on to cassette, but as this could be done only in real time this was not much of an issue for artists or the industry.
When CDs were released there was similarly no way to copy the music but for on to a cassette. No one predicted the subsequent ease of copying CDs and the impossibility of copy protection. Both the music and film industries have been forced to struggle with this.
The biggest problem is society’s mindset. We do not respect artists and their creative output. Few would claim they are entitled to go backstage and steal one of Paul Simon’s guitars. Yet, many will steal his music rationalizing it is too expensive, it is easy and free to make a copy, etc. Sickening.
It seems like part of that rationalization is usually that it is actually the evil record companies that are ripping people off and not paying the artists anyway, so that you’re actually stealing from the rich, like a digital Robin Hood, and giving to the poor (yourself). And that nothing you do actually affects the artist. Except perhaps that you are selflessly promoting them by turning your friends on to them. It’s a really interesting phenomenon. I’m sure if the tables were turned one their means of making a living, there would be a lot of ALL CAPS! And EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! All over the internet about it.
To add on to Beef’s point, I often hear people saying things like, “Bono has enough money” or “George Clooney doesn’t need another mansion” to justify their theft. As if only the artist’s income is affected. This ignores the scores of people whose work goes into creating an album or a movie. Meanwhile recording studios a closing at a depressing rate, although I’d guess music theft is not the sole reason.
I have no problem whatsoever when an artist does well financially because they created something that has added to my life. I wish more of my favorite musicians could make a living solely from creating and performing. On average I’ve spent around $10 for new CD’s over the years and to me that is more than fair, even if I only love one song. Of course that usually involved buying new releases the week they came out or waiting for a sale.
Good point. Vinyl rips would indeed proliferate. What can be done about piracy, from a practical perspective? Suing teenagers didn’t work. Shutting down torrents sites hasn’t worked. I wonder if this billion dollar judgement against internet service providers will work? Cox has a reasonable argument in that they can’t be held responsible for all the music piracy activity by their customers on the internet because they provide access to said internet. Seems their failure was arbitrarily capping the number of complaints.
But what about internet based drug deals, sex trafficking, terrorism, the dark web, and all matter of nefarious activity, is Cox responsible for it’s customer’s activity in those lands because it provides access to the web? Seems a slippery slope as if that’s the case, what company would want to provide internet access at all?
A part of me does think that the world would be a better place if the internet did not exist. That and robots, nothing but trouble
I do like the disruptive quality of the digital revolution, but yes, artists deserve to be paid.
While it was a different era, the Grateful Dead went from a minor touring act filling 3000 seat arenas to packing 80,000 seat stadiums (with tens of thousands in the parking lot looking for tickets) in the late 80’s and 90’s and becoming the second highest grossing tour act in the world, second only to The Rolling Stones, by essentially giving away their music for free. Allowing their shows to be taped and traded amongst their fans turned out, by accident, to be marketing genius. Free music allowed the Grateful Dead to cash in big time.
That does work better when you’re the only one doing it.
The Dead never made much from their studio albums. Their accidental idea was a foreshadowing of what was to come for a significant segment of musical artists. Provide free access to recordings, and make your money on live shows. With musical piracy by fans, and economic piracy by streaming services, a huge amount of contemporary artists find themselves, equally by accident, centered in the Grateful Dead business model - whether they like it or not.
When I grew up you had LPs, Cassette tapes, and AM/FM radio. Someone would buy the latest LP and make a cassette of that LP for their friend. Heck I knew someone who had a double cassette deck where they could copy cassettes. I also remember taping songs off the radio.
Now that music is digital the internet makes this a global occurrence. Unfortunately I don’t see this ever changing.
Key is, no matter how much you all argue, the VALUE of a WAV file on a CD has been deemed extremely low by consumers, less than one cent if you count $10/mos for streaming. Yeah Vinyl maybe trendy, BUT consumers value it high hence its outselling CDs. Essentially the key is selling what people wanna buy and basic CDs aren’t it.
To me, it’s passed the time for record companies to save themselves. It’s over. They HAD TO, bring a new exciting medium, format, equipment, with great marketing about 20yrs ago to SAVE physical media, they didn’t. They started suing ppl for pirating, sold tunes for $1 on iTunes that just extended their run for a few years with no long term plan. They’re still doing the same and it’s their last grasp to stay relevant. Only option for them today is to get into the streaming business.
Consumers value music or they would not bother to steal it. The problem is theft is so easy. Even worse, many feel they should not be required to buy music as it is “too expensive” and it is therefore acceptable to engage in theft.
Welcome to the digital age… you can’t stop a moving train. Again, at a moral and fairness level, I agree… but consumer have spoken with their purchase patterns, Record companies did NOT respond correctly or timely and it’s kind of too late now.
Out of curiosity, what else could the record companies have done? It was difficult to anticipate the devastation of the CD and the coming digital age. The streaming services still use DRM, right? But it’s easily bypassed with various 3rd party apps. The core issue seems to be, and correct me if I’m missing something, that digital technology allows for music files to be easily and endlessly copied with no degradation in sound quality. Isn’t technology the core problem? How could the record companies have handled the technological tsunami any differently? It’s very difficult to compete with free.
As for streaming, maybe the price ought to be raised across the board in order to have enough revenue to fairly compensate all parties? $10 per month for access to 50 million songs is kind of ridiculous. In the early iTunes days, I used to spend $10 - $15 per month on average for new music, year after year. That’s 10 - 15 songs per month. For the price of 10 songs one now gets nearly every song ever written. Setting aside the nefarious nature of record companies, isn’t the entire technology/ fee paradigm hopelessly out of whack? Isn’t the public complicit?
With movies, I can now pay about $20 per month to see all the new movies I want at the theatre. Not $20 for every movie ever made.
I just wonder where all this leads. I think Spotify turned a profit this year, but it won’t last. Doesn’t Apple Music and Tidal lose money as well? Artist ought to find a way to get rid of them all.
Technology, and its misuse, is the core problem. It is the ease of digital copying which is the problem, coupled with a lack of ethics.
In Bach’s time, the only way to copy music was to take the score and write out a copy (which Bach and others commonly did of other’s works to learn from them). Later printers would produce unauthorized copies of music and books but distribution remained limited.
Interestingly, in the early days of computer networks the providers of such services (CompuServe, etc.) were exceedingly protective of applications and were adamant in disallowing sharing of software. They however did not extend such protection to music - probably because they could relate to the work that went into software but were unable to appreciate releasing an album is just as much work.
Culturally we lack appreciation for music, likely because it is ubiquitous - played in every public place (restaurants, grocery stores); background in movies, television shows, commercials; background in many homes, and the like.
If one could hear music only by going to a venue we probably would pay for it with nary a complaint.
