Bob, There are some songwriters who place their music into online "catalogs". This is a way of "pitching" the song to those who might be interested in recording it. They figure that if nobody picks the song up for recording, at least the world will get the chance to hear it. Others of these require professional membership to review the songs, due to the potential for other songwriters to steal "the essence" of a song. The songwriter to which you refer likely runs his/her own site. For a songwriter, this is a sort of vanity website, since it has little commercial use. They are primarily used for promotional use. I.E. "Hear my songs at www.songwritername".
None of that is what I am talking about. When I say that piracy steals money from composer, songwriters and producers, I am talking about those whose songs appear on commercially released recordings. For instance, Joe Blow is on American Idol and gets a recording contract. He makes a CD using 3 songs from Tommy Tunesmith. Let us say the CD bombs out and only sells 100,000 copies. Now with 3 songs at .08 cents per song statutory fee, if the record receives minimal radio exposure (generating negligible performance royalties), the Tommy will receive about $24,000 total. . . hardly reason enough to continue pitching songs.
Now let us say that it is estimated that the CD was downloaded (using Morpheus) approximately 500,000 times over the period of a year. That would translate into $120,000 in potential lost revenues for the songwriter and probably about the same for the producer and the artist. This assumes that each downloader would have paid for the recording, so you could probably cut the figure in half. But for the sake of argument, you see the point.
In fact, if the artist received a $1 million dollar recording contract and had 5 points on that recording, he now owes the record company about $950,000. He makes ZERO until he pays this back. Contrary to popular belief, record contracts are merely "loans" payable through artist royalties. They cover the cost of recording the music, videos and in some cases promotion of a recording. . . less managers, lawyers, limos, wardrobe, etc. The royalty amount is usually figured on 90% of the wholesale price of the recording. This is the leverage the record companies have in order to get the artist to tour so much. The artist can finally make back some money on their tours, which are even subsidized by the record company as a means to promoting a release. Ever wonder why so many bands continue performing years after their popularity?
So it isn't hard to see how piracy has a direct effect on the bottom line of creative persons. Downloading of music is not the problem. Illegal downloading, whereby the recipient has paid nothing to the creators of the music, is a big problem.
Where does all this lead? Well, if the most creative people get sufficiently discouraged, they give up. Meanwhile, the grassroots efforts survive. And what we are left with is what I call an "erosion of creativity". A survival of the persistent. . . not necessarily the fittest.
Maybe this explains why when I play our oldest daughters CD collection of college groups that are not on the charts, it sounds worse than garage bands. . . it sounds like someone with zero talent grabbed a Casio from Wal-Mart and went into the studio to record their complaints about their life. Song after song after song having no subject or theme other than complaining about this, that and the other. No fantasy, no journey, no story, no emotional twist. . .it is like they have nothing whatsoever to say. . . so they just complain about whatever they see. Then when they run out of things to complain about, they complain about the song and the recording of it. Perhaps it is a generation gap and I don't get the subtleties of the social statement. But I don't think so. Instead, I believe it to be the end result of this erosion of creativity, which started when record companies insisted on everyone being "commercial".
It is a complicated subject to say the least. The record industry is certainly guilty of driving artists with something to say into pop icons that fit a commercial demographic. . . influencing music away from being artsy and important. . . and instead giving it a superficial sheen. Popular music is in a serious identity crises that nobody is addressing. I plan on writing more about this particular subject, but am still researching. . .and trying to find a block of time I can devote to the topic.
Rande Is |
