RIAA, downloading, copy protection, and making money as an artist
brian-at-bulkowski-org
Today I found yet another article in the New York Times about those who
suffer from the massive amounts of downloading that occur. This
particular article was about the songwriting industry, and how
songwriters are falling on tough times. The article was fairer than one
usually sees, but gives only a passing mention to the fact that the
entire economy is hurting. Similarly, the fact that downloading has
been declining over the last year yet songwriters are not more in
demand was never mentioned. The analysis of how much money individuals
have lost is silly - it assumes that every download represents an album
sale.
The article does point out the fact that only those songwriters with
huge, multiplatnum hits (recorded by Christine Aguelerra) make any
money. Those people can clear several hundred thousand dollars on a
single song. But if you don't have a multiplatnum hit, you'll be
sucking wind - forever.
As someone who is registered as an artist with BMI, and who has never
seen a check, I'd like to comment on what downloading and the recording
industry mean to me - and what has to change.
The established music industry works to its own benefit. Its system is
to find a good artist, market them nationally, tour them extensivly,
and if their popularity wanes, dump them. The industry promotes only a
few bands, because in that way they make the most money. A single
touring band playing a stadium nets far more than 100 bands playing
local clubs. Advertising works to benefit fewer, larger bands as well.
As the economics go, so goes the industry - and why shouldn't it?
That's capitalism in action.
The problem lies in groups like RIAA and ASCAP/BMI which perport to
represent artists, but in fact represent large music concerns. They
have caused laws to be passed which make it far harder for an
independant musician to make a living.
Let's take ASCAP/BMI as our first example. The point of ASCAP/BMI is to
provide a single place where licencing revenues can be cleared. If I
play a cover of a john denver tune at a club, someone has to pay
whoever owns that song. The club pays dues to ASCAP, which allows any
band to play any ASCAP-registered song. While this sounds like a
reasonable practice, what happens in specific is that a few, large
bands get all the money from these small clubs across the nation. Will
John Denver get a slice of the action because I played one of his
songs? Maybe, maybe not. That depends on how ASCAP splits up the
royalties. Those are split based on either record sales (soundscan) or
top-radio-station airplay.
Similarly, all radio stations pay into the system. The system pays out
to artists based on a small selection of sampled radio stations.
However, the amount of royalty is fixed by law. If you want to sell
your song for less royalties, and thus have a radio station play you
more, you're out of luck. All songs cost the same - 8 cents per album
sold, and another rate for radio play.
Back in the 50's when this system was set up, it did seem impossible to
keep track of every song played on every radio station, and every song
played in every club. It also seemed impossible to have some kind of
master list of all songs written, and who currently owns the copywrite,
and how much money they want in royalties for different kinds of
performance.
Today, in the modern world, we have the information processing
abilities to keep track of everything. Heck the CDDA database that
programs like MusicMatch use to name and label all the songs on a CD
are very cheap to use. They were originally built for free, and are
supported by a small slice of the revinue that the services (like
MusicMatch) generate. I would rather register my songs with a site,
with a low-quality recording of the song, and put up the amount I want
to be paid. All radio stations keep playlists, and they would simply
format the playlists and send them off to this clearinghouse. Instead
of paying a flat fee, they'd likely pay less.
If a song becomes insanely popular, an artist could raise the price. Or
lower the price, if they felt they had enough money from that
particular song.
Instead, the current