Well, the Digital Economy Bill passed. One of the stupidest yet most potentially catastrophic bits of legislation ever forced through in the Wash-Up (the last couple of days of a Parliament before an election.
I opposed it, I still oppose it and I will continue to oppose any legislation about the internet written by people who don’t understand the internet or, in this case, the music industries and the role that music plays in our culture.
I’m particularly ashamed that the Musicians Union – a Union of which I am a member, was a proud member, and have supported by paying double what I should’ve been paying for the last two years - supported this insane bill, to the detriment of musicians everywhere.
I made this public, and got an email of their ‘official position’ this morning, which is:
We fully support the Digital Economy Bill in the interests of getting it through Parliament before the election. We support measures that will reduce the opportunity for pirates to rip off musicians and we also support the graduated response that should help to persuade most filesharers to respect the rights of artists who want to be paid for their recordings. We remain optimistic that the final version of the Digital Economy Bill will directly and fairly address both these issues, and we believe that Government support and intervention in this area is not only welcome but vital.
As you know, our Executive Committee are involved with our policies and decision-making, and the members of the Committee are themselves working musicians.
Here’s my reply to Kelly Wood, The Regional Officer for The North, who sent me the message:
-o0o-
Thanks Kelly,
I think that’s an entirely absurd position to take. Using the word “Pirates” discredits you immediately. These are music fans, discovering music. That’s a great thing.
Teaming up with the BPI does us a great disservice. The BPI wrote the bill as a protectionist measure of an outdated and unworkable business model. It was a model that was NEVER to the advantage of musicians who cared about the music they played and the culture it existed in, but one that made sense at a time when physical distribution was required to reach anyone, and the costs involved were prohibitively high. At that point, labels lying to musicians about how much they dig the music, while making a fortune for themselves but still never ‘recouping’ on the album was deeply unpalatable but a neccesary part of recording and releasing music.
All the costs have dropped. I’ve written extensively about this – most notably here – but nothing has changed in the industry. They still spend money on the behalf of musicians, pay themselves that money, recoup it (AGAIN) and own the product at the end. None of that is remotely to our advantage.
- The internet is an awful broadcast platform. Terrible. If your model for business sees recorded music as a broadcast-followed-by-sale experience, you’re screwed.
- The internet is an awesome conversation and sharing platform. Get that, and you can build a sizeable sustainable audience on zero budget. Factor in the reduced cost of making records, and you can release a record at near break-even point, get an audience, then set about given them reasons and means to pay you to do what you do. There are loads of ways. Not least of all, charging for downloads.
People pay for downloads on my site, even though they are available for free. I’m as happy when people download for free as I am when they pay as they are still discovering what I do, and forming a relationship with my music, and me through my music.
So, the premise of the bill – that the situation is desperate – was spurious. The figures quoted for industry ‘losses’ are insane. Utterly nonsensical if mapped against spending trends on ‘physical and download entertainment media’ – we are part of a much bigger entertainment industry now that we ever were, and we don’t dominate it in the way we did from 1956 to 1998. Games and DVD are a bigger part of it than ever. And entertainment spending continues to rise. So 200 million hasn’t been ‘lost’, it’s being spent elsewhere. Meanwhile, the cost of making and distributing records is tiny, and download sales go up and up.
How you can see that as a situation that needs legislating is utterly beyond me. To shut down sites and services on suspicion of illegal activity is a civil liberties travesty. To have my internet traffic monitored ‘in case I do anything bad’ is like the royal mail reading my post, in case my letters contain naughty words. While threatening to brick up my front door if they find them, or think they might have found them.
I’m ashamed of the Union, ashamed to be a member, and feel that your support for this bill is a massive black mark on a Union that has done so much for grass roots music. By focussing on a pre-millenial obsession with money-changing-hands-at-the-point-of-discovery, you’re effectively crapping on the best music discovery, fan-generating, culture-sharing, life-benefitting ecosphere that musicians in the world have ever experienced.
And that is why I’m still considering whether I should stay in the Union any longer.
If you’d like to meet and talk this over further, I’d love to talk about it with you more.
yours,
Steve
Great letter Steve. I hope they agree to meet you and actually try and learn something from your input.
Well said, Steve! I’ve never been a member of the MU (same reason as I’ve never joined a political party; I’m not much of a “joiner”) but I’ve always seen it as a force for good. Not so sure now.
Excellent letter Steve
Good letter. The problem I have as a consumer is that by being a member of the MU you supported this bill. Whilst I gave money to the Open Rights Group to campaign against it you did the opposite. Given that why should I support you by purchasing your music.
Will,
the reason that ‘pay what you want’ starts at free is so you can make that judgement call for yourself. Don’t think it’s worth listening to? don’t listen. Don’t think it’s worth paying for? Don’t pay for it. Listened, enjoyed it, and think that sending me some money for it represents your gratitude to me for making it or your sense of the value it has to you in some way? great send me some money.
I hope that the value of my music to the people who choose to soundtrack whatever part of their lives with it is far greater than the £5/10/15/20 they paid for it. I also hope that no-one is foolish enough to buy it without listening first and thus end up spending money on music that means nothing to them
On Steve’s example I tried the same thing as well and its worked well for me as well. Perhaps a useful case study?
A good letter, Steve, and thanks for posting it.
The key points that underly the MU view are simple and false. They think that a download is always equivalent to a lost sale, and that the figures from the BPI on the threat to jobs are accurate. Of course, neither of those things are true: a download is not equivalent to a lost sale, and the BPI figures have been widely debunked.
Something else to consider might be standing for election to the Executive Committee, and working towards getting MU policy changed that way. In the medium/long term, this is the only way MU policy on internet culture will be changed. Currently it doesn’t look like anyone there gets it, though I have noted a slight softening of the position over the last couple of years as it dimly sinks in that the internet is not actually going away.
Over time, the committees will be populated by people who do, and policy will change. I would certainly vote for you if you stood.
Hear, hear!
(Which is both my response to your letter and the essence of why the internet is a good thing for musicians
Funnily enough, I was recently looking into finally sorting out joining the MU and now I’m as confused as ever.
Adrian – ‘not a joiner’ – that made me chuckle. I sympathise. I think I am ideologically opposed to ideology. And this is my broad strokes problem.
Steve – Forgive my ignorance in any of the following, as a newcomer to the practical realities of life as a musician (my first ‘quarter’ if you like), but this whole issue is doing my (expletive deleted) head in:
I’ve attended some FAC meetings, heard things I agree with, things I don’t, looked into and commented on the a2f2a.com site, registered some things with PRS & PPL, some not, given away free music, charged for other music and so on.
Maybe it is because I’m new at this but the whole ‘debate’ seems so damn polarised with this ‘you’re either with us or against us’ vibe coming from both sides that makes me feel plain uncomfortable, for reasons I cannot adequately explain.
If anybody saw what David Baddeil had to say on last night’s This Week about the election and the black and white becoming shades of grey, that’s kind of where I’m at. Utterly confused.
Yesterday there was an article about the bill hitting a ‘flat note’ (see what they did there?!) on thisismoney.co.uk about how Harriet Harman had said the bill had raised enough issues for it not to be rushed through, then by last night it was passed! Er…..
On a practical level, the advice I took in registering with the PRS/PPL way back when appears to be folly, a couple of new media companies I’ve seen looking to license music now want to deal under a creative commons basis, directly with artists and completely bypass the PRS/PPL, an organisation I was informed was there to look after my interests. Um, same goes for your position on the MU I guess.
I know the wider issue of the bill is the criminalisation of what we ourselves have always done, copy music. That and the attending big brother monitoring that you so eloquently compared to the PO opening your letters. Genius btw (let’s all watch The Lives Of Others again shall we?!) How the hell has it come to this?
An audience member on Question Time last night said, “we just want politicians to tell us straight” and that’s how I feel about this, exasperated, confused and maybe naively looking for ‘answers’ where there isn’t one tainted without a vested interest in some kind or another.
I’m really, really sorry to bang on but if anyone has any thoughts or advice, this particular oik would very much appreciate it as I try to get my head round what appears to be a complete mess.
Regards to all.
Great letter – however I wouldn’t necessarily say building an audience has ‘zero budget’…
Paul,
building an audience *can* be done on zero budget, which doesn’t mean that’s either the best way or the most effective way for a particular band. The trick is for the bands growth to be incremental, rather than speculative. Spend money you have, be intuitive when you have to work in a cashless economy.
The biggest issue is about taking control of the budget, and spending money on things that have a measurable return…
Make something good – get people to talk about and tell their friends – be remarkable and consistent = audience
I sympathise – but I would advise you not to quit your union.
I’m a member of a broader trade union (Connect, now Prospect) which has been pro #DEBill and opposed opening up Ordnance Survey data. Despite being fundamentally opposed to their positions, I haven’t quit.
Why? Two reasons.
1) They genuinely believe they are supporting their members. That’s who a union caters to – its fee-paying members, not the wider world.
2) It’s democratic. I can engage, debate, and cajole in order to get my opinion heard.
And, if push comes to shove, I can stand to be elected to the Executive Committee.
It’s a shame that your union have supported the #DEBill. I would suggest that – if they have been competent and useful apart from this – that you become more engaged with them, try to change their future stance and, failing that, stand for election.
I’d learn the penny-whistle if it meant I could vote for you
T
I can only underline the supportive comments from other correspondents. Yours is a thoughtful, considered response to a mechanism that was designed to prop up a failing business model.
Good one Steve! yeah, the MU don’t really get it do they. I’m relieved to see you’re on the case.
Thanks for the link to Fiona MacTaggart’s speech too – that was excellent!
My activism energy recently has been going on the home ed section of the children schools and families bill, which was also very poorly and ignorantly designed – that went down the plug’ole of the “washup” yesterday (hurrah!) but Ed Balls says he’s bringing it straight back if Labour win. I must say I find the election choices deeply dispiriting. I’ve never voted Tory in my life, but then again I never thought I’d see a Labour government so bad that I’d be wondering if the Tories would be better!
Good to find your words here. Like you I find myself diametrically opposed to the MU view on this. Their support for the bill means that after 37 years I shall be cancelling my membership and it is likely that my wife will do the same.
Walter, It’s an odd feeling to be so out of step with the people who are meant to be representing us… Please do write to them. if you want to make it public and don’t have a blog, I’d be happy for you to post it to solobasssteve.com – my other collaborative blog. the more of a public discussion there is around this, the more democratic pressure we can apply to the union to adopt a more transformative approach to the changes in the industry.
I appreciate the compassion and conviction of your views, and I have absolutely no problem with the very sophisticated and complex way in which you are marketing and creating your own world of music. Whilst I am sure that I will be unable to dissuade you from your heart-felt position on the DE Bill, which seems to be based on a combination of your own experience and your comprehension of the freeing and democratising nature of the internet, I have to tell you that I do not share your implied paternalistic belief in the future of the web and new models of consumption and production. I used to be in a very successful pop band, Inspiral Carpets. We sold 1m records, and under the old record company model, got paid very little for doing so. A by-product of the new digital landscape is that it is unlikely that I will ever be paid any royalties on any of these historic recordings ever again in the future. I realise that, under the old record company system, the odds on a band becoming successful were roughly akin to those of one sperm out of 100m hitting an egg and conceiving a human being and so, believe me, I realise that I have been in a lucky situation under the old system. However, under the brave new millennium landscape under which we are all trying to make a living, we have enormous corporate players such as Google, who have at least 89% of market share of internet searches in the UK – it’s registered in Ireland and doesn’t pay any tax in the UK (Cadbury’s also previously paid millions to the UK Exchequer in taxes , but now they’ve been purchased by Kraft, won’t be paying any tax in the UK, and will no doubt be adding to our national debt burden). Google is a problem. Part of the DE Bill, Clause 17, attempts to insert a viral element into the UK Copyright Law. The intention of this is to avoid a similar scenario to that whereby the Swedish government spent millions taking Pirate Bay to court. At the eleventh hour Pirate Bay altered the legal basis on which they were constituted with the people who were subscribing to them, which meant that, at one stroke, they had to start procedings again. There have to be laws in national territories. In the UK there are at least 3 or 4 ISPs who have servers that host child pornography, so we know that IT companies are not always law-abiding, moral or behaving in a way that supports public well-being. There is no way in which IT companies can be allowed a free-for-all to decide how music, art and culture is bought and sold. However inadequate the DE Bill may be, unless government can actually get to be as fast-at-foot at challenging negative aspects of potentially freeing technologies and cultural practices, and as flexible as new media platforms are, there will be no more government, no more laws and no more taxation – that’s a heavy price to pay. We all love the freedom that new platforms and means of distribution produce and allow us to discover new artists in a democratic way, and I don’t personally believe that the fantastic way in which you market yourself would ever be threatened by the contents of this DE Bill or any other which may follow it. I’m quite convinced that what we’re looking at is a future where you can dip your toe in or out of the paywall. I think the Musicians’ Union is correct to support the DE Bill, and I won’t be resigning from membership.
Tom,
thanks very much for commenting. It’s really good to hear your thoughts.
Firstly, I don’t oppose *a* digital economy bill, I oppose *this* digital economy bill, and I deeply oppose it being rushed through. No-one has given a remotely satisfactory/democratic reason for this. To submit something with such massive far reaching consequences to be rattled through in the way it was by people who by their very terminology gave away the fact that they just didn’t understand the technology it referred to, let alone the culture, was nothing short of scandalous.
Google’s status is, it seems, a problem of taxation and corporation regulation… You’ll have to do a fuller job of explaining what “attempts to insert a viral element into the UK Copyright Law” actually means… Are you talking about the idea in the bill (that was actually pulled from it…) that copyright law can be amended without it going through parliament? That frightens the shit out of me. That any future home secretary, under the kind of lobbying pressure that lead to this bill, could be persuaded to change things without even this level of debate? Horrific.
As for the situation with the Inspiral Carpets (I was a fan) – surely the failure to recoup on those kind of sales is a scandal of the labels, and the system you worked within. Your desire to redress the balance of past wrongs at the hands of an unscrupulous deal and wasteful marketing, recording and touring budgets is not the fault of the internet at all. We HAVE to be thinking about the future. Legacy earnings are what have artificially propped up the industry for way too long. CD sales only peaked the way they did because people were convinced to replace their vinyl collections on CD. It wasn’t about the vibrancy of a new music scene, it was about Fleetwood Mac and Meatloaf selling another few million copies of their already massive selling albums. That’s not a sustainable future for musicians, and certainly isn’t the primary concern of the Musicians Union.
Are you still making music, Tom? If you are, I’m sure you’re taking advantage of the massive advances in recording technology that mean you can record equivalent quality music for perhaps a tenth of the cost of making the first Inspirals album. Even less if you buy the gear and set up a studio at home – it gets cheaper every time you use it.
Your chance to keep making the music that means something to you, to keep telling your story, to keep connecting with the audience that loved your music then and has such an amazing opportunity to connect with you now, in a way and on a scale utterly unprecedented in history, that’s way more exciting and inspiring to me thinking about business models that shoring up your rights to continue to exploit the copyright on a record by a band that no longer exists and was made, owned, marketed and exploited by a label system that fucked you over.
My music-life is far from sophisticated and complex. It’s WAY simpler than any previous model. I make music, I make it available to people, I tell them about it, talk to them about it, and allow them to buy it. If they want CDs, they cost a fixed amount relating to the cost of manufacture, design and shipping, unless *I* decide to give them away or sell them cheap… If they want the digital version, they get to hear it with the opportunity to pay what they want for it, and the invitation to share it with their friends.
I want 10s of thousands of listeners. I also don’t want to be in debt. I don’t want to operate in a culture where I have to borrow tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds from a label who then spend that loan on my behalf without consulting me or guaranteeing the return on it, and then hold my product ransom til their wasteful spending is paid off. And then, at the end of that, just as an added kick in jewels, still own it.
10s of thousands of listeners and no money is a fantastic problem to have.
No listeners, a hundred grand of debt, and no control over the way your career is marketed, over what products you’re tied to, where you play, who you play to, or any other aspect of your career is a horrible scenario.
Unless one values fame over music, there is no reason at all that I can see for the old model best described as pole vaulting with a hundred grand pole – clear the bar, and you’re fine. Fail to clear it, it breaks and you’re a hundred grand in debt and back where you started. No need.
Please do post a link to what you’re up to now, I’d love to hear it. As I say, I was a fan. If it wasn’t almost one in the morning and my son wasn’t asleep, I’d put Life on on Spotify…
If you want some background reading on my journey with this stuff, here’s a short list of pertinent blog posts I put together for an MP who emailed me asking questions yesterday – might help to answer some of your other questions that I’m sure you’ll have about my approach, ideas and business.
To reiterate, I’m not anti-copyright, I’m not a ‘freetard’, I think the Pirate Party are largely ridiculous (if only for using the word pirate in their name – childish nonsense). I hope that one of the Inspirals tunes gets picked up for a film and you can make some dough and put it behind you, but that’s not an option for most musicians, and I’m far more interested – as the union should be – in what is sustainable, workable, possible and creatively inspiring for musicians who want to make music and keep making the music they love.
This is interesting, tho it seems to me the main issue from what you’ve said is that you sold 1m albums but made very little from the record company.
A few years back I saw In Utero producer Steve Albini’s example balance sheet at negativeland.com/albini.html – which shows how with 250,000 album sales each band member earned a little over $4000 after everyone else took their slice. So I can believe you were left with little.
The model that the enterprising opponents to the Digital Economy Bill seem to unite behind is one where technology has removed the need for a major label to justify their position by controling marketing, distribution, reproduction, etc. All of these functions – even fundraising a studio production – can be provided through web services and fans.
Sell 250,000 albums to your fans directly at £5 a time, and even accounting for 20% costs, that’s still £1m return for the band.
I think someone famous described it as putting the means of production and distribution in the hands of the people.
Such a model of artist-led distribution, where the distribution and marketing expertise of the current music industry is sold as a service that helps you, as opposed to an exchange for your publishing and copyrights in perpetuity, depends on a free and open Internet where people feel safe to share, browse, explore, mashup, and so on.
The Digital Economy Bill makes such a future less likely, and makes it far more easy for the triumph of last century ’s model of media conglomerates pumping artists like oil wells til they are dry. This is why any independent and free thinking artist (especially one that has not profited too well from their success) should avoid the industry groupthink that hurting your fans really badly by cutting of their family’s or co-worker’s internet access will help anyone, other than the execs who doubtless skimmed the majority of your 1m albums sale earnings..
Tom
When the Inspiral Carpets Winnebagos trundled down the drive at Jacobs Studios one early 90s springtime to record the Island Head EP with Daniel Miller (I seem to remember you lot calling it the “Slaphead EP” for some reason), you were the first set of clients I’d seen arrive for a recording session with a proper team of roadies and massive mobile phones. Clint in particular seemed totally in control of the direction both music and business-wise of your Inspirals machine. That memory, and knowing that you were signed to then-independent Mute means I’m quite surprised you didn’t see recording royalties. But then again I remember typing the invoice to Mute for the studio time in the Neve Studio, and you would have had to pay that back first. Added to that, the Jacobs Studio produced record was just an EP (lower price v same manufacturing and distribution costs) your subsequent success was mostly singles (lower price but higher costs again), and those were the days when it cost a label £50 grand to even get a single into the Woolworth Chart (as a “marketing partnership arrangement” as they used to delicately phrase it). But surely you made some money from the fabulous cow t-shirt? I don’t get from your letter how Google is involved, other than it makes it easier to find you if I wanted to come to a gig.
I’d say stay in the MU and fight your cause, Steve. Horace Trubridge, the no2 at the MU was talking the other day about how their new campaign “Music Supported Here” is about being a musician’s choice, their perogative, whether s/he wants to give, sell or withhold their music. If you were to propose a motion about the Bill, I think many member musicians would agree and vote for you, or argue and test your argument. Much better than taking your ball and leaving the game. There has been a significant momentum towards bringing together many of the disparate elements of the music industry (or as you nicely put it, “the different music industries”) so that they could finally create a dialogue with government. I think the MU has been keen not to get left out of the conversation, and is weighing up costs and benefits in terms of whether they stayed in UK Music and supported the bill or not. Feargal Sharkey has been doing a lot of that with the UK Music group which was meant to act as an umbrella group for all the music industries. That did sound up – until the other night – like a worthy aim. It now feels like we had a long and arduous journey to meet the Wizard of Oz at the seat of government, only to be confronted with Stephen Timms, a clipboard and his mastery of “Intellectual Property Addresses”. Ah well, we know better now.
Well said Steve! Keep on fighting …
[edit] – ah, Tom, I just saw that your name links to your website. Going there now..
Excellent letter, Steve. Thanks for articulating a lot of important points!
Some of this beggars belief…
Cheers,
John.
Great points, as always! I don’t mean to get too far away from the topic of the implications of the D E Bill, but one thing you mentioned struck me-you said: ‘Unless one values fame over music there is no reason at all that I can see for the old model…’ It seems to me that, sadly, a large percentage of musicians are more interested in fame than in music. You’ve talked before about the dangers of buying into the ‘rock myth’ where musicians are manipulated because of their desire for fame. I recently watched Michael Moore’s ‘Capitalism A Love Affair’ and he pointed out one thing that helps maintain the status quo: people think that they have a chance to get rich themselves, so they will continue to participate in a system that will most likely insure they won’t. Anyhow, interesting exchange of ideas here, I’ll keep checking back to see where it goes-As John G up there said, Thanks for articulating these points!
The Digital Economy Bill Mike Outram ~ The Electric Campfire // Apr 9, 2010 at 8:12 am
[...] http://www.stevelawson.net/2010/04/my-letter-to-the-musicians-union-about-the-digital-economy-bill/ [...]
Hello,
I have read through all of this with great interest, but sadly I don’t understand large amounts of it. I don’t understand how this bill harms musicians wanting to make a living via the Internet. However, a point I would like to add is that piracy is plainly rife. My son is 11 and is laughed at by his mates because every download on his i-pod is paid for. At his age, all of his friends know where to download songs illegally. Well-off neighbours are all the same – if it isn’t ripped of CDs it is ripped-off DVDs. People conveniently ignore the fact that pirate copies are the same as physically stealing from a shop. How do you challenge such widespread selfish behaviour? Regardless of how the money is being shared out between record companies, distributors, artists etc., the legitimate recipients are losing income because it is so easy for so many to steal. This has nothing to do with business models.
Gareth,
there are lots of elements in the bill that will affect musicians. Not least of all the creation of a culture of fear and suspicion around sharing content online. Whether or not a particular piece of shared media constitutes ‘illegal file sharing’ (sorry, you’re not going to get me to call it Piracy – it’s a patently ridiculous term for ’sharing music’) will be deeply unclear to many, and will mean that the very valuable marketing/advertising/advocacy role performed by people who share music around will be lost. That will be tragic.
Whether or not those kids at your son’s school would be buying the music if they couldn’t download it is totally up in the air. It may well be that for many of them, the kind of music they are listening to is not something that their parents would buy for them, and I doubt most of them have access to their own debit card, so buying with their own money is largely not an option (unless they stretch to paying the insane fixed prices of downloads on iTunes, and buy themselves gift cards… no, I couldn’t possibly expect kids to do that – ALL the music I bought until I was working full time was bought budget price or second hand. I was never able to afford ‘full price’ for CDs/Records. I have spent over the years tens of thousands of pounds on music, and the number of ‘full price’ albums I’ve bought is in low double figures… And remember, not one of those second hand sales paid a penny to the artists or labels, but was and is totally legal.)
Most studies seem to suggest that ‘mainstream’ kids spend the majority of their discretionary entertainment money on computer games. So them downloading music is something on the margins of that, or outside of it. Would they pay for it? The first album I ever bought was In 1983. I bought my second in 1984. If I’d been given a load of other stuff to listen to, it wouldn’t have changed the amount I invested in the economy.
The notion that sharing music online is “the same as physically stealing from a shop” is utterly absurd. In the shop scenario, the item itself (not the recorded content, the item) has cost money to manufacture, distribute, design and host. To replace it in the shop were it stolen would double that cost. The existence of the shop has a cost, per minute/hour/day/week of existence.
Move that online and there is no item. There is only content. Content that once created has no ongoing cost. The people making it need to make a living, but in order to make a living they need fans. Sales don’t lead to fans, fans lead to sales. The days when discovery involved an exchange of cash are LONG behind us. Now, with Spotify, last.fm, youtube, not just online but on multi-channel TV, specialist radio, etc. I never need to buy music I haven’t heard. If I can’t hear it via a ‘legal’ channel, there are many that are currently illegal. The alternative to sampling new music via bit torrent isn’t ‘buying it to see if it’s OK’ – that absurd, patronising, insulting and naive. The alternative is that I as the artist make it available to be listened to on my site, so that the transaction whereby someone who then wants to pay for it happens at the point of discovery. Or they simply don’t get to hear it.
The BPI’s figures for ‘losses’ assume that every trackable illegal download is a lost sale. That’s nuts. They might as well suggest that lending music to people, or playing music to your friends is ruining the music industries. There are as many categories of downloader as there are people involved. Some have ethical frameworks for their activity (spurious or otherwise), some are less scrupulous. The vast majority of the unscrupulous ones are opportunists, they aren’t people who were previously spending a fortune on music.
So what do we do? Sue them? Great, they’ll just stop listening to the music made by the people who sue them. They’ll go elsewhere, they’ll rip CDs instead, they’ll swap DVDS of MP3s. What’s lost if they do that? The metadata relating to listening and sharing vanishes, even though it’s vital to musicians wanting to know where their audience is, paid or otherwise.
Musicians need listeners. The web gives us a way to to turn listeners into fans, into people interested in where the music comes from, who its by and why financially supporting that music is important. A large number of music listeners are happy to pay for things that can legally have for free, let alone illegally. People who pay for music on my site on average pay more per album than they would on iTunes, despite it being legally available to them for free right there.
There are entire philosophical and economic arguments to be had about attempting to force an economy based on charging for scarcity onto a culture and environment that facilitates ubiquity, abundance, and infinitely replicable media at zero cost. The argument that ‘it’s all just stealing’ is philosophically naive, materially absurd and in no way addresses any kind of intelligent way forward for engaging with an audience of people who love music and want to hear lots of it, and would be deeply upset if it ceased to exist.
I think the issues from my viewpoint are as follows:-
1) A rushed bill on such a complex range of issues receiving apparently unqualified support from the MU
2) Unpacking these issues we find the need to deal with how musicians and others work with music. A statistic that does not surprise me is the one that states that ‘illegal’ downloaders are also purchasing the most music legitimately. How does this happen? Well take me for example. This afternoon I bought the Britten War Requiem on iTunes because I wanted a 2nd version leading to a performance in a week’s time. I also have paid for another version from a Russian website that I was interested in. I have watched clips of the work and downloaded them from YouTube. I also own discs and Lps of the work. I consider myself a supporter of the music industry and I have played on recordings for EMI myself and so I would not want to deny colleagues their royalties etc. I would say I buy more music now than ever before but I also go ‘under the radar’ occasionally simply beacause the Internet has made things available that simply can’t be bought anymore. For example, try purchasing the Rachmaninov 3rd piano concerto in the outstanding version with Lazar Berman and Claudio Abbado recorded in the 80s. It’s no longer available .. except via torrents. I would buy it if I could! Under the new legislation I would priobably receive one of the warning letters and face ‘consequences’.
This begins to roughly equate to the motorist that gets caught for speeding at 35 in a 30 mph area even though they generally obey the speed limit and drive with due regard for others etc
3) The implications of this bill getting through will lead to arguably more draconian measures once ISPs are controlled in this way – it feels like the CCTV we now have on every corner!
4) Wrongful accusations could lead to a vast array of implications for some people including loss of job as this legislation hots up
These are just a few of the things that immediately spring to mind but I am sure that lawyers will see much else that could follow.
I’m off to BUY some more music!
Two points in that that are worth reiterating:
- a download is not equal to a lost sale. I used to download left and right, any artist that sounded interesting (particularly before MySpace, last.fm, etc really existed)… and anything that I listened to more than once or twice promptly went on my Amazon wish list to eventually purchase.
- Downloading is not the same as theft. Although their rhetoric would suggest otherwise, even the RIAA (sorry, I’m on this side of the pond, can’t speak about UK :p) realizes this — every suit they’ve brought has been civil, and criminal charges only come up in cases of mass infringement and distribution (mostly Scene groups, as opposed to end-users). That is, of course, in addition to the points Steve brought up about the differences in cost.
(The rhetoric thing has always bothered me in trials too… although the RIAA realizes it’s not theft per se and bring civil charges, the lawyers like to use terms like theft and stealing. Moreover, anybody they bring a suit against are generally not being caught *downloading*, but *sharing* — they make no comments about the source of the music, and in fact in the Jammie Thomas trial I believe one of her defenses was “why would I download that song? I own the CD!”)
Steve,
The Internet is brilliant for trying before you buying. I have discovered so much new music through MySpace and YouTube, but the point is that I always ultimately pay for a physical CD if I wish to keep something (and provided the product is available) – unlike many people I know. Of course, I also used to tape plenty of albums as a teenager when I couldn’t afford them, but rather than contributing to the killing of an industry, this encouraged me into becoming as mad about music as I am now. However, when I see affluent adults ripping off CDs and DVDs for each other, that is a different matter. Particularly when a digital copy is as good sound-wise as the original, unlike say a poor vinyl to tape transfer. These same adults will often argue that CDs are too expensive, and that they would buy them if they were cheaper, but that is tosh. If you cannot afford a BMW you stick to a second-hand Vauxhall, you don’t just walk in and steal one off the forecourt. Digital music is simply too easy to copy. You are right about the kids spending most of their money on computer games and ipod apps though.
Too many people faced with a choice of “should I buy this music and support the people who made it” or “should I spend my money on beer/Sky/dinner or whatever” can now simply choose both because it is so easy to obtain illegitimate copies of music to listen to. I disagree with what you say about it not being theft because there is no physical product involved; the “thing” which is being stolen is in effect the copyright – nobody has the innate right to listen to somebody else’s music just because they want to. Either they have to pay for a CD/download, or the artist has to grant them the right to a legal but free download.
Gareth –
Accepting that ‘pirating’ from LP to tape as a kid helped foster your interest in (and financial support of) music do you really think that the way to help teenage file-sharers evolve to supporting the music/filmmakers they like is to have them responsible for their household net connection being cut?
Their dad can’t search for jobs, their mum can’t submit her tax return, their kid brother can’t do his homework, his sister can’t get health advice. He’s really going to love the music industry after that! Think about it.. Please!
I want to help the wealthy serial copiers who never pay for content (of whom I know a fair few) shift their attitude – but beating them with a stick while the carrot goes moldy at the back of the fridge isn’t the way.
Good response above, Steve. One of the points that doesn’t seem to be made often enough is this… use the Bill to clamp down on the current situation, and the result will *not* be a smooth running music industry with everyone dutifully buying everything they want to hear. The result will be Russia… dodgy market stalls in every underpass, where you can buy a DVD for a couple of quid, containing the complete works of Pink Floyd, Madonna, Metallica, the Beatles or whatever.
…so what if I go to a friend’s house to hear it? If I listen to it there every night for a few weeks, but in so doing, have heard it enough an decide I don’t need to buy it? Is that immoral? Illegal?
What about a song that gets played to 7 million people on the radio. The artist makes a tiny fraction of a penny per listener. Quite often back in my radio listening days, I would hear songs I liked on the radio, but hear them so much that I chose not to buy them. Should I have felt obliged to buy them as a ‘thankyou’?
What if all the music I get is presents? I never buy anything, I just listen to music that other people buy for me? It’s paid for, but does the fact that I see it as ‘free’ remove my ethical right to listen?
What if I and my friend both have ten pounds each at a gig. The artist has 2 albums out, each 10 pounds. If I buy one and he buys the other, should we swap them, increasing the chances that we’ll fall in love with the music and buy the other one next time round? Or remain ignorant of the other music? That would seem insane, despite the swapping being illegal… If the artist has released another album the next time round, perhaps we’ll both buy the new album… The more music I have by a person, the more I am constantly reminded of my love for their music, whether it’s through shelf space for CDs, or screen space in iTunes…
What if I work in the music industry and friends who work at record labels give me endless free albums? All legit (after all, the cost of pressing those CDs is recoupable from the album’s profits) – legal, sanctioned by the label and the industry, but actually costing the musicians money. I have THOUSANDS of pounds worth of free CDs here, a mere fraction of which I was ever able to write about. It’s review-roulette. Send out a thousand CDs, hope to get a dozen magazine reviews. Not even remotely worth the investment on an indie release, but still standard practice. It would be far better for the artists if the journalists just torrented the ones they wanted to hear or write about. But then we get to the point of asking ‘who is a journalist?’ the one paid by the magazine, or the one with an audience who listen? The fan who writes loving reviews, or the scathing wordsmith who destroys years of work in a few sentences…
Nothing is cut and dried. The value in music is neither metric, monetary or linear. it changes from song to song, person to person, medium to medium and situation to situation. If I thought that all my music was worth to the people who loved it was ten pounds per album, I’d be heartbroken. The time that people take to listen to it over and over and soundtrack their lives with it is worth far more to me personally, and in a tangible way to my career than the tenner they might have paid or the CD. No tenner, no problem. No listens, BIG problem.
The bill is rushed legislation. Only justifiction for that would be a sever problem that was new and needed immediate action. File sharing isn’t something thats just been invented, and whereas it is clearly wide spread there seems to be little or no evidence of it actually harming anyone. Remember how radio was supposed to be real bad for sales and we needed needle time restrictions, then home taping was killing music, then burning cd s was the prob. Now its file sharing.
Not saying it doesn’t have potential to be a prob but at the mo its no worse than we had in past.
The kids now with i pods full of downloads had parents who had massive collections of c90s.
Personally i don’t do illegal downloads. ( Well some sites i ‘ve used i wouldn’t be sure of status. ) Now why don’t i illegal download? Respect for artists? To be honest artists i respect generally so small i wouldn’t expect to find their stuff with any ease. Prob mainly cos with last and spotify i don’t feel the need. If i was 11 and listened to most of my music via my phone in a playground things would be different. Act won’t catch anyone downloading regular, they’ll find ways around it. It will create atmosphere of fear, parents terrified kids might download illegally, internet cafes paranoid they could be closed. Etc and web sites that allow any sort of uploading will be running scared. Could youtube be closed if i upload an unauthorized clip? That level of fear can’t be healthy for anyone. Act goes totally over the top and tramples over peoples privacy, and gives govt new powers – all this and we see it rushed through the commons in two hours. Well labour leave office much like they came in – as real sad disappointment.
I wonder how many people supporting this bill have ever borrowed a book from one of their friends? For that matter, have any of them ever bought a second-hand book? How many of them have sat in a doctor’s waiting room and read magazines in the rack to pass the time?
It’s generally accepted that sharing printed material is entirely normal, despite the fact that every shared copy is, in theory a lost sale. Even more so, in many cases, given that, unlike with music, people don’t normally read books and magazines over and over again – the book that I read while at my parents’ house last week really is a lost sale, because, even though I enjoyed reading it, I’m not ever going to buy it now.
The argument that sequential sharing of this nature is somehow different to the simultaneous sharing that takes place when a music file is copied is disingenuous. Ultimately what’s happened in both cases is that two or more people have the benefit of something that just one of them has paid for. And there are only two options here: Either that is fundamentally wrong or it isn’t. And I think nearly everyone would agree that, in fact, it isn’t fundamentally wrong.
If it’s not wrong in principle on a small scale, then still it isn’t wrong in principle on a large scale. It only becomes wrong in practice if you add in another principle: that the creator has an absolute right to an income independent of whether or not people are willing to purchase his or her material. In some socialist utopia, that might be the case (to each according to his needs, etc), but it surely doesn’t apply in anything resembling a free market economy.
Of course, it may be true that if too few of us are willing to pay for music, then creators will become few and far between and we’ll end up with less music to share. And I’d agree that that’s an undesirable prospect. But who suffers most in such a scenario? We, the consumers, do. If making music is no longer profitable, the music makers can find another job. But if the music makers stop making music, the consumers can’t get it anywhere else. If that’s the case, though, why legislate to prevent it happening? If the consumers kill their own golden goose, that’s their problem. Lack of popular music or the latest movies never hurt anyone; it’s not like health care or food or shelter or anything else that really matters. But if anyone is worried about a possible shortage of new music, then the remedy is in their own hands: they can pay creators to create it.
Technological change has always threatened jobs. The introduction of the printing press put the scribes out of work. The railways made stage coaches redundant. Motorised vehicles in turn ended the golden age of the railways. You can’t legislate against the forward march of technology, and you can’t legislate against humanity. We are inherently social animals, and sharing is fundamental to our nature. If technology now makes sharing much easier, then that is a good thing. It’s still a good thing even if it causes short-term loss to those who previously built a business model on it being difficult. In the long run, the benefits to society as a whole outweigh the loss to those who are made redundant by progress.
Sharing isn’t stealing. It never has been, and it never will be. But denying people the right to share is an assault on humanity itself.
It’s heartening to see that not everyone on your side of the pond is as thick as Lily Allen.
It’s simple: Why is the British Government passing bills to protect the interests of music companies? When did we give them the mandate to do that? What did I miss?
It almost like…..socialism -Aghhh!
The “very valuable marketing/advertising/advocacy role performed by people who share music…” is something that every Indie artist is hip to-well said Steve-o
My wife reminds me of the bands ‘String Cheese Incident’ or ‘Phish’, who, taking their cue from the Dead, totally encouraged their fans to tape their shows, then share the music/tapes around with each other. Those bands do pretty well & I wish folks at my shows would ravenously tape my set, and share it with their friends too. Different from ‘file sharing’ I know, but seems to illustrate the importance of grass roots sharing. Another point I’d like to make is about laws in general, I’m not an anarchist, by any means, but it seems laws designed to curtail inconsiderate people’s harmful activities rarely do. I know this is over simplistic, but another way to put it is: bad people will do what they want regardless of what law is in place and people who would voluntarily obey a law probably would behave honorably either way, whether mandated to or not. Too often laws backfire and honorable folks receive disproportional punishments, while the dishonorable ones continue to run rampant.
Tom H – your views smack of someone who believes that anything to do with the online world and music is part of something that is stealing from you – the artist. Whilst I 100% believe that every artist and creative person should be justly rewarded for the gifts they bring to the world we need to get down to the reasons why the BPI is pushing this bill through parliament.
The music industry has had its head in the sand about ecommerce and the commercial opportunities of the internet since the inception of the world wide web. It took a computer company – Apple – to make a viable business selling music online. The benefits of audience reach that Steve has mentioned was largely ignored by the music industry yet small bands and usigned artists are embracing this new medium to reach out to new fans in ways never possible before. Websites such as http://www.cdbaby.com offer ways to market for unsigned artists in a marketplace where it’s easy to preview and discover new music. Online booksellers and even supermarkets are offering legal ways to easily download music. What has the music industry done in response? It has panicked, realised its own lack of innovation and have turned to suing their fanbase. This is commercial suicide.
A couple of years ago I tried to venture into the world of MP3 music. I went to the BPI’s (or it may have been another music industry body’s website) that offered around 50 links to websites selling music online. I was looking for Nirvana’s Nevermind album as I only owned it on vinyl and wanted to listen to it again. Around half of the websites listed turned out to be broken links. Another half of those left all used the same backend system that didn’t list that album. I was down to around a dozen sites. Most of those required you to register on the website before you could search for music or find out how much it cost. Only a handful of those were UK based. In the end I was left with iTunes and Tescos. Both of these offered the album for £7.99 – the same price as a top 10 chart album. In the end, I drove into town and picked up the album for £4 from HMV. Where in this scenario do you see the music industry’s attempt at capitalising on the market that almost every other industry has adapted to?
Where is the innovation? Who in the music industry is kicking themselves because they didn’t think up Spotify? How about I give just one example of what they could have done. Do you go to gigs? Did you ever buy bootlegs LPs of any gigs? If you did you know it’s because you love listening to a band’s live performance – I certainly do. When a band is on tour, is it finacially viable to record their set? If it is, why not release every single show as an MP3, available direct from the band or from the record label? If 10,000 fans show up, how many of those will buy a legal MP3 recording of that show? In fact, how many truly dedicated fans would buy several shows? How many would buy them all? In fact, why can’t I buy more live recordings than what’s currently available? Look on Youtube, it’s swimming in live videos. Why couldn’t the music industry cash in on this (unless of course the act of recording every gig proves prohibitively expensive but I’m hoping someone reading this – possibly yourself – could let us know the answer). My point – the music industry’s reaction to having their head up their arse about the commercial benefits of the internet has resulted in their decision to throw money at suing fans and making donations to governments to push through draconian laws that will seriously damage ecommerce in this country. And you support this?
thanks for commenting, Paul.
Re: your gig sales point, quite a few people have done it successfully – Howard Jones did it for a tour, and Pearl Jam have done it with both CDs and MP3s. I think even Metallica did it… (probably so they could then sue the people who bought it for something or other
)
About the gig stuff:
Einstuerzende Neubauten did something like this on their 2004 tour. You went to the concert, paid $25 (or so), and on your way out, you got a two-disc set of the performance you just saw.
Here in Boston, the Middle East regularly makes recordings of its live shows, and the artists are able to sell those. (I’d have to look at the details to find out if the artists can just give them away.)
I know Clear Channel venues tried doing something like this a few years ago. But because of a number of factors (their own incompetence, labels’ bull-headedness, the thicket of copyright laws) they weren’t able to run with it.
Yet another example of label protectionism holding back good ideas.
The Allman Brothers have done a great job of selling CDs through Instant Live for about 4-5 years now. They also launched live video streaming for their Beacon run last year. Here in Britain, I was able to purchase a CD at the Bad Company gig I went to 2 weeks ago and a memory stick for the Yes show I attended last year – so certainly for the bigger venues it seems to be taking off.
Hi, I am in the middle of having a similar debate with my union, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. Here’s the post that started it: http://nathanieltapley.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/why-my-union-is-wrong/ and there are links to the union reponses I got there.
I’m going to try and kick off a proper debate on the issues within my union but have had similar concerns about remaining a member as you apparently have with the MU.
Ummmm… As a member of the WGGB please ignore the grammar in my last sentence above. I’ve been up since 5:30 with toddlers….
Steve, really liked the letter and your subsequent responses. On the strength of that i’d like you to stay with the union. Someone has to drag them into the new world and i think you’re doing a good job of yanking that rope.
thanks
Down the plug’ole (for now) // Apr 15, 2010 at 1:47 am
[...] washup. (Nathaniel Tapley with a writer’s perspective on why the D.E. Bill is a Bad Thing. Steve Lawson with a musician’s perspective on why the D.E. Bill is a Bad Thing. More background from Steve [...]
Just to put this in a bit of perspective, according to Thomas Dolby and Gary Numan, the MU tried to ban synthesizers in the late 1970s / early 1980s:
See eg http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/09/30/thomas-dolby-interview/
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6864650.ece
That seems as utterly absurd now as their support for crippling the internet.. also seems now. The MU does many things well and I shall remain a member, but coping with the future and technological change is not their long suit.
Systems have always been hacked – cheques, telephones, DVDs. That doesn’t mean that the business model is broken, stupid. I’m a musican and I’m very happy for you to give your music away for free, but I (like most of the industry) would prefer to charge for CDs/downloads and would like the legal system to allow me to do that, not reward the freeloaders. You might donate some money to a band you start listening to, but the next generation expects free music now and won’t pay you a fig. Imagine if the law stopped Starbucks from charging for coffee and all they could do was for a donation on the way out. All these arguments about ‘getting it’ are crock. You need rules in this economy, but legitimisation of those that can get around the existing ones.
David, no one is stopping anyone from charging for anything. As I’ve stated, I’m not against *a* digital economy act, I’m against this one, specifically because it was written by lobbyists for a particular part of the industry using specious, misleading statistics to scare musicians and politicians alike with Chicken Licken type “the sky is falling” lies that just aren’t born out by any kind of transformative look at what all this means for people who make music and people who listen to it.
It’s interesting that you dismiss arguments about ‘getting it’, while seemingly demonstrating that there are large bits to this that you don’t indeed get. There is nothing in the legal system to stop you charging for downloads. I continue to accrue sales via iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and other stores, and some people STILL are willing to pay more on a ‘pay what you want’ basis than they would through those other outlets. Others are discovering my music by downloading it for free, at zero cost to me, and that’s fantastic! Instead of me paying a fortune for a radio plugger, for magazine ads, for TV spots etc. I can just get people who like my music to share it with their friends, who them come back and talk to me, and choose to pay for it. Everybody wins.
But that’s not what the bill is about, at all. It’s about file sharing involving copyright materials, and the penalties for it. It involves the wholesale breach of privacy (do you think the postman should be able to open your post in case you have something that he might be able to report? Or that the police should be able to do spot checks on your CD collection to check for CDRs? Or maybe just follow home anyone buying CDRs, and raid their house for illegal music/video?) and a REALLY blunt edged method for discerning who is ‘guilty’ and who should suffer, all based on a desperation driven by utterly made up statistics.
That’s no way to write and implement laws. Let’s have a proper discussion about it, and a bill that reflects an understanding of the tech involved and the real impact on an industry that has fairly consistently got in the way of most music reaching an audience for the last 50 years.
Umm… you can charge whatever you want for your CDs and downloads, David. How is that affected by what Steve chooses to do on his site?
Hi All -
Some great thoughts here. I was a member of the MU for about 10 years before I left to go live in LA. Now I’m back I’ve been intending to re-join. Strange since I also do not (did not) support the Bill. It is utterly misdirected to penalise your “customers” and (quite rightly as has been eloquently pointed out here) flies in the face of what the internet is. BUT…the MU has done me a ton of good as a player and writer. They indemnify me against nasty lawsuits when I perform, they fight for my rates of pay, they put pressure on unscrupulous venues, tv companies etc and they stood shoulder to shoulder with me when I went through the horror of redundancy. I also know that when you join such organisations (much like political parties) they are not going to tick all the boxes. I do believe that it’s better to be standing inside the tent pissing out than standing outside pissing in (excuse the analogy). If we as musician’s don’t agree with the union we must band together and BE HEARD. If you are a muso and you haven’t joined then JOIN and have a voice. We must speak out for our audiences, they deserve that. Walking away and moaning from the sidelines is not an option.
For those of you on here who are not musicians but enjoy the music… thanks! PLEASE continue to support the creativity of those whose music speaks to you and where you can please try to pay for it. It makes a hell of a difference.
Hey Steve!
This is slightly tangential, but; have you seen what the MU and BPI is doing now? What are your thoughts on THAT hot pile of weirdness?
[just in case anyone's wondering: the MU/BPI agreement for session rates is currently being negotiated. Summary: musicians lose in terms of earnings, as a record company could try to cram all the work into a shorter time frame. There's a Facebook group, of course, where's there's more information:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=127223247303810
Additional disclaimer: I'm not part of the MU and never have been. If you can see a train coming, don't walk on to the tracks, as almost nobody says nowadays.]
Hi Steve,
Great letter. I’ve just finished my final year dissertation on the evolution of the interent as a means of promoting music and couldn’t agree more with you.
If the digital economy bill is fully enforced it we truly be the beginning of turning the internet into a one-way medium.
I have a guest lecture with someone from the MU this afternoon and i’ll be sure to raise some of the points you have made here
Adam
Hi Steve,
I stumbled across this page as I searched for the MU website – I was very surprised to learn of their stance on the DE Bill. Thanks for your informative and well-argued points! I have been meaning to join the MU for years and am just getting round to it, but this is definitely food for thought. I think you’ll be interested and amused to hear comedian (and my boyfriend) Nick Doody’s rant on the Digital Economy Bill which aired on Radio 4’s Now Show back in April:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDU-2RGcJKQ
Let’s hope the current bill isn’t fully enforced.
Cheers,
Kirsty
Wow. Glad I found this because I was just about to register with MU. I am highly opposed to the DEB due to its stubborn, backwards thinking.
Can somebody please tell me why P2P file-sharing is illegal when stupid jokes like Spotify exist?