Do You Love Music? Silicon Valley Doesn’t | Hacker News Reader

Do You Love Music? Silicon Valley Doesn’t

nytimes.com

25 pointstysone71 comments

I got four paragraphs in before I said to myself "This reads like a hit piece, who is this guy?"

A quick search of the author reveals a slant and bias so strong you'd think he was a lobbyist writing legislation instead of an Op-Ed.

Whatever points he's trying to make about the "value gap" he runs right to the absolute same party-line Azoff, the RIAA, and multi-national conglomerate rights-holder firms want: Fiddle with safe harbors, and get the US government to jack up the rates streaming services pay for music by way of tweaking the rules for terrestrial radio. It's all very clear for anybody who is keeping track of this debate.

So, if you want a consolidated, heavily biased stump speech designed to raise sympathy ("Think of the poor musicians! Think of Prince!") and deflect from the more customary benefactors of such changes, multi-billion dollar companies, here you go. It is what it is.

And, while I'm a fan of Prince and his successes, I think the guy isn't an icon to be emulated when it came to rights management and his approach to "the music business" in some ways. As a musician he had just as many flops - if not more - than actual hits. He also wanted to completely ban cover songs, which is a really shitty and selfish attitude in my opinion. Guys like Prince and the author would, by logical extension, want to kill off "remix culture" and some of the changes that are pushing toward real, useful Copyright Reform in time.

I don't think SV and VC doesn't love music, and I don't think the whole intention is to rip off music artists. The industry already rips off music artists to an insane degree. The music industry doesn't have a lot of high ground to get preachy until it cleans up its own accounting (Eminem's successful lawsuit regarding digital royalties for licenses vs. sales) and contract issues (Kesha and Kemosabe) that reflect poorly on the motivations, actions, and long-term vision of the industry.

What if the music industry saw the sales of their music more as a marketing awareness play than an income generator?

Songs played on Youtube, Spotify, Pandora, etc. and their covers drives little direct revenue to the artist. I doubt that will change anytime soon.

However, that drives serious brand awareness to the artist, who could then sell other add-ons (music tickets, t-shirts, limited edition releases, etc)

Maybe I'm naive to the industry. But most business owners I know would kill for marketing that paid them and returned an ROI.

> However, that drives serious brand awareness to the artist, who could then sell other add-ons (music tickets, t-shirts, limited edition releases, etc)

Not all genres lend to live performance. Not all audiences buy t-shirts. Not all audiences purchase music at all.

What genres have artists that do not sell anything outside of their music?

No, you're absolutely correct in the traditional way of doing business - just think back to AM/FM radio in the US. The songs were advertisements to go buy the record, which made the record companies a lot of money and the musician usually pennies.

Once people didn't have to pay huge mark-up to get music they rationalized that musicians weren't getting much anyway - so, let's spend our money on live shows, merchandise, fan club stuff - and there's a lot of music lovers that I believe have spent their money from recorded music on other music related things. Not sure there's data to support it, but I've always thought of recordings as kind of the throw-away element to being in the music industry: Nobody makes money on them unless you get them in a TV commercial or a movie soundtrack.

No matter if you think it's a "hit piece" or not, why should Google and radio stations get to profit off of others work without giving money back to the creators?

"The song “Drag Me Down” by One Direction appeared on YouTube 2,700 times after the service was asked to take down unlicensed copies. These 2,700 pirated uploads allowed Google to continue profiting from advertising while the artists got nothing."

That is objectively not true. Labels are very strict about issuing takedown notices. The only videos that stay up are those using content ID, in which case the artist gets paid.

I know this is an op-ed, but shame on the NYT for allowing such a blatant falsehood to be published.

Didn't Google make participation in music content id contingent on participation in an unrelated music program through youtube that artists weren't keen on? I seem to recall seeing a artist blog about it posted here months ago.

And by music, we mean only the radio-friendly corporate pop and top 40 that used to have a stranglehold on music revenue.

>radio-friendly corporate pop and top 40

This also happens to be the most popular music in history, so I don't know that it's worth completely brushing off with angst.

Which came first: the Top 10 hit, or the media blitz to convince you that it's what everyone else is listening to?

The hit, which is why stuff out of left field like Len's "Steal My Sunshine" instantly got pushed by KROQ and the record label and to this day rakes in tons and tons in royalties for a guy who absolutely hated being a pop sensation and to this day thinks the song is a horribly twisted joke and can't believe it was a hit:

http://www.stereogum.com/1877413/behind-the-music-steal-my-s...

This week's "number one" song by Rhianna has "moved" 54,000 copies, and those numbers are almost certainly as inflated as possible.

From Forbes:

"Anti rules the Billboard 200 with just 54,000 equivalent units moved. If that figure was comprised only of actual sales, it would make it one of the lowest-selling number one albums of all time, but it’s actually a combination of both pure purchases and streams. When looking solely at sales, Anti sold a paltry 17,000 copies. Yes, that’s right—the number one album in the largest music market in the world sold just 17,000 units."

Funny story with Rihanna and "moving" copies: Jay-Z struck a deal with Samsung to "buy" the 1 million download credits and give them away to people on the internet so her album would go Platinum by RIAA standards in its first week (provided they all got downloaded, which they did). Talk about a joke.

Yeah, if you read Hit Men by Fredric Dannen, you can learn about how they used to skew the numbers for record sales by counting every copy that shipped, regardless of whether it was sold or returned.

And today, we are told that 1,500 streaming plays equals an album sale, which is presumably because they tell us that royalties are something like $0.0017 per play and the artist's cut should be around $2.25 per album sale? Who knows.

Not so much the "Who knows" bit at the end because I think your numbers are exactly right on the Billboard/RIAA counting process. It was recently revised. Having worked in a big box US media retailer I can still recall putting 27 DVDs on the shelf of the Johnny Knoxville flop "The Ringer" and taking the same 27 DVDs off the rack later to ship...somewhere else. A lot of 'eat these and we will cut you a better deal on the ones you REALLY want' type deals were made, I'm pretty sure - no hard evidence, but fits the industry profile.

Obviously the hit. Not listening to pop music doesn't make you some special snowflake that's immune to advertising, it just means you don't like pop music.

You're reading a lot into my question, and it turns out that you're dead wrong: I like pop music.

When an average music video has hundreds millions of views, 2700 views is actually an incredible proof of how quick google is to take down pirated music. For comparison, the original "Drag Me Down" video has over 459,286,538 views.

It's not 2700 views. It's saying that "Drag Me Down" was uploaded to YouTube 2700 different times, which each time getting its own distinct view counter.

That's a reasonable interpretation. In that case - it just goes to show how much work and effort is required to remove pirated copies.

Also - I'm pretty sure a lot of these so called pirated versions don't really include the original, unaltered audio track, or just include a few snippets from the video.

> First, Congress should update the safe harbor rules of the copyright act to achieve the balance that was intended... That means strong, well-defined consequences for repeat offenders, easing the process for filing notices and ensuring that services are using the best technology to take pirated material off their sites and keep it off.

Is it really too difficult to file a DMCA claim? Especially since most content holders seem to use automated, mass report systems these days.

Also, I bet YouTube could get behind the "best technology" requirement, since it would likely make it impossible to make a user-uploaded-video site unless you already have the technology resources and content databases of someone like Google...

Anecdote: I have been to musician forums where you will find plenty of threads bitching about The Evils Of Youtube Destroying the Industry. Without a hint of irony, they are often nearby to "What Are You Listening To Now?" threads full of Youtube videos of other musicians' favorite music.

This is what the article reminds me of. The big music industry sometimes seems clueless to how people actually experience music. They instead want to blame the (visibly public) tool, and think that drastically tightening up the tool will be the solution to their problems.

As seen above, music is a natural part of communication and identity etc. People naturally like to share music with others. Even in the "record industry" days, people traded tapes all the time (for instance, tape trading popularized many of the speed/thrash metal bands in their day. Such as Metallica, which is one of the big reasons why their anti-Napster attitude was so ironic).

For this reason, I believe far more in content ID type solutions than strengthening the takedown weapon. If 2700 people upload One Direction songs, so what as long as One Direction is correctly identified and paid for all videos and views?

Certainly there is work to be done on effective monetization models for streaming, and the mechanics of content ID, and other challenges. But actually calling Google and streaming services pirates (as this article did) is completely wrongheaded.

I think Google and streaming services are legitimate businesses. If the industry tightens the noose too much on the legitimate businesses, consumers absolutely would go back to underground, the new Napsters.

Back in the day, just after Napster went down, Courtney Love wrote a really great piece about what the actual economics look like being an artist under the major labels, and has some interesting insight into the imminent changes in distribution:

http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/

Keep in mind that this was written in 2000.

Biggest problem of tech disrupting the music industry is that it has completely devalued recorded music for several generations of people who typically were large paying consumers of music. No regulation will fix this and the long term effects of this will likely kill off a few genres that do not lend to current monetization strategies.

Those genres won't be killed-off, they'll be driven underground and further into the background from the pop genres that are much more easily monetizable. Where jazz and classical are now (not dead, but not profitable) will go various categories of metal, world, and other eclectic-mashups that require more attention from the listener than does, say, a Sailor Twift radio-hit.

Assuming that pop music is more easily monetizable is an iffy assumption. There's much more money to be made in pop music but the number of slices in the pie are far fewer. I don't understand how the rest of your comment will do anything but predict more homeless musicians.

Just came in here to point out that we've allowed a title with a double bind in it on our site, which is not cool. I love music and I'm part of the SV culture, or at least on the fringes.

How about a "this is a double bind" argument button next to stories?

The article should be titled "The traditional music distribution industry wants its revenue back."

Is there that much difference between getting paid say $2 a year from Spotify or other services and getting paid nothing from pirated works? As a musician, I'd rather people listen to my tracks regardless of how they're distributed rather than trying to get a few dollars out of them and severely limiting their distribution. It seems like the music industry was fucked over by Spotify way more than it was by Napster/piracy in general. Piracy is still pretty niche while Spotify, Youtube, etc. are all mainstream. Perhaps artists will start rethinking the benefits of such distribution channels. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of music whose copyright is in the hands of giant corporations, it's already too late. Let's be clear that most money being lost wasn't money going to artists but money going to big corporations. The artists who supported such systems were just too stupid to see this. Now they can't make a living with music anymore.

I don't see how your argument makes sense. Spotify is worse for artists than piracy? Could you elaborate?

Spotify pays artists as much as piracy does, in many cases, while be socially acceptable and normalized.

For example, I got a book at Barnes and Noble the other day, and when I responded to the cashier's pitch for a Barnes and Noble card with something like "No thanks, I get most of my books through torrents", they looked at me like I was trying to talk about the taste of baby meat. Your average content consumer pays for media, and there is no definitive evidence pirates would pay for music and media if free downloads were not available. Spotify, on the other hand, is targeted at those people who would normally buy music, and offering a cheaper alternative that also pays the artist substantially less (almost nothing, in some cases).

I see your point and I guess I hadn't thought of it like that. In my case, I pay for Spotify as a replacement for pirating. I probably buy more music now in a physical form now that cassettes and records have become available. I would point out that the reason I pay for Spotify is not due to the access to music (I could get most of it for free online), but for the convenience... I can't store all the music I want to hear on my phone and I don't want to run a Plex server or whatever 24/7 to deal with that problem (let alone buy a bunch of drives and fill them with music!). I also appreciate the curation they provide (the Discover Weekly is a regular source of artists I've never heard of before), so I think there are some intangible benefits to the artists from Spotify beyond the meager pay. I've definitely gone to shows based solely on having heard an artists on Spotify.

I'm not sure how sold I am on the idea that Spotify converts more people away from buying music "the old fashioned way" than it does convert former pirates into now (meager) paying customers, but I can definitely see it as a possibility. Unfortunately buying music sucks. Having to keep track of, discover, and store music (in any medium!) sucks. Especially if you aren't a collector of some kind. Spotify/Google Play/Apple music make that easier and that's why people are going to pay for it.

Not mentioned: YouTube is a break even business. They already pay all they can to license content.

http://marketingland.com/report-youtube-roughly-break-even-e...

While I agree tech is hurting music, the recording industry has been ripping off artists since records were popular. The entirety of Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, for example, is about artists not making any money off their music[1], and it was released shortly after the ARPANET was created. The biggest change with digital music piracy is that record companies are also earning less.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_Versus_Powerman_and_the_M...

Another case that I think shows the music industry likes to have things both ways was the Eminem digital sales vs. licenses lawsuit that got settled privately (I mention elsewhere but here's a link):

http://www.spin.com/2012/10/universal-settles-influential-em...

Not to mention the industry wants all its aging / legacy acts to not think about how sound recordings before 1972 may be eligible for return to the creators rather than the business enterprise that owns them currently. It's complicated but financially worth the trouble for some!

The Internet loves music! It just doesn't love paying for it.

Eh, I think collectively if the price is right there's a gravitation toward paying - Patreon, the Premium streaming services, iTunes - but it's a price that might not be able to sustain a musician to make a living, and certainly not the A&R budget of a major label.

"Free" is the price the majority of users on Spotify (and elsewhere) think is right. In general, consumers have learned that "music should be free!". The fee that Spotify asks for isn't for music; it's for an ad-free, more pleasurable, and more valuable experience. The music is still offered for free!

Spotify's Free to Premium conversion rates are, in my opinion, not terrible. Would be interesting to see the YouTube and SoundCloud numbers eventually, sure.

Think about it though - terrestrial radio already offered music for free. Dozens of stations! All sorts of genres!

The only difference is the RIAA/major players had - practically speaking - an iron grip on controlling what was being played on those stations. Thus the free music was an enticement to purchase more objects related to that act. Live shows, t-shirts, etc.

Believe me, there's a lot more money in branding than there is in selling music. Jessica Simpson has made insane truck-loads of money on her fashion line - enough to make her music sales probably look like a rounding error. Free music isn't new to the internet, I guess is what I'm getting at.

I agree, though as an aside I think this takes the conversation in a new direction. Ad-supported FM radio probably did more to encourage, or at least aculturate, people to treat the internet like just another radio station than anything else.

The big difference was that music on FM radio enticed people also to go buy the vinyl LP (at $12 (or so) a pop in 1977 money. Ouch.).

So (taking us in yet another direction), the problem is one of technology: once downloads replaced vinyl and CDs, the only thing left is merch and other branded items, which sell far fewer units relative to the LP or CD of yesteryear.

The labels blew it on technology (they went from shellacs to 45s to LPs to CDs and stopped there).

If only it could be offered in my small country too!

I hate how these services and the record labels think only about the US/their country.

For example one of my favourite bands is Italian and apparently most of their older music is blocked on youtube in my country. There really is NO WAY for me to get the music legally. Even the torrents have very few seeders and I'm scared in a few years I won't be able to listen to this music anymore. I just hope i won't lose my backups.

They do think about your country, and all of the non-US/CA/UK territories.

But licensing is complicated, difficult to manage, and is frankly a mess. So it's often not worth it to launch in many territories at first; and in some territories, not ever.

also, best way for you and for the band: contact them directly for their music. It's legal, and I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

Replace music with anything served over the Internet: news, movies, photography, art, etc.

Will this become unsustainable at some point? Money is definitely flowing on the Internet, but not necessarily into the pockets of the content producers.

In fact, this article glosses over the fact that the RIAA used to have such a huge stranglehold over the industry that they were the ones profiting off the musicians, wasn't this why Prince was "formerly known as" for a long while?

Yes, Prince was very clear that he felt his recording contract was unfair. To the point of going out in public with "Slave" written on his cheek[1]. Not surprised the author left out that kind of musician-industry relationship when bringing up Prince.

[1] http://esq.h-cdn.co/assets/16/16/640x320/landscape-146126259...

Do you love musicians? The record industry doesn't.

That's not fair - they totally love dead musicians who can no longer comment on the use of their tunes for profit, like in commercials.

Maybe we can say that they love musicians, but love business even more? Sort of like the way many CEOs in S.V./S.F. love software developers but love business even more.

You have the option to quit and find a better job somewhere else (pretty easily I might add).

Musicians, once signed to a record company, are not so lucky.

I've said that if the RIAA could get people to buy an actual piece of cow dung in the shape of a circle that cost them $2 to make, including owning the cow, and they could sell for $18, they'd get out of music and into the manure business.

I think it's an apt analogy. The RIAA wants to make money. Music is the vessel. That's, well, kinda it.

The recording industry LOVES musicians. But the musicians they love most of all are the musicians who don't know how to negotiate.

Every entertainment book I've ever read by a successful and intelligent musician or writer has emphasized, time and again, to get a really, really, really, really good lawyer. Or, in the case of Willie Nelson, two of them. Thomas Lennon (Reno 911, The Odd Couple) wrote a screenplay guide and said, paraphrased, "Oh our lawyer is a really nice guy and we like him - he's just not afraid to rip your heart out and eat it in front of you."

Amen.

While the article is primarily about piracy, the existing pay models are fairing no better. Here is one musicians take: https://medium.com/cuepoint/streaming-music-is-ripping-you-o...

I'd love to see evidence how the US has a history of undervaluing musicians. You'd normally observe that through a decline on the supply side. However, supply is not an issue at all.

The author probably just wanted to say that he wants more money for his own work. ..that's understandable, but meaningless.

So build a better systems. Super successful artists have the ability to create better and "fairer" platforms for other artists and consumers (if that's your belief). We are all open to new models. Let's see how Patreon does, for example. I hated this article.

Yeah lots of eyes are on Tidal and its grand statement of purpose.

Deadmau5 kind of has taken your approach with a direct-to-fan subscription service that might be an interesting case study.

The biggest problem with any new "system" I've seen is that none of the facilitate artist discovery. Especially now that the bar to produce and distribute music is at the lowest it's ever been, there is no easy way to discover new artists.

Sure there is. Join the communities that support the genre(s) of music you enjoy. Listen to the various internet radio programs that feature the music you enjoy -- those curators will introduce you to new music, and new-to-you music.

As many flaws as the major labels previously had, they did discover and nurture artists. Internet radio is not going to discover a random lounge cover singer in the middle of flyover US. You are not going to have an internet radio station that features random unknown artists that has widespread reach. The bar to discovery is much higher and arguably requires less on the music end and more on the promo end than it has in the past. This leads to more of the chaff rising to the top.

That's been true but there are some artist examples that are showing new artists can embrace the new dynamic and reach fans. CHVRCHES got their start on SoundCloud. Chance the Rapper still is in the "mixtape" game. Pretty much any "viral" hit that isn't actively on a Major Label at the time of the release can be considered, I think, to be a case study in how the dynamics are changing. Edit: Forgot Run The Jewels as well.

I disagree. The ones I listen to do just that: not only flyover country, but Canada, Australia, UK, Italy and all over the rest of Europe. And the facebook groups for the genres I follow frequently post music from excellent, up and coming or obscure bands.

Widespread reach? It's the internet! How widespread do you need to be? ;)

Also, labels != radio. It's not radio's job to nuture and develop bands. But they can expose bands to greater audiences, which allows people like us to "discover" new-to-us bands.

About discovery:

These days, the barrier to entry for discovery is lower than it's ever been. If you get your music on all of the various internet music services and some of the internet-radio programming, you are much more heavily distributed worldwide than any garage-band in the 70s or 80s could ever have been at the time.

The 'bar for discovery' has two parts: The bar for potential discovery is now very, very low. But for actual discovery it is high because the "signal-to-noise" ratio is very low: by that I mean there is so much crap (noise) to wade through before you find a great band (signal) that the work of curating has shifted from the radio stations and record labels to the consumer. The nice thing is that you can find excellent music the major labels will simply ignore. The not so nice thing: it requires work on your part to seek out and engage with the curators of content.

This is why finding the internet radio programs that feature the genre you enjoy, and following the music-programmers who curate with taste that you share, is vital to a good discovery experience.

Well, they can start by fixing their localization. I'm currently in Amsterdam and thought I would try it just now, but I get "country.price.1 country.currency" listed under subscription cost.

Funny how musicians complain. We all steal from what we love. Intential or not. Musicians earn there living by PLAYING their music. Real musicians that is.

Why is it any less of an art to record something than to perform it?

It's just like paintings, real art is seen live! oh, wait.

Honestly it's a scarcity thing, aside from the art point. It goes back to the tradition of the bards - walk around, play a tune in a new place, get some food and a place to stay, move on. Live entertainment has very strong traditions. Regarding "less of an art" - there's a lot of things that can be done in a studio to make a musician/act seem superior.

I'm both a producer and musician, so i get what you are saying. Never the less dj's make most mobey today so i dont see your point. Yes there are lots of talented producer who dont play live, but in regard to music and musicians in general, the mobey is and has always been in live performance. Most good producers i know and live also has the ability to create stunning live performances. For the rest i can see the problem offcourse; they deserve the gain from online play, but i suspect they actually earn more plays and buts and streams from piracy based advertisement than without. Regardless i agree the topic is a problem in general.

Fair point, I do see DJs making the big money but again it's for the experience of the show or festival. I agree the money has always been in live performance. Making recordings is really a way to get people interested - and how those people get those recordings is sometimes less important to musicians than it is to business people. If the recordings are free, but the musician makes money live, then the musician wins - the only people who don't win are the ones trying to get a piece of money from distributing the music recording. Good to chat with you, best of luck with your music!!

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