Poor Little Recording Industry Multi-Millionaires

We keep hearing the music and movie industry use the line "we're on the side of the creative talent" to heap some emotional blackmail into the illegal copying argument. They want you to feel sorry for them and their agenda. They want you not to mind if they extend copyright again and again and again. They want you not to mind if your internet is cut off by the power of an accusation.

So where are they in the share of the payments? You'd expect them to make sure when an artists signs for a label that the labels get the smallest share, and the artists get the most. You'd expect that the contracts ensure the artists get the lions share of the profits from an extended length of copyright time. You'd expect them to give the artists control over what gets released and when. What you wouldn't expect from an industry who say they side with the little guy, is an industry who shafts not only the artists, but the fans too.

From here.

For downloads the record company will set a dealer price for a song, of which around a quarter will go back to the artist - PRS says on average a label will take 50p from a tune priced at 79p - of which the artist will collect around 7p. The publisher will see around 5.5p, of which the artist will get 4p.

That's right, from a song costing 79p, the artist (the creative one in the process) gets a whopping 4p, while the studio machine behind them take 50p. Can someone point out exactly how this is being "on the side of the artists"?

We've seen labels release albums against the wishes of the artists too.

The Corrs fought hard against their record company continually re-releasing an album with a new cover and a slightly different track arrangement but were told it wasn't their decision. The band knew it was taking the piss out of their fans but couldn't do anything about it.

Morrissey urged fans not to buy a newly released greatest hits, as he the royalties he received on any of the material had dried up years before, so it was pure profit for the record label. He also knew it was taking the piss out of the fans but couldn't do anything about it.

Every Christmas there's a truck load of new compilation albums, with the same tracks as before, rearranged with new covers in an attempt to entice money from someone stupid enough to buy them. There's also new "greatest hits" or "very best of" albums for both artists who only arrived on the scene a couple of years ago and have had a couple of albums, as well as the established artists who's previous "greatest hits" came out before the last album and therefore needs updated to include last years hit single.

How much do the artists get paid for each (ab)use of those songs? Especially the longer established artists who are no longer producing new work, like Queen, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones etc. My guess is that most of the "rock classics" will pay nothing to the artists involved as their royalty terms will have expired long ago, yet the industry still want sympathy and an extension to their rights, so they can continue profiting from them without the expense of actually having to pay the creators anything.

There's always a lot more people involved in bringing music from someone's imagination to an audiences ears, none of them work for free of course. In a lot of cases there's expenses incurred in the process too. Traditionally it's been the physical creation and distribution of vinyl, cassettes or CDs with their artwork covers, now it's more bandwidth on a server. There's PR too, booking venues, interviews etc. Nowadays there's many more options for the PR side, and the distribution costs have plummeted, yet the prices are still set as "part of the cost of a CD".

This higher cost, the refusal to price for a digital market is a part of the reason they will struggle to win against illegal downloading. It's not seen as value for money. People understand a CD costs more because they have something physical in their hands, that had to be created and delivered somehow. It's also something they actually own, that they can give away, sell, loan out etc A digital copy is just a file on their computer or mp3 player, in which many online stores put DRM (Digital Rights Management) to ensure that you can only listen to it in ways they approve of.

This is two consumer hostile policies in tandem, first the high prices not reflecting the cost of production, the second being the DRM to restrict your ability to enjoy what you overpaid for. Coupled with the contracts giving the artists a pittance, for a shorter time period, as well as taking control of the material themselves, how can the industry claim to be on the side of anyone other than themselves?

They screw both ends of the chain, and the best part is that with the internet, both ends of the chain can bypass the industry altogether and deal directly with each other. The industry is the middleman than can easily be bypassed, and they know it. This is why they have been increasingly desperate to get new powers, laws, regulations, treaties etc to help squeeze as much as they can through threats and bullying while it lasts.

The PRS (Performing Rights Society) want people to pay for everything they consider a "broadcast" of a tune by one of their artists. This includes offices with a handful of staff having the radio on as background music, and a stable playing classical music to keep the horses calm. I wonder if the horses were asked about who they thought should win Pop Idol?

This royalty fee is in addition to wanting paid for every time it's played on the radio too; a case of double dipping. They got into a dispute with YouTube last year too demanding a higher share of advertising revenue when people watch videos of their artists. The industry at large still fails to grasp the concept that this is promotional stuff. The more people who see and hear their artists stuff, the more likely they're gonna go buy some of it, which in turn makes the label money. In some cases the artist might get a few bucks out of the transaction too, assuming the label haven't screwed them too hard.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) are parasites.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) are parasites.

The PRS (Performing Rights Society) are parasites.

And all of that is not even including the endless cloned boy / girl bands, doing covers of covers of covers. An endless stream of dancing monkeys does not sell the "protect the creative people" line very well; if anything it proves the "creative people" need protecting from the industry who only see "product" and "sales figures".

ACTA (Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is being written up in secret by (among others) the recording industry. It's designed to screw people over even more than now, and be applicable across the world. It's designed to be slipped into law without consultation or vote. It's classified as "top secret". This is an agreement written by lobbyists to further their agenda, in the hopes that it will be applied without the public being aware until it's too late. They treat any exposure of it as a national security leak, as if it's the names and addresses of secret service agents or something. That kind of reaction for a trade agreement says to me that it's no normal trade agreement, and that it's not going to be consumer friendly, otherwise why the heavy handed reaction?

The infamous "three strikes and your internet is cut off" policy that we keep hearing about in various countries? Cut off by the power of an accusation, no proof, no right to appeal, no nothing. Yep that's part of the ACTA agenda that the rights holders want to slip in. No matter how many countries say the internet is a right all citizens need in a democracy, no matter how many times it gets rebuffed, these parasites continue to try and slip it in regardless. It's about entreching their own monopolies on revenue streams. Everything else is a smoke screen.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you have enough money to lobby enough politicians into selling their voters out, and enough motivation to push through that anything is possible in the current system.

I refuse to vote for any party who is willing to sell the public to money men.