Good article on music and $$$

Discussion regarding other bands, movies, etc.
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Pandemonium
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#26 Post by Pandemonium » Thu Jun 28, 2012 2:00 pm

hokahey wrote:Haven't bands like Radiohead and NIN already figured out the new model? Sell online directly to the fans and let them pay what they want. Sell deluxe models for the die hards.
This works for established tech/promo-savvy bands with a decent size hardcore fanbase. On the other hand, it's *very* tough for newer bands to break past the club level and get any sort of mainstream success with their music. It's extremely rare these days for a band to move up from clubs to theaters and eventually arenas based on word-of-mouth on just their live act. At some point they *have* to have some sort of major exposure, whether it's a radio-played single, tv ad, movie soundtrack, etc. And all those kind of things still unfortunately come with the outdated machinery of music industry label support. Not many self-promoted/financed bands/artists will stick it out past about 10 years slogging away playing club tours year after year no matter how artistically good they are.

Matov
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#27 Post by Matov » Thu Jun 28, 2012 2:11 pm

I know i'm going to get shit on for this but... what's the big deal in having a collapse in the music industry?
I wonder how painters, sculptors, performance artists, etc feel about "musicians" whining because they're not getting paid over 30k a year.
I have this friend, he's a painter. He loves painting. He'll be an artist for as long as he lives. Still, he doesn't sit around and mope about how devastated the "painting industry" is. He loves to paint so he does so. Eventually he'll sell a painting. But he knows that if he is to put some food on the table on a daily basis, he better get a job.
I don't see how it's any different with musicians. It's cool that the "industry" has given us the maddonna's, mick jagger's and bono's of yesterday. But it has nothing to do with music as an artform per se, and everything to do with a business model being profitable. congratulations to those guys for "making it", but to measure (as i think i posted on some other thread) the artistic accomplishment of this or that artist in regards to its economic profitability is, in my opinion, a mistake. and to insinuate that without said profitability, the life of said art form is at risk is a travesty. go ask van gogh, robert johnson, george melies, how they feel about the entertainment industry's peril. see if they care one bit...

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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#28 Post by Hokahey » Thu Jun 28, 2012 2:19 pm

Matov wrote:I know i'm going to get shit on for this but... what's the big deal in having a collapse in the music industry?
I wonder how painters, sculptors, performance artists, etc feel about "musicians" whining because they're not getting paid over 30k a year.
I have this friend, he's a painter. He loves painting. He'll be an artist for as long as he lives. Still, he doesn't sit around and mope about how devastated the "painting industry" is. He loves to paint so he does so. Eventually he'll sell a painting. But he knows that if he is to put some food on the table on a daily basis, he better get a job.
I don't see how it's any different with musicians. It's cool that the "industry" has given us the maddonna's, mick jagger's and bono's of yesterday. But it has nothing to do with music as an artform per se, and everything to do with a business model being profitable. congratulations to those guys for "making it", but to measure (as i think i posted on some other thread) the artistic accomplishment of this or that artist in regards to its economic profitability is, in my opinion, a mistake. and to insinuate that without said profitability, the life of said art form is at risk is a travesty. go ask van gogh, robert johnson, george melies, how they feel about the entertainment industry's peril. see if they care one bit...
I've had the exact same thoughts. And if you're really good, people will want to pay to see your art, no? And may the best art win instead of having these prepackaged industry "artists" shoved down the public's throats.

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Hype
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#29 Post by Hype » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:05 pm

Matov wrote:That's pretty much it Hype, except for the fact that Staley died in 2002, years after the alt generic rock wave reached its saturation point... it was back to bubblepop by then, i think
The late 90s and the early 2000s seem like the same time to me. :confused: :lol: But yeah, even in 2002, they were still trying to milk the grunge/nu-metal shit for all it was worth.

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Hype
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#30 Post by Hype » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:06 pm

Pandemonium wrote:
hokahey wrote:Haven't bands like Radiohead and NIN already figured out the new model? Sell online directly to the fans and let them pay what they want. Sell deluxe models for the die hards.
This works for established tech/promo-savvy bands with a decent size hardcore fanbase. On the other hand, it's *very* tough for newer bands to break past the club level and get any sort of mainstream success with their music. It's extremely rare these days for a band to move up from clubs to theaters and eventually arenas based on word-of-mouth on just their live act. At some point they *have* to have some sort of major exposure, whether it's a radio-played single, tv ad, movie soundtrack, etc. And all those kind of things still unfortunately come with the outdated machinery of music industry label support. Not many self-promoted/financed bands/artists will stick it out past about 10 years slogging away playing club tours year after year no matter how artistically good they are.
Fuck those bands then. :nod:

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Larry B.
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#31 Post by Larry B. » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:28 pm

Matov wrote:I know i'm going to get shit on for this but... what's the big deal in having a collapse in the music industry?
I wonder how painters, sculptors, performance artists, etc feel about "musicians" whining because they're not getting paid over 30k a year.
I have this friend, he's a painter. He loves painting. He'll be an artist for as long as he lives. Still, he doesn't sit around and mope about how devastated the "painting industry" is. He loves to paint so he does so. Eventually he'll sell a painting. But he knows that if he is to put some food on the table on a daily basis, he better get a job.
I don't see how it's any different with musicians. It's cool that the "industry" has given us the maddonna's, mick jagger's and bono's of yesterday. But it has nothing to do with music as an artform per se, and everything to do with a business model being profitable. congratulations to those guys for "making it", but to measure (as i think i posted on some other thread) the artistic accomplishment of this or that artist in regards to its economic profitability is, in my opinion, a mistake. and to insinuate that without said profitability, the life of said art form is at risk is a travesty. go ask van gogh, robert johnson, george melies, how they feel about the entertainment industry's peril. see if they care one bit...
:nod:

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Matz
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#32 Post by Matz » Thu Jun 28, 2012 5:03 pm

let's say your friend starts painting some really good paintings that are worth 10000 dollars each, and then people in the middle of the night start breaking into his place and steal most of them to sell them on or to keep them. I don't think he would be that happy about it. He'd think "I could be holding 200000 dollars in my hand right now but instead I'm left with 10000"

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kv
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#33 Post by kv » Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:30 pm

bad example....it would be like if someone took a picture of his paintings and then didn't buy them...his paintings didn't go anywhere...nobody is taking anything from anyone they are making copies..after all i don't remember paying to listen to the radio

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Hype
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#34 Post by Hype » Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:13 pm

They were letting people into the MOMA for free, and letting people take photos...

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chaos
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#35 Post by chaos » Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:38 pm

Adurentibus Spina wrote:They were letting people into the MOMA for free, and letting people take photos...
You can take photos of only some of the art at MOMA - the permanent collections I think - but I am not clear on how the distinction is made.

Btw, you can get into the MET for free; they have a "suggested" admission and people who frequent the museum do not pay the full (suggested) admission if at all. I don't think you can take any photos at the MET, but this may have changed.

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Hype
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#36 Post by Hype » Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:42 pm

chaos wrote:
Adurentibus Spina wrote:They were letting people into the MOMA for free, and letting people take photos...
You can take photos of only some of the art at MOMA - the permanent collections I think - but I am not clear on how the distinction is made.

Btw, you can get into the MET for free; they have a "suggested" admission and people who frequent the museum do not pay the full (suggested) admission if at all. I don't think you can take any photos at the MET, but this may have changed.
I took photos of all the art. :confused: :lol:

Matov
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#37 Post by Matov » Thu Jun 28, 2012 11:10 pm

Matz wrote:let's say your friend starts painting some really good paintings that are worth 10000 dollars each, and then people in the middle of the night start breaking into his place and steal most of them to sell them on or to keep them. I don't think he would be that happy about it. He'd think "I could be holding 200000 dollars in my hand right now but instead I'm left with 10000"
well i think the question there is, would he stop painting if he got robbed of a couple of his highest pricing paintings? if he did, i would feel compelled as his friend to remind him why he got into painting to begin with. cause it most certainly had nothing to do with making 10k.
i know that eludes the point of whether filesharing or downloading music is an ethical thing to do, but before getting into that, i think your analogy brings up two things in my mind. the first one is, if the activity of downloading copyrighted material is so bad per se, why would anyone have the need to add up to that argument by falsely stating that it'll kill an artform? that's a tremendous hyperbole and in my experience, when arguments become hyperbolic its usually because the one who's holding up the argument doesn't feel strongly enough about it as it is, so he feels the need to make it bolder by exaggerating. kind of like the legalization of pot gets argued here in Argentina. Pro Legalization people will argue: "Marihuana use should not be penalised because people who are caught smoking pot may be harrased by police officers and then raped in prision", while those who are against it state "Marihuana use should be prohibited because it´s a doorway to the usage of harder drugs, and if you smoke pot you'll end up a crack whore shitting your own pants in some ghetto". If both parties called it like it really is, which is "Hey man let me have my plants at home, everyone is doin it so why can't i?" vs. "you can´t smoke pot cause you´ll end up a lazy fucker getting fired from jobs and living from the state, and oh, yeah, it is easier to go after you than really doing something about narcs which happen to be our associates"; then no one other than potheads and the conservative minority would give a fuck. So much more appealing to talk about rape, shitting your pants and killing music!

On the other hand, why is it that my friend could aspire to sell a painting for 10k (in his wildest dreams) yet artists know almost for a fact that their records will be sold for $20? That's because my friend would be selling his art piece, while musicians are selling manufactured products, basically a bunch of plastic and paper that, provided you have the right equipment, you can use to listen to a faithful reproduction of what their art piece might sound like, if they ever get to experience it. Imagine if a soda company, started suing people for sharing their cokes, because it is really more profitable to have each one of us buying a single coke, than having someone else pour some on our glasses? the truth is that downloading music doesn´t apply neither to the town pillage analogy, nor to the (much less eloquent and poorly written) soda analogy, yet one could argue either one, if you wanted to apply moral standards to the life cycle of a business model. Which, as i stated before, sounds a bit silly to me :tiphat:

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Matz
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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#38 Post by Matz » Fri Jun 29, 2012 6:15 am

kv wrote:bad example....it would be like if someone took a picture of his paintings and then didn't buy them...his paintings didn't go anywhere...nobody is taking anything from anyone they are making copies..after all i don't remember paying to listen to the radio
thats a bad example too I think because if you take a picture of a great painting it's no way near as cool as having the real deal hanging on your wall. In the world of music if you take a copy of a Chili Peppers song that is exactly as good as the one you'd get if you went and paid 20 bucks for the album. And that's a big part of the problem of course, it would be cool for the industry if everytime you copied a file it would degrade.

So in trying to perfect my example, I should have said that if a reproduction artist breaks into Matov's friends place in the middle of the night and copies a painting perfectly and thereby steals his vision, ideas, techniques etc to then distrubute it to everybody he knows then Matov's friend would be pissed off because he's lose a ton of money. He'd still get the recognition and he'd still have the joy of painting but some green in the bank is nice too. Especially if you've worked your ass off for it and deserves it

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Re: Good article on music and $$$

#39 Post by Matov » Fri Jun 29, 2012 7:42 am

Matz wrote:
kv wrote:bad example....it would be like if someone took a picture of his paintings and then didn't buy them...his paintings didn't go anywhere...nobody is taking anything from anyone they are making copies..after all i don't remember paying to listen to the radio
thats a bad example too I think because if you take a picture of a great painting it's no way near as cool as having the real deal hanging on your wall. In the world of music if you take a copy of a Chili Peppers song that is exactly as good as the one you'd get if you went and paid 20 bucks for the album. And that's a big part of the problem of course, it would be cool for the industry if everytime you copied a file it would degrade.

So in trying to perfect my example, I should have said that if a reproduction artist breaks into Matov's friends place in the middle of the night and copies a painting perfectly and thereby steals his vision, ideas, techniques etc to then distrubute it to everybody he knows then Matov's friend would be pissed off because he's lose a ton of money. He'd still get the recognition and he'd still have the joy of painting but some green in the bank is nice too. Especially if you've worked your ass off for it and deserves it
well the thing is, when you pay 20 bucks for the album, you're already purchasing a copy. but let's say, for a second, that the record IS the artpiece, as opposed to watching the chili peppers perform their art. And let's get back to my friend the artist. What determines whether his pictures are worth 10k or nothing? The fact that someone is willing to pay that much amount of money.
As of today, no one has offered that much money to my friend for any of his paintings so he just gives them out, to people who he believes might enjoy having them. He's sold a piece or two for a couple hundred bucks, but most of his paintings hanging on other people´s houses are there before he gifted them. I'd say this is pretty analogue to the radiohead/nin model. So this is where the "yeah but you have to actually BE radiohead/nin to make a living off of that".
And i agree. So what. If your main thrive when making art is to make a business out of it, then you're more of a business man. Smart businessmen know that when a business stops being profitable, the best thing to do is go find a more profitable one :idea:

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