From: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org (oppositeview-digest) To: oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Subject: oppositeview-digest V2 #31 Reply-To: oppositeview@smoe.org Sender: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk oppositeview-digest Saturday, June 17 2000 Volume 02 : Number 031 Today's Subjects: ----------------- OV: And in closing..... (okay, so I'm 22 minutes over - shoot me) ["Jen W] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 00:30:17 -0500 From: "Jen Woyan" Subject: OV: And in closing..... (okay, so I'm 22 minutes over - shoot me) Wow. There's been alot said on these pages the past couple of days, and despite the relatively off-topic, well, topic, this is the most worked-up I've see the list in a very, very long time. I need to reiterate what I wrote earlier today - the only reason I wanted to bring this subject up was to offer a bit of informed background on what a working musician is now up against in the corporate world that is the Music Industry. (Never forget that it IS an industry) And it's getting scarier & scarier every week/every day. To clarify a few issues: Hilary wrote: "I don't have the figures to hand, but don't the record company and artist get a relatively small cut from the shop price of a CD..." Using general numbers, of a $16.00 CD, the retailer pays the label approx. $8.00-$10.00 for each unit (unless you're a mass-volume retailer like Best Buy or Wal-Mart, who probably get a few bucks off as incentive to carry the product). As was mentioned before, just for the CD itself (no publishing royalties), the artist gets about $2.50 per unit - but then remember that all of their 'advance' and alot of their expenses come out of the ARTIST'S share, not the label's. The label then gets the remaining $7.50 to cover distribution, THEIR part of expenses, as well as executive's & peon's salaries, and shareholder's dividends (remember, each CD costs about $1.25 to produce)...... That means that the retailer must cover their expenses with the $6.00-$8.00 "profit" on each sale - remember, that's not including sale merchandise and non-sellers. Espens's (hello new OVer!) description of 'fair use" was pretty spot-on, but... The minute a third party is involved, then you are illegal and are liable - all three of the people in the chain. That's why Metallica didn't go after Napster (except to tell them to "turn it off") - they went after the 30,000 unfortunates who participated in the piracy - because technically that's what it is - piracy. But Napster's not at fault - they merely provided the means of distribution. Think - if you taped Star Wars Phantom Menace from HBO and decided to "share" it with 30,000 close friends - even if you gave it to them for free, you would be liable under the law as it now exists - not HBO who provided the movie to you in the first place. Thing is, the existing laws are not up to the task of protecting all parties in the face of all the new technology - not the artists, not the labels, not the general public. As Courtney Love wrote (I can't believe I'm quoting that slag) check out the copyright on every CD you own - " Ó by Universal Music Group" or whomever. The LABEL owns the copyright to the sound recording - in any of it's forms. THEY are s'posed to protect the subsequent rights (publishing/mechanical royalties, image, etc) of the artist featured on the recording. The artist does own the copyright of the SONG (if they wrote it), but only from a publishing perspective (and that's another can of worms) and they also receive a royalty for their performance on the recording, but the recording itself is owned full-out by the label. Why else would Madonna, Oasis and a thousand other artists want to own their own labels...? And as far as radio stations - I am not up on Canadian and British record plugger protocols, so I can't refute what has been said about those markets. But here in the States, the label DOES hire outside pluggers at about $75,000-$100,000 a pop to promote the records. And here's the clincher - over 50% of that money goes to the plugger and the rest pays for contests and T's and stickers and live shows - whatever the RADIO STATION decides to spend it on. (Most pluggers work 6-10 singles at a time...it's a nice piece of change) This is s'posed to guarantee "spins" - airtime - but it's not always so cut & dried. they could play it a dozen times at 2am on a Sunday. The average major-market pop station plays a hit single 8 times a day - multiply that by a 3-minute song and then multiply THAT by the ad rate they charge per minute - from $250.00 to $500.00 per minute...hmmm...that's an approximate investment by the radio station (who is hoping that the artist's song will bring in more listeners so they can sell more ad time) of $9,600.00 per day of valuable airtime in that single artist. (This is the part of it that always seems to make bands very, very quiet when it's explained to them) A top-selling single can clock up to around 2,000 "spins" a day nationwide in the US - YOU do the math.... And I have NO IDEA who "pete - pbeshuk" is ("Why don't we just have Jen W. "authorize" it and move on to other problems" - ha, ha) I ain't an attorney, I just play one on the Internet (jk) and smile at them sweetly when they cut me a check... I'm sure I bored most of you, but just for shits & giggles, keep this post and the Courtney Love article in a file somewhere and then let's come back to this once we find out IF & WHEN UMG will release the Dels' next CD.....then we can see how something like this REALLY plays out, but from a more up close & personal perspective. If you're interested in following this a bit more closely - not solely from a technical standpoint, but from an INDUSTRY standpoint: a.. Musicdish.com (free, but v. good) http://www.musicdish.com/ (today's featured article: "MP3.com Settles With Major Record Labels" b.. Webnoize.com (free for 30 days, otherwise subscription) http://www.webnoize.com/ Other helpful websites to help us all stay better informed: The Copyright Website http://www.benedict.com/ Stanford University's Copyrights and Fair Use Resources http://fairuse.stanford.edu/internet/ The Univ. of Texas Crash Course in Copyrights http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/cprtindx.htm#top The Online Copyright Clearance Center http://www.copyright.com/ And the combatants: On the one side.... http://www.riaa.com/ And on the other side..... http://www.napster.com/ http://www.mp3.com And if you're an insomniac, here's the current existing legislation from the Code of Federal Regulations (does not include recent changes - you have to pay Westlaw to get that...): Title 37--Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_99/37cfrv1_99.html#501 Cheers & luv ya all, Jen P.S. And let's all say a prayer each & every night for the survival and continued prosperity of Justin, Iain, Andy, Kris and Mark...they're gonna need it. Jennifer Woyan jenwoyan@xsite.net 773.271.7660 Jennifer Woyan jenwoyan@xsite.net 773.271.7660 ------------------------------ End of oppositeview-digest V2 #31 *********************************