entertainment

Tech firm says musicians lose billions to illegal business streaming

28 Comments
By Eric RANDOLPH

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Yeah, right. The 30 highest paid musicians are worth over $14 billion. Some guy named Mike Dirnt (who I have never heard of) is worth over $50 million? These billionaires and millionaires are barely surviving. Poor babies.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

I have always wondered about these Japanese variety shows that play ten second snippets of famous American and British songs during unrelated segments and if they have paid for the rights for using them.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

These same tech firms are also responsible for not paying musicians. This annoucement is meant to distract people from remembering that.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

They’re not losing anything. You can’t lose something you never had.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

Agreed @ArtistAtLarge. - basically, “Stop trying to exploit what we are already exploiting.”

6 ( +6 / -0 )

This is not actually something new and was called Spotify Business and come out in 2014

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Here is the reality, if no one uses the music, if no one is listening to the radio anymore, then where will people hear new music?

The facts are unless you already know or have heard the music someplace you are not going to randomly download something from Spotify, etc...

I hear something I like in a store or cafe I use Shazam to find out the artist and song then I may actually buy it.

Most people I know find new music this way now.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

If they want my business to pay them to play their music and generate sales then I would ask them to pay me every time someone buys a song they heard in my store!.

I would be in favour of a worldwide boycott of playing any music anywhere in public.

Watch sales drop as no one find or hears anything new.

The vast majority of us find new artist and music by accident just listening to random music playing in public.

We once found new stuff by listing to the radio but that is not popular these days.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

This whole thing has gotten out of hand.

I know several people that had takedown notices on YouTube and Instagram.

One is a popular YouTube creator.

None actually used any music in their videos it was random music from street background noise.

Seriously one videos got taken down because a car passing by had the window down blasting music and that got picked up in the background as the person being interviewed was talking about a 10 seconds worth.

Another example a short instagram where my friend who is an artisan giving a short demonstration of how to do something, got taken down because his wife was in the living room watching TV and a song was playing on the TV program and could barely be heard in his tutorial clip. ( Japan tiny homes workshop and home all in one).

This has nothing to do with the musicians but everything to do with the giant music corporations greed.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Surprised they didnt put in anything about the J-equivalent I think its JASRAC or close to that, they are rather active out targeting businesses etc to PAY JASRAC .........but of course how much of that go to the artists......yeah well JARAC & their ilk dont really wanna talk about that now do they.....gee I wonder why.....

2 ( +2 / -0 )

JASRAC has filed suits against music schools for private lessons and even the musicians and composers oppose this move.

If students cannot learn or play their music in music class one on one then no one will care to listen or buy the original artist's music.

This is further proof that these organizations are not in it to help the artists but for their own profit.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Yeah, right. The 30 highest paid musicians are worth over $14 billion. Some guy named Mike Dirnt (who I have never heard of) is worth over $50 million? These billionaires and millionaires are barely surviving. Poor babies.

I get your point, but at the same time these are artists and they want to get paid for their work and justifiably so as most people do that create something. I do understand both sides of the coin and you make a good argument, but you also need to understand the work that they put in to write and put the music together and then having to spend a lot of time promoting the album and then going on tour which takes an enormous amount of time of your life traveling worldwide and then it’s back to creating new songs and the cycle counties, that is if you want to chuck out an album every year which is pretty much the standard in the West. So as someone that deeply knows this business I do have sympathy for these musicians, but as a consumer do I want to buy an album that only has 1-2 good songs on it and the other 10 are crap? No, I don’t. It’s a real double edged sword.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Question @zichi. In regards to fixed media and chattel, if we film a movie, tv segment or commercial and Your ‘artwork’ is within the shot, like a song, are you entitled to some kind of ‘royalties’?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The reality is that almost all bands singers etc make their money from concerts and promo work instead of the actual download or physical copy sale of their music. That is why concerts are stupidly expensive. In the mid 80's and prior to that the artist made money from the sales of cd's, tapes and vynal as well as airplay but once the internet hit in the 90's the business model changed. In japan they are draconian about royalties and thus a lot of music never gets heard and thus never downloaded.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Thx @z. -respects

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Question @zichi. In regards to fixed media and chattel, if we film a movie, tv segment or commercial and Your ‘artwork’ is within the shot, like a song, are you entitled to some kind of ‘royalties’?

There are tons of sites where you can purchase or download royalty-free music, I also have two Youtube Channels, but what I do is make my own music for all of them, that avoids and liability issues and not to mention Youtube as well possibly the artist's lawyer would give me a call. I wrote a few songs for some local musicians here in Japan and back in the States and 2 of those songs did fairly well and I get a percentage as well as residual pay and were these songs reach other parts of the world whether it's played on the radio or their TV stations and movie networks I receive a check, so I am definitely about the artist getting his cut, but at the same time as money is tight a lot of people just can't afford to buy music and I understand why people want to pirate music.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Lose bilions ? I cant even listen music on youtube without 2x 30 minutes ads

2 ( +3 / -1 )

In most cases, if some cafe or restaurant plays your music, its free publicity. Artists should be paying them to play their music. If customers like the music, then maybe they'll buy your cd, but I don't think cafés are willing to pay for every song they play. Otherwise, they'll just have the radio on.

Even a guy like Rick Bieto, who basically promotes music for free (What makes this song great?) gets his videos demonitized by artists that think he should be paying them. Its backwards.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Lose bilions ? I cant even listen music on youtube without 2x 30 minutes ads

If they can't solicit you with ads to put in your mailbox (remember back in the day your mailbox looked like a stuffed turkey?) Well, now they'll just bombard you with ads every few minutes, the advertisers need to make money as well. I get it, it's all annoying.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

What extraordinary exceptions are they demanding for? Are they feeling to be something better and outstanding from the rest of this planet’s population? I don’t know anyone who ever was or currently is fairly and fully paid for his or her work.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I have always wondered about these Japanese variety shows that play ten second snippets of famous American and British songs during unrelated segments and if they have paid for the rights for using them.

The labels representing the artists have licensed the songs to the Japanese market. Often with deals that barely return any money because the laws are a lot more lax. You'll notice this on Netflix when in Japanese shows when played in Japan have a lot of US pop music. Watch the same show on Netflix in the US and it's been replaced with royalty free music from no-name artists.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

If someone is using music in a commercial environment, then they should be paying to do so.

Personally, I'm not a fan of piped music, and it must be hell for the staff, listening to the same tracks over and over.

The real damage to the music industry is not from piracy but from the streaming model itself. Instead of going to the music industry, the bulk of the cash now goes to the tech industry.

This is not sustainable. The tech industry is cannibalising the music industry to pull in subscribers.

Consumers get stuffed too. Your digital tracks have no second hand value and you don't have record collections any more. Just a lock-in subscription.

If you want to support your favourite band, buy their CDs, DVDs and other goods.

By attacking the ripping of CDs, the music industry may have shot themselves in the foot. Buy a CD and rip it, you have a real copy and a digital copy, and the money goes to the music industry. Push people on to streaming, sales from CDs decline, and the tech industry takes control of your revenue stream.

The easiest solution may be an alternative physical medium. I did a design brief a while back that would have embedded a PROM or EPROM in a 1x1x1 Lego piece. The base plate would have WiFi/PSU or a USB cable. The Lego would form a memory array. Your music collection would be visible, physical and rather cool. Buy the Lego version and you can transfer a digital copy to any device you own.

The bonus here is that the system could be global and work just like an external hard drive. Other physical/digital hybrids have tended to be software/region/device dependent.

Japanese CD packages often include DVDs/goods and vinyl is becoming popular again. Kpop merchants are experts at selling boxes with photo books and all sorts of goodies in them. Physical media still has a future. Without it, the music industry is just a colonial outpost of the tech industry. Less slaves to the rhythm as slaves to GAFA.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Bring back vinyl records and jukeboxes.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

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