As distribution of music (and movies and television shows including music) go increasingly digital and becoming more and more widespread, composers and songwriters are getting less money, not more. Is this because of wholesale piracy?
No. It’s actually far more interesting than that.
There are essentially two kinds of fees associated with music licensing. There’s what’s called a ‘mechanical’ fee, and a ‘performance’ fee (actually there’s a ‘synchronization’ fee for including the music at all, but that’s not really important here). Don’t forget that music is a copyrighted work, like any other.
The mechanical fee is basic music licensing. A publisher wants to include a track on a CD, or a production company wants to include a song in a movie or television show. The mechanical fee goes to the composer and songwriter to cover the distribution of the work that includes the song. Generally, though, there’s not a lot of money in mechanical fees (and indeed, they may waive those fees). The bulk of the composer/songwriter’s income from their work comes from the performance fees.
Every time the TV show airs, or the movie is shown, or a music track is played outside of someone’s personal, physical residence (say, on the radio, in a hall, or in a coffee-shop), or the song/music is performed on stage, or is played by a DJ (online or offline),or played as music-on-hold, it’s a ‘performance’, and a small performance fee is then owed to the composer/songwriter.
Performance fees are generally not very large. For an audience of 100 people or less you’re generally looking at only a dollar or two in performance fees per day. That means a number of performance fees need to be paid before the composer/songwriter can afford a hot-dog and a cup of coffee.
These artists, are getting increasingly less money from performance fees, however. Cheques for less than 5 cents are not unheard-of.
So, with the Web delivering more music, more movies and more television shows to more people, and the publishers growing their businesses and their profits, why aren’t the artists making more?
Because they’re not getting performance fees.
Think about this – you watch a TV show on television, whether that’s cable or satellite or whatever. There’s a performance fee, because that’s being broadcast to the public. Grab it from iTunes, however, and there’s not. It’s not a performance, because it’s just you and the music.
The artists who worked on the background music may be getting nothing at all, in fact, not even mechanical fees for that, but thousands or hundreds of thousands of people are enjoying their work.
The question is, should the artist be getting paid the equivalent of a performance fee for private viewing, or should that be considered getting paid twice for the same thing?
There are two schools of thought here.
There’s no legislative requirements for the law to prop up an industry that is losing money because of changing market conditions, culture or technology. Many judges have argued that there is no moral requirement to do so either.
On the other hand, while the ‘starving artist’ might be something of a cliché, why should an artist make more work, if they’re not getting paid for the work that they’ve already done?
Copyright gives an artist the right to control when and how their work is distributed and duplicated (for a limited period, after which those rights are subject to mandatory expiration, and the work becomes public domain), but does not confer any innate rights or requirements to profit from it – that’s rather a separate thing.
In the case of music licensing, however, a legal framework controls mechanical and performance fees, but has failed to adapt to changing conditions, leaving artists getting less and less, as their work becomes increasingly widely (and legally) distributed and enjoyed.
Right now, it’s the National Music Publisher’s Association versus the Digital Media Association. Both trade-groups are interested in this issue. The former, to adapt the model to get their artists paid, and the latter to block this effort, arguing that the artists don’t need to be paid for twice for the one thing.
At the moment, there’s something of an impasse, but it’s certain that something needs to change somewhere. Either new fees need to be added or the entire licensing structure needs to change. Well, it’s that or maybe all those artists will have to go into intellectual property law as a career instead.
In that, you have actually made the C|NET story I read a short time ago make some sense in a way they couldn’t (for me): That music writers and authors want Apple, Inc. to actually pay a perfomance fee every time the 30-second “demo” track in played in the iTunes store.
At first my thought was “those greedy idiots are on heavy-duty drugs!)
But now with your explanation, I can see their argument in a far more balanced light and understand their acclaimed plight.
Thanks!
I won’t lie, I almost always download my music. Nowadays I do not have the money to spend 20-30$ on a CD here in Canada. Now, if I DO find an artist I like, I will find some way to purchase a CD through them so they get most of the proceeds.
Of course I haven’t really worked with iTunes at all except to put music on my iPod.. so I don’t know about that side of it or how much money goes directly to the artist.
Ignoring fact that a human body can’t be trademarked/copyrighted/whatever (that is one of the main reasons why there are so many non-human characters in cartoons), the whole situation is a bit like a model having a cast of their body in a given position done, and then statues are produced in mass from the cast. And the model wants to be paid for every time someone looks at one of the statues…
Perhaps, but remember that that is the basis on which these works are contracted.
To extend your analogy a bit, “The model wants to be paid every time someone looks at one of the statues because that’s the basis on which the industry pays — Now there’s a new way of looking at the statue that only pays the person who mass-produces them, but the basis for the model being paid has not changed.”
I see, it was messed up from the start, and then as times changed the messed upness started to become more and more clear to the point some people intentionally or otherwise, managed to avoid the messed upness to their own advantage, but in the process revealing how fragile the whole messed up structure was
“On the other hand, while the ‘starving artist’ might be something of a cliché, why should an artist make more work, if they’re not getting paid for the work that they’ve already done?”
That’s a good question. Of course artistic peformance hasn’t always relied on an economist’s rationale for its existence. Modern media with its billions in cash flow is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was a time when chronicaling events in song, the joy of performing or other such reason were the artist’s motivation. Everyone needs to eat and have a roof over their heads, but I’m not sure music consumers really need to support the lavish lifestyles of media corporate execs and the massive publicity engines that everyone seems to think is so necessary for success.
Maybe there’s a shaking out that’s due. It’d be nice if content creators could be more directly connected to their markets/audience and require less expensive self-interested support.
Not sure if this really applies to the “argument” (regarding ‘if an artist doesn’t make money on what they’ve done, why should they continue’)
I used to teach stage theater and among the first lessons was to make it clear that one who enters the ‘arts’ should do so “for the art in you, not you in the art”.
Meaning the best success is when your motivation really is in the right place and the best place for the artist is for the art, not any potential riches that may come from it.
It’s why the best movies (for example) are often the little indies made on a budget. The blockbusters are fun, but on a pure entertainment and intellectual and emotional level, those backyard budget indies just can’t be beat. (Just my own opinion, I know LOL)
You have a point there. Most music composers and artists are at the bottom of the food-chain as far as payments are concerned. Only a very few of them actually grow wealthy from it, and then only by having enough clout to be able to set their own terms. Most don’t ever achieve that bargaining position.