Dear friends, it has been quite some time since my last words in print, but I feel the need to write just a few words about the musical world in its business sense, and the havoc created by those well meaning people known as internet ‘pirates’, that is the people who in their uncontrollable desire to make music in general, and CD’s in particular, available free to the global public. When asked about their activities, they frequently speak about their ‘noble’ aims to make music accessible to all and sundry, for free naturally, although not all of them are ‘noble’: to the contrary, they charge people and of course, never pay the artist or the intellectual royalties which are due to the song writers.
When we speak about the act of theft, which is what in reality it is, this no longer seems to bother anyone who is not affected economically by the actions of these people. The questions of ethics and the morality of theft, have lost their fundamental meaning to many people when it comes to ‘finding stuff on the internet’.
I however, would like to put this new view of values in the context of killing and murder.
Naturally enough, people who kill other people are still considered a menace to society, and either they will be imprisoned or executed depending on which country or which state in which country you live in.
But what about the killing of an industry? The record store is dead. Effectively dead from the deadly actions of the pirates. I grew up in record stores, they were one of the joys of my early life. What about the murder of the music industry? It’s clear to me that if the ‘pirates’ know about their fatal blows they have given to the music industry, they couldn’t care less. Do they realize the havoc and damage they have wreaked upon musicians, their lives and families, and the industry? Do they care? I think not.
Having spent the greater part of my life working with record companies, I am fully aware of their innate arrogance, and above all, their insatiable greed. Since the vinyl LP, they have systematically overcharged everyone for recordings. In a certain sense, they share the responsibility in the sorry state of affairs that the music industry now finds itself in. Even though technology has made home recording a reality, and has played a role in the demise of the recording studio, the knock-on effect of pitiful amounts of record sales can be traced directly to the continuing downloading, mainly free, of CD’s. How many recording studios have closed their doors forever? World-wide the number is spectacular.
What to do? What I fail to understand is the attitude of the respective governments of the ‘west’. Do these governments realize how much tax revenues they have lost, and lose daily from the actions of these ‘people’? We know that there are ‘pirates’ operating out of quite a few eastern bloc countries, Romania, Bulgaria, the Russian Federation to name just a few, where control from our point of view is out of the question. There are unfortunately, ‘pirates’ operating in many countries in Europe and the USA. What could be done here in the ‘civilized’ west, is that the governments take on the telecom companies. If they are found to be hosting ‘pirates’, they need to be sanctioned. The telecom companies know all too well who is doing what, and if they find themselves hit with large fines, for example, they will terminate the ‘pirates’ very quickly.
Perhaps I’m just naive, but having suffered for many years at the hands of ‘pirates’ who act with impunity, and I’ve seen the damage they have brought upon many people, not just musicians. I speak with authority. To be followed…
What can I say?I am also one of those victimes of the « pirates »,like most of you people.And I am born in the creadle of the pirates-the above mentioned country Bulgaria.Let me tell ya in a few words what’s goin’on here.
A pirate is almost everybody including 90 % of the musicians themself.Unbelievable!!!The result is ironically lower music culture,less and almost none live music,no music productions,less and lower level of musicianship ofcourse….I won’t go in further details…you all may guess the rest and the global injuries John mentions are the reallity right here right now…and in personal I don’t have published music anymore and I am gigin’ in Scandinavia(recently even on boats)away from my family and especially my 9 years old son-a gifted pianist…poor boy!I know to be an artist doesn’t come together wuth a good strategist…God bless the love of music is still here and I believe that we all will find the way!
Sounds like someone isn’t making enough money and is crying about it…..
Guess you’ll just have to tour more..
I’m with you in sentiment but do not think that encouraging companies to spy on and punish users is any sort of solution in free society. Also I’d add that the pirates themselves make up such a huge portion of society that it’s impossible to hold them responsible legally. Stealing is wrong but these folks don’t view it that way and I don’t suspect they will change their minds or habits any time soon. Im afraid this battle is already lost.
honestly, fusion sux.
I agree, John! Just the other day, I went into one of the popular retailers and bought CD’s (Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, and Kenny Burrell to be specific). The quality of the CD’s are far superior to anything I could have downloaded, plus they have not only the original liner notes, but up to date liner notes as well. They were supurbly digitally remastered and just an overall better experience than just getting them off the internet.
Thanks for you insight, John and your concern.
Peace!
Kelly Perkins
Tyler, TX
How on earth did musicians live before the music ‘industry’, before they could stamp ‘intellectual copyright’ on a bunch of sounds, as if they had some sort of personal right to them? I am amazed to see a thoughtful, brilliant musician of your calibre defend so slavishly a bunch of people who make their money by taking from the actual artist. Granted, the pirates who consider themselves some sort of crusaders for free wares are idiots, but the music industry has no higher moral ground. I sure do sympathise with your mourning the death of record stores and physical mediums of music, though.
John,
Your piece exudes sincerity, the same emotional sincerity you put into each of your compositions and every performance. Too many music listeners think that music is a human right. It is in the sense that all people should have the right to listen to and make music. But in order to make music in a modern world, there must be a source of funds. Musicians cannot work menial jobs and expect to produce the quality of an artist who devotes his or her life to an artistic craft as for example you have done.
The reason people sense a declining artistic value in music isn’t because good young musicians do not exist, it is because they have to support themselves though non-artistic jobs even if they are moderately successful in terms of audience reception at live performances.
If people want to enjoy good music it needs to be funded. The funding is not going to come from a government grant(though I’m not saying that the government could not do more to fund the arts) nor is it going to come through advertisements. It can only come through a personal investment in a record, cd or legal download.
It’s important to educate illegal downloaders on what their act is doing. Many though not all of these people would think twice if they knew an act they think is innocent is both a crime as well as a moral trespass against the artists whose music they enjoy.
Your proposal however is the only realistic one in respect of stopping this. The hosting of a pirate site must be made a crime and I would go further and say that allowing access to pirate sites by telecom companies should also be made illegal.
Thank you for your contribution to a subject that is very important to the future of music.
Best wishes.
Adam
As Managing Editor for All About Jazz – and as someone who has come to know John and his group quite well over the past few years – I have to throw in here and give my support to what he’s saying. As a musician, as well, I’ve seen and felt the many impacts he speaks of – perhaps not as much, but I certainly know plenty of musicians whose lives have changed because of the shift in the industry, and the relentless sense of entitlement that some seem to have, when it comes to music made by the artists we love.
I am sorry to say I know plenty of people who profess to be HUGE fans of an artist, but when the artist comes out against the proliferation of free recordings, they get all defensive. Either we love these artists, and want them to succeed, or we don’t, but let’s not be hypocritical.
To Mark Downson, I have to say: if you actually think this is true, that John is simply crying because he wants to make MORE money, then you know nothing of the situation. I know another jazz artist, at the same commercial level as John, whose income from CD/music sales has dropped 75% in the past 5 years, meaning he has to spend more time on the road – and we’re talking about guys who are getting older, and for whom the rigors of the road are increasingly difficult, physically, mentally and spiritually. Not that they don’t love getting out on tour, but when they have to tour that much more, it become that much more difficult on them. So let’s think in real terms, here, and not be so knee-jerk cynical.
John was perfectly open about his feelings about the record industry (meaning the majors; the proliferation of small indie labels suffers the same challenges as does John), so not sure why, Dane, you are choosing that to jump on. John was simply trying to say that piracy is not the entire problem – that falls under the realm of balanced opinion – but makes his point about piracy all the stronger for that honesty.
Folks, if we love these people who bring music into our lives, enriching our souls, then we have to acknowledge and allow that they own their music, and we’ve no right to do anything with it, other than what the contract is when you buy their music in whatever form, or see their show: the contract is they put out the best music they can, and you get to hear it, and provide feedback.That’s it, that’s all…and shouldn’t that be enough?
New Internet business models do exist that work favorably for the artists.
However, the older catalogues and contracts are suffering because of their inflexibility to change.
These are indeed tough times in the music industry, but I’m confident the next generation of artists will flourish.
I believe services like Spotify will soon enough have a much bigger effect on the industry than piracy. It’s a double edged sword—on the one side you have people no longer willing to shell out 15 bucks or more for a CD but rather a 10 dollar a month fee for the cool advantage of having 15 million songs with you wherever you go. Of course these fees are shared with artists / publishers but it certainly pales in comparison to the normal business revenues. The flip side of this is that this service does what Pandora does in that it exposes people to music similar to what they already like—and that is nothing but positive. As a musician today, if you want to make a living out of your craft you MUST bring it on the road and deliver it to eager ears yourself.
Yeah but…
The industry as you know is gone, but what has come in its place is an organic free expression thats not controlled by the record company. People complain about pirates because they don’t know how to use them to their advantage. what company’s used to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars into marketing and PR can now be done by a few days of collecting the right emails from bloggers and aggregators and self promoting yourself. The game has changed, it’s a tough existence, but its organic and uncontrolled. The thing i appreciate most is a revival of real music and not that programmed bullshit pop music that revenged our intelligence for too long. At the end of the day, the artists didn’t make a fair percentage of their royalties anyway. The power is back in the musicians hands. The musicians need to stop being lazy and get out there. I own a « Modern » record label and we’re doing really well. All of our music has been recorded form home recording studios and on the road recording studios and our fans love it! We just created our destiny and didn’t stop to complain about it. To sum it up, music hasn’t « died » in reality it’s been free’d. The revenue model has changed. And, like anything else that comes with change, you need to get with the times, and create your own destiny. There are people that talk and there are people that do.
With a heavy heart I admit that in my own small way I have committed this act of ‘piracy’ and regret it now. I do see both sides of the argument and as a musician and creative artist have suffered because of the stifling stricures of the industry and been forced to compromise my integrity for over 40 years in order to make ends meet. I can see Adam Garrie’s point clearly and agree strongly that someone needs to take control of this anarchy, but to solve this conundrum is akin to nailing jelly to the ceiling..
Dear John,
when I was 13, some 37 years ago, I bought the Mahavishnu Orchestra score book and began learning the tunes. On the inside cover you had a traditional Hindu saying; « We play music to align the spirit ». I tore that out and have carried it with me my entire life. I am a professional musician and mixer and I think the issue you raise is important because it speaks to a larger issue. Yes it is true that for a brief window Art and commerce met and some artists benefited economically. The reality is that that window is over and closed. Simple as that. The digital sea of vomit, comprised of all sorts of « intellectual properties » grows exponentially every day. The music that we love has been systematically dumbed down and packaged to the point where younger people cannot distinguish between crap and art, music and sound. What you do as an artist has inspired me my entire life as it combines deep craft and risk, but there is now way to value that anymore, but that also true of people’s lives and their work and their homes and their health. I cannot take it personally that the global consensus allows for the inequitable distribution of wealth. Carl Jung said that as the collective unconscious grows the intelligence of the group sinks to the lowest common denominator. I think we can all clearly see that. Thank you for all the music and inspiration. may we all find a way to support each other as artists and survive these challenging and evolving times.
One thing is certain – the pirates will always be pirates adn find the way to loot the goods for profit or some other maliscious intent. If anything, the whole music distribution format needs to be changed. Eeryone buys almost everything online these days and music is no exception, so one idea is to invent a downloadable format that will be impossible to share/copy, how is a mystery for now. Maybe gamer community can help out here. After all, in just three weeks, they deciphered the structure of a key protein in the development of AIDS that has stumped scientists for years (!)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393200,00.asp
There needs to be a worldwide contest – the winner (team or person) of suitable invention will get a % of sales – that will get their attention quickly and everyone will win in the end, just a thought…
I absolutely do not condone digital piracy in any form, and I do believe it is hurting the music industry. But, I also think the author of this article needs to rethink some of his interpretations of the problems and causes, such as:
« The record store is dead. Effectively dead from the deadly actions of the pirates. I grew up in record stores,… »
This is total nonsense. The record store died with the convenience of being able to buy online from an infinite selection of stock in a less time consuming, less hassle, non-carbon using, cheaper method.
« Even though technology has made home recording a reality, and has played a role in the demise of the recording studio, …
This is total nonsense. My « home » recording studio in my basement IS a Recording Studio from which I can Produce, Engineer and record from as well as any of this guys recording studios. Thank goodness we have many many more studios and choices in our quest for a better product.
« What could be done here in the ‘civilized’ west, is that the governments take on the telecom companies. If they are found to be hosting ‘pirates’, they need to be sanctioned. The telecom companies know all too well who is doing what,..
Wrong target here… The Telecom companies .. get serious. Let’s just blame the Department of Transportation for every accident on Americas highways; or the gun manufacturer for every gun murder. Quit blaming everyone else. Get your record label to go after the pirates, not the people who build the road they drive on.
Hi John,
You are a man of nobility and dignity!
I grew up listening to Beatles, Jimi, Joni…and the brilliant Mahavishnu Orchestra! I had the honor of meeting you at Mad Hatter in the late 80s!
I am a Recording Engineer-started with 16-track and large-API,Neve-consoles! My industry is quite affected by the death of music industry! These thieves hurt Everyone: the composers, engineers, studios, musicians, etc! People don’t care! They actually prefer mp3’s convenience to the Quality of vinyl, SACD, and now the brilliant Blu-Ray audio: 24 bit, 96kHz, and…NO Compression! So…now for solutions! In every point of change, one must diversify or succumb!
Pink Floyd are doing something quite wise-they are re-releasing their classic records in High Quality vinyl, SACD surround, Blu-Ray surround, DVD-Audio, rare unreleased re-mastered stereo, etc. The difference in quality compared to a downloaded mp3 is like comparing a new Aston Martin db9 to a 1962 Volkswagon Beetle!!! FFS, if you truly LOVE music…support it, buy it, recommend it, Create it! Long Live John, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Smoke Fairies, Pink Floyd, and all great artists who CARE enough to Bless this world with their Art! To all Pirates…would you go to Macy’s and steal a jacket? Steal milk from Trader Joes? Steal candy from a baby? No…???!!! Well, please think about what you’re destroying! Channel your energy and destroy corrupt, greedy, institutions and pseudo-governments…NOT the bleeding hearts and artists!!!
While I agree that pirates have had a huge influence on declining record sales, I believe that both record stores and recording studios would have died out even if it was somehow impossible to illegally download music.
Albums (i.e. physical records, cds, cassettes, etc.), as much as we love them, are an antiquated notion. The question is not if, but when, these formats will be completely replaced by digital music. Bemoaning the death of record stores is much the same as bemoaning the death of newspapers. We have a visceral attachment to these things.
As someone who came of age in the Napster era, I have lived in both the CD and ‘find stuff on the internet’ worlds. When I was in high school I was a massive Pink Floyd fan. Over the course of 2 years I bought every one of their albums. I had a little book that gave a synopsis of each one. In the inside jacket I made a list of which one I would buy next and then save up for it. There were some duds, sure, but I loved them all. Today, I could go to allmusic.com and get discography listing with reviews for every album. I could then find a torrent and download the entire pink floyd discography in lossless FLAC. Would I still give each album it’s due diligence? Probably not.
Attention spans are growing smaller by the day. The idea of listening to Wagner’s Ring Cycle live and in person at one time was not out of the question. Now it seems unheard of. The 30-50 minute LP format, while once the standard, is being replaced by singles. I would argue that for many people, the idea of sitting down with an entire album seems like a waste of time.
I will pay for good music, but will find some way to listen to it first. I probably buy less than 1% of what I hear because most of it is not worth a repeated listen. Quality needs to go up, and prices need to go down. If every album was $5, I would never think about illegally downloading. But after 20 years of spending $15-20 of a CD with a few good songs and a bunch of filler, I don’t feel that bad.
iTunes did more to kill record stores than all the pirates put together. I think the underlying issue is this: the Internet revolutionized the distribution of music, and the old system of record stores and radio stations is obsolete. This must be particularly stressful for the incumbents, who, having figured out how to earn a living within the old system, must now start over again. Bob Dylan said, « An artist must be careful to never think he has arrived somewhere, he must always be in a constant state of becoming. » For those who dare, a new universe of possibilities awaits.
as an artist since preteens, and having to wear a fake mustache from playboy to play clubs (you had to be 18), Johns’ point is powerfully valid. As a musician, i had a great run up to the 80’s, disco killed rock (much cheaper than a band), and when i went back to solo’s, heavy dui enforcement and Karaokie put the final knife in the back of my career. So…, i went back to painting murals, portraits etc. Large format graphics put an end to that, and inexpensive quality printers, with free apps, pushed me out of portraits. Back to painting houses,but gettin kinda old… sure do miss it. i mostly give my music away… so far.
I am completely sure that the piracy does not harm the GOOD music. The Fans always will get the original version and they will pay any price to follow his favorite artist. The Fans will get the original record by the content, the art and the references inside … and then will wait for the next issue. Piracy is for pop music and it sells by millions.
John Kelman hit most of the right points, noting JM did not defend record companies etc.
A few more things should be pointed out.
Dane Charlton wrote:
“How on earth did musicians live before the music ‘industry’, before they could stamp ‘intellectual copyright’ on a bunch of sounds, as if they had some sort of personal right to them? “
First of all, an eBook, which Dane would apparently feel OK about stealing because it contains just a bunch of letters, could be written about how musicians lived. What did anyone do before technology allowed them to do anything? What did gravediggers do before there were shovels? What did taxicab drivers do before there were cars? You can ask the same question about a thousand different occupations. The question is utterly meaningless.
It is true; today’s technology has made it possible to steal the work of others. However, doing so is a question of personal ethics, not personal computing. Those who pilfer the work of others for personal enjoyment are not worthy of the art they steal. Quite literally, they are taking food out of the mouths of the children of these artists. John McLaughlin is lucky. Very few artists can withstand this immoral onslaught. He will be OK. But, I know he is speaking mostly on behalf of his many valued collaborators who can not afford to have their livelihoods pulled out from underneath them. And even about someone such as myself, a writer. I find my copyrighted works stolen on the Internet everyday. Many times the words are not credited or they are associated with illegal downloads I would never endorse. I can only guess how many of my eBooks have been stolen. Even the paper books I have written have been scanned and offered for free. Let me tell you Dane, and others like you, when something you have created from your heart and soul and sweated hundreds of hours over is stolen – it feels like rape. That is just an emotion. The practical aspect of losing rightful income is even more hurtful in a world which requires you earn it.
Second, Dane writes “… a bunch of sounds, as if they had some sort of personal right to them?”
“Dane is being disingenuous at best. What is the difference between a bunch of sounds, and say, a bunch of bricks planned to be used to build a house? Bricks by themselves are just pieces of clay. Do I have to carry out the metaphor to its conclusion?
There needs to be a new economic model for the music business for sure. But does that mean in the meantime it is OK to steal what you want?
Musicians and artists fill a need for many people. Do you really believe bringing pleasure or thought through art, any art, is not worthy of remuneration? Do you think it is not hard work? Do you believe it is not the most personal expression of labor possible? Do you think art is not part of “supply and demand?” Do you think art has never helped you in your life in some way? If you don’t, then I feel sorry for you. Believing art has no monetary value whatsoever and therefore can just be plucked like a clover for you to smell and enjoy is the height of selfish entitlement. I hope technology finds a way to prevent those of you who seem proud that you can snatch art illegally, from enjoying it. Piracy is too weak a word for me – robbery is more like it.
Hello John, it’s Ki Ki weighing in from Berkeley:
John has more than just a point to make if he brings this subject to your attention. Please do not be duped into believing the new model of industry (after the big free for all) is superior to the old. It has a long way to go and is deeply dependent on your level of integrity and understanding of how your individual choice affects your community. » Self regulating free market » works only if the individuals within act with integrity, or else it becomes a free-for-all as in style of the recent London riots. If there is a hope for the human race at all it will be an awakening to the effects of our doing. Everything else is worthless propaganda, hype or basking the ego in the glory of short term success. Back to the subject: Spotify is supposedly one of these new models of revenue for us artists putting control back into our hands. In truth its just the rise of a new middle man. Truth is in numbers and you can be viewed here with the example of top seller Lady Gaga: http://torrentfreak.com/lady-gaga-earns-slightly-more-from-spotify-than-piracy-091121/
I do not doubt that some independent labels are on the upswing and more power to them. But do not forget there is a lot of clean up work to be done from the debris of shattered lives who have not been able to get back on track and perhaps never will. Youth and fashion are deceiving and we need a model that is mature enough to account for the ones IN NEED aka the children and the seniors. And that is what royalties provide(d) as way for revenue to be shared without the need to hustle or be a top dog at anybody’s game (a very adolescent lifestyle) If we look at numbers instead of opportunity, the old industry put much more money into the artist’s pocket when it was functional. There was tour support, 5 year record deals, great sounding studios with engineers that know their turf and some quality control to prevent the ether from being swamped. I am not saying they were perfect, just better. A good friend of mine 25 years back opened an envelope with a 100 000 USD check in it from royalties of a hit record made 30 years back. To the contrast my band Garaj Mahal worked for 11 years @ 80 live shows per year and we released 9 albums, sat in the van 6 hours a day and loaded our own gear. We were relaxed about allowing people to tape shows as we were part of the ‘modern scene’ where tapers where welcome for the promise of greater exposure’. So how did that work for us? Our total revenue is less than 800 dollars a year. So that’s 200 bucks for me in yearly royalties. Now the band is dead because we our markets are becoming impoverished and there is not enough revenue to justify continuing the operation. Did we suck perhaps? After winning the 2007 Indi music awards and getting 4 stars in down beat for our last album plus standing ovations all over the US…I don’t think so! The story of Garaj Mahal (the greatest band the world never knew) is here: http://www.garajmahal.us
There is a bright side to all of this. It is the beacon of self knowledge. And as that grows in us who remain sincere through the hard knocks of life we realize there are real jewels in this world and John McLaughlin is one of them, in music and in life. Kindness, fairness and honesty may not stick out in these days of hustle and free-for-all piracy but it sure goes a long(er) way. Life is beautiful and we humans have work to do. Excuse me while I go back to shedding my instrument…cheers, Kai
John, I do hear these words and cries of someone who knew a different time of music and profitability. Much has changed and the landscape can seem confusing and backwards. One thing I have experienced is that music is surely alive and well. The passion behind creating it, performing it and supporting is happening and en mass. It just can be confusing on where to look for its life. It may not be happening in the places that you have seen it in the past. The death of the current industry is the byproduct of a revolution. The revolution is about freedom and autonomy……..That being said, I see this revolution as in the tearing down phase. There might not be an obvious answer to how the musician will prosper right now…………but like every revolution it must be torn down before a model that represents the people who are clamoring for it can be built.
I am a professional musician, I am a pirate, I am in love with the music of yesteryear and the technology and sharing of the current year. The one thing that you dont have to worry about is music. Music will prevail. Musicians will get their due probably in a way that neither of us could have imagined.
blessings,
jans
With all due respect, and I mean a great amount, I must chime in and say that Lexx has in fact the correct response. Yes, taking others’ music and selling it without paying the composers and performers for it is indeed wrong. But most of the time, that’s not what is happening.
People for the most part are not buying a reselling high quality recordings. They are most of the time putting up collections of mp3’s, a low-quality compressed format up for free. That, in many cases, is SELLING high quality recordings.
Now as for the argument that mp3 piracy killed the records store, I must tell you that you’ve been criminally misinformed by the likes of the RIAA, if that is what you believe. What killed the record store was people BUYING mp3’s from itunes, and high quality recordings available directly for download from artists themselves in many cases. The entire recording industry has changed. No longer does one go into the studio. They have a laptop, and either Logic, ProTool, or Ableton Live, and Waves or UAD plugins on it, a good set of convertors, a small rack of preamps, a small collection of mics, some decent headphones, and a small set of nearfield monitor that can be set up nigh anywhere. Of course you’ve seen this setup a thousand times, so you know this to be true. If you haven’t then stop to look around you, and see how the rest of the world no longer records onto an MCI 2″, but instead simply does a « Save As » and then « Upload To ».
That is simply the way the game has changed. Now, the response to this is VERY simple, but it means that 1)Yes, people must tour, and 2) that the time for studio magic is becoming less profitable under the following model:
In addition to the above-mentioned setup, one tours with a CD duplicator, a stack of blank CDs, a printer, empty sleeves, and a roll of tickets. A recording is made of a show, with a decent mix, track markers added, no edits, and ready to be burnt to CD twenty minutes after the show. A person pays for the CD, is given a ticket and asked to return to the counter with the ticket in a few moments, the CD is then burned, the ticket holder returns, and nearly ALL the money goes to the artist (maybe a small fee to the sound engineer, and person/s running the stall). And that’s it. No piracy possible, you’ve already made your money, no fees, no RIAA, MUCH better margin, and everyone who was at the show has a personalized experience on top of that.
Now, in addition to that, the engineer can make a compilation and proper mix of the best performances in a tour and create a much more cleanly mixed and edited version for sale, or maybe as a bonus download for those who bought a CD at a show.
You can’t stop piracy, but you can circumvent it to a degree. And I’ll be honest, while I’ve never downloaded your mp3’s, if it weren’t for free outlets like YouTube, I wouldn’t have heard a fraction of your marvelous performances that I have had the ability to enjoy, Mr. McLaughlin. I hope you’ll read these words and rethink your stance on things. I’m not a fan of performances being stolen either, but I do not believe that this is the cause of the woes of the music industry. The double-edged sword of immediately available technology and communication have made the cut. Best of luck, and thank you for the music and the wisdom. Utmost Peace and Respect,
I
I wrote an article almost three years ago that covers this very issue:
Don Tillman: A New Business Model for the Music Industry
http://till.com/articles/newalbum
Basically, the music industry is changing, the old business model no longer works, and a new business model has yet to be developed. This is one possible approach that aligns the musician, the music listener, culture, technology and business.
I have to thank John Kelman for his response. I am in the situation he describes. What do music consumers suggest we do to support ourselves and continue to make music? If you think McLaughlin is whining you are wrong. Ok, so we don’t do it for money. But believe me, you can’t do without money! If no one pays except at concerts it makes touring the sole source of revenue to produce recordings and promote them and live. That’s hard to do even if your tours make good money! All I ask is this, if you like our music then buy a CD or pay for a digital download. If you can’t afford it then please spread your enthusiasm around. Maybe some of your friends have a buck or two. If you know of another source of revenue for us (besides bloody publishing) I’m all ears.
One last thing, whether you are paying for or are pirating music PLEASE get uncompromised source formats like lossless digital files, vinyl and CDs. At least I’ll know it sounds good.
Cheers to you all!
Hansford
Totally agree with you Johnji … piracy is like killing the goose that lays the golden egg !!!
Hello 🙂
I’m also a professional musician.
I think we’re in a period of evolution, no one knows what the model will be in 5-10 years time.
Streaming isn’t the answer as any deal to provide a comprehensive streaming service would have to include the majors who will want the revenue model to be heavily biased in their favor. Not likely to pay out a lot of money to speciality artists.
Consumers need to decide that they want to pay for music. If they dont musicians won’t be able to afford to make music any more.
Musicians aren’t rich, its tough. It DOES make a difference if you choose to pay.
Make the decision.
This is indeed a subject that makes my blood boil each time it’s being raised. A look at some of the downright idiotic and arrogant comments here on John’s site as a response to his article shows the abysmal moral and intellectual level some of these people seem to function on. People who continue to pirate music have no clue of the costs, effort, commitment and lifelong dedication that are involved in making and producing music, and no idea the damage they are doing. Instead , the pseudo philosophize about the « freedom » of the internet, the evil “content mafia”, the birthright to download anything they want, when they want it, for free. It seems of little significance to them that the music / movie/game they just stole is the result of thousands of hours of work and effort, made by people investing time, work and a lot of money in their productions, and who need to eat and pay bills.
I’ve seen my last release pop up on several sharing sites, downloadable for free. Insult was added to injury when I saw it on sites that actually asked money for some sort of “membership”, supposedly for tech support…thing is there’s not a single thing you can do about it.
Whenever I defend us musicians on forums when the subject of illegal downloads is raised, I’m being called a looser who simply doesn’t sell enough, a whiner, someone who hasn’t grasped and isn’t ready for the new terms of the digital age etc. etc. blah blah. I’ve read ludicrously silly statements like “ musicians should do real work like everyone else and perform every day, and not make money by endlessly copying and selling something they’ve done in a few days “, or “ something that only exists digitally cannot be stolen because it won’t be missing when you copy it, unlike real material things”.
And then there’s the smart ass “ you just need to gig more” comments…those people do not know anything about the real world of gigging and touring, how hard it is to get gigs in the first place, that the costs involved often exceed the ridiculously low money you get these days etc etc.
The incredible stupidity and arrogance in comments like “Sounds like someone isn’t making enough money and is crying about it….. “ reflect the fact that some people just don’t have a clue what and who they’re talking about here but rather find it kinda cool to jump on the cynicism bandwagon and loot what they can while the ship is sinking.
We’re not talking musicians who are not good enough to sell and survive on it here, we’re not talking of music as an industry that doesn’t work because no one is interested anymore, we’re talking about the fact that even top of the line artists like John are being robbed of their income because people still continue to consume and use the musicians’ work but just don’t pay for it anymore.
It’s funny how quickly people adapt rather communist attitudes when it comes to claiming that music belongs to everyone and should be free or shared for the good of humanity via cheap flat-rates, when they would probably reach for their shotgun as soon as someone threatens or intends to “share” their own property or work… I’d suggest pirates start producing their own media content, make their own movies, write , produce, practice their own music, and then share it with the world… always for free of course.
There is a need indeed to change the whole copyright system model. One of the main problems being that property is the fuel of capital based society… So bring any other model than that, and they’ll see you as a « dangerous communist » : game over.
This is indeed a subject that makes my blood boil each time it’s being raised. A look at some of the downright idiotic and arrogant comments here on John’s site as a response to his article shows the abysmal moral and intellectual level some people seem to function on. People who continue to pirate music have no clue of the costs, effort, commitment and lifelong dedication that are involved in making and producing music, and no idea the damage they are doing. Instead , the pseudo philosophize about the « freedom » of the internet, the evil “content mafia”, the birthright to download anything they want, when they want it, for free. It seems of little significance to them that the music / movie/game they just stole is the result of thousands of hours of work and effort, made by people investing time, work and a lot of money in their productions, and who need to eat and pay bills. And believe me, most of us do already have part time jobs next to their music carreers to actually keep being able to make music and pay for productions etc.
I’ve seen my last release pop up on several sharing sites, downloadable for free. Insult was added to injury when I saw it on sites that actually asked money for some sort of “membership”, supposedly for tech support…and there’s not a single thing you can do about it.
Whenever I defend us musicians on forums when the subject of illegal downloads is raised, I’m being called a looser who simply doesn’t sell enough, a whiner, someone who hasn’t grasped and isn’t ready for the new terms of the digital age etc. etc. blah blah. I’ve read ludicrously silly statements like “ musicians should do real work like everyone else and perform every day, and not make money by endlessly copying and selling something they’ve done in a few days “, or “ something that only exists digitally cannot be stolen because it won’t be missing when you copy it, unlike real material things”.
And then there’s the smart ass “ you just need to gig more” comments…those people do not know anything about the real world of gigging and touring, how hard it is to get gigs in the first place, that the costs involved often exceed the ridiculously low money you get these days etc etc.
The incredible stupidity and arrogance in comments like “Sounds like someone isn’t making enough money and is crying about it….. “ reflect the fact that some people just don’t have a clue what and who they’re talking about here but rather find it kinda cool to jump on the cynicism bandwagon and loot what they can while the ship is sinking.
We’re not talking musicians who are not good enough to sell and survive on it here, we’re not talking of music as an industry that doesn’t work because no one is interested anymore, we’re talking about the fact that even top of the line artists like John are being robbed of their income because people still continue to consume and use our work but just don’t pay for it anymore.
It’s funny how quickly people adapt rather communist attitudes when it comes to claiming that music belongs to everyone and should be free or shared for the good of humanity via cheap flat-rates, when they would probably reach for their shotgun as soon as someone threatens or intends to “share” their own property or work… I’d suggest pirates start producing their own media content, make their own movies, write , produce, practice their own music, and then share it with the world… always for free of course.
This is, indeed, a complex problem, and there’s no single cuplrit. But Ricardo, with all due respect, your comment that « I am completely sure that the piracy does not harm the GOOD music » is a tad naive. Would that it were that way, but there are too many musicians who I encounter who, like John, are making not just good music but GREAT music, who are being impacted by the changes in the landscape. And
« The Fans always will get the original version and they will pay any price to follow his favorite artist » – sadly, the numbers, even in marginalized genres like jazz, speak otherwise. Another great musician of John’s stature had an album released in 2003, and at the end of the year, to total sales were *3,000* – let’s just say another artist, who spent a long time with Miles Davis, releases an album and sells that few? Something was wrong then, and something is even more wrong now.
Jim Mayer, you may be correct about some of John’s comments; I, too, disagree on the issue of recording studios – the emergence of quality home studios is the inevitable consequence of progress. that said, an interview I’ve got running at AAJ next week with John Scofield has some interesting things to say about the impact. And I would also like to point out that while the gear is now cheap enough and good enough to make absolutely pro recordings from home, what a home rarely has is a great-sounding room, that adds to a recording something that all the gear in the world cannot emulate. Not saying all recordings need it, but, for example, ECM could simply not make most the pristince, transparent recordings they do in a home studio; they need studios with good size rooms where artists can play together in real time, with proper separation of instruments (or, sometimes, even with a little leakage, but to fatten things up) and where the room has its own sound. But I hear ya, at least in part.
Nathan V: I don’t think John’s issue is with digital media, per se, but that it is so far next to impossible, it seems, to protect it from piracy. Of course, there’s also the issue of compressing to shit music that an artist has worked hard to make sound great. But that’s an argument for another time 🙂
Ian Smith: I am sorry to say your suggestion that lo-fi recordings are actually selling the real deal is not supported by the numbers. Yes, they CAN do so, but under strict controls, and done in concert with the artist. All About Jazz does this with its Today’s Free MP3 – a downloadable track, provided with artist/label agreement, as a 192Kbps MP3. We received feedback from artists that this has made a tremendous diff on sales, but tremendous might be misleading: instead of selling a few hundred, they might sell a thousand.
Folks have to appreciate that albums by jazz artists, at least the big ones, used to sell in the high five figures regularly; sometimes even six figures and, back in the ’70s, sometimes even SEVEN. To go from selling tens of thousands of CDs, as was the case with the unnamed artist above, to 3,000? Imagine the impact on your income! And we’re not talking about millionaires quibbling over their next million; we’re talking about some artists who, if they are unable to tour for some reason, are looking at subsistence living.
Thankfully that’s not the problem with John, but he’s certainly not Bono, bitching about having to pay takes in his own country (!). He’s identifying a very real problem across the board, and if some of his specific arguments/suggestions can be taken to small task, the bigger picture problem that he is describing absolutely is not – it’s a very real problem, having a very real impact on the ability for musicians at many levels to do what they used to – make a decent living (decent, being the operative word) at music-making.
Suggestions that piracy/illegal downloading somehow supports the artist and encourages sales of « real » products is the common excuse, but is just that: an excuse. Sure, the hardcore fan will almost always buy their favorite artists’ music, but those are rarely enough to fully support an artist.
But it is a complex issue, and I have to say I’m happy to see John’s post engender discussion, as it’s the only way to get the problem out there.
Best wishes!
John
One more point to consider: On Sept 15, this site announced that John has 5,000 followers. If every one of them bought every CD John puts out, do you think that’s enough to put bread on the table?
Ok, sure, we need to accept that not all hardcore fans join up on an artist’s website, but let’s be conservative, and double that number to 10,000. 10K is a GREAT number these days, but the same problem – is that enough, after labels, publicists and managers take their fair share cut, to put bread on the artist;s table?
I think not. It’s more a tip than a salary. As I said initially, artists are being forced to tour more, and for aging guys – even guys like John, who are in great physical shape – for our aging heroes, and considering that travel is more grueling now than ever, that’s a tough reality to push on them.
John’s reaction is quite understandable and every one should be able to resist to the « sweet temptation » of dowloading freely music.Besides ,the french government voted a bill to quell such wrondoings, and one million of french pirates have been « warned » by email to stop their action.Up to now there have been few sentences in france and only on parole.
Jim Mayer said, » Quit blaming everyone else. Get your record label to go after the pirates, not the people who build the road they drive on. »
Jim, last time I checked those roads were policed.
And just what would the record label do if by some miracle they were ever able to track down even one of these crooks supplying files who hide secretly behind these illegal downloading sites? The record label, or independent artist, has zero power to stop anybody from doing anything. (Please don’t mention suing. How does one sue thousands of people?)
Regarding legal downloads killing record stores… It is true that the availability of legal downloads has affected record stores. However, their impact could be much less when you consider that it is estimated that for every single legal download – there are 20 to 100 illegal downloads.
Lexx’s post is pure nonsense. The pirates are actually free PR firms that the musicians should be grateful for? I suppose I should be grateful for all of those criminals who scam my credit card and pass my private information on so everyone knows who I am and they can steal from me too. There is no difference.
The bottom line is this. However Jim, Lexx or anybody else wants to twist themselves into some bizarre moral justification for what they are doing; it comes down to the fact they are stealing the livelihoods of other people. Sadly, these people have no moral compass.There is no getting across to them. Is there any doubt they take this attitude to other parts of their lives? I think not.
Looks like its time to adapt. Everyone else has…
There is no question that the issue of piracy and outright theft has dealt a crippling blow to the music industry and that it is wrong.
However, if you step back and look at the bigger picture of things, you see that many industries have come and gone over time….not just the music industry. Technology has always been a game changer. From a sociological standpoint, you also see that it is rare that *anyone* plugs into a job for 40 years anymore and gets a gold watch from that company at the end of the line. The reality is most of us will have a half dozen to a dozen major career changes before we’re done working. Getting to the finish line whole is a challenge we all face.
While it is particularly sad to me that music has seemingly lost a great deal of it’s monetary value because of technology and frankly competition from other forms of entertainment, the music industry is not alone in facing these challenges. Emerging technology has always pushed people out of jobs/opportunities that maybe they were more comfortable in.
When I was getting started as a fulltime musician in the mid 70s, I was able to make an adult wage playing 5 or 6 nights a week in lounges, but by the early 1980s DJs wound up taking away most of that kind of work from lounge musicians. So it didn’t just start with the emergence of digital technology. It’s a much bigger issue than that and one that is frankly more problematic to find a solution to. I was able to cobble out a living for a couple more decades, but I had to shift my focus to leaqrning how to play and market to weddings and corporate events & shows in order to carry on, which are completely different animals from the world I came from. And eventually that work began to disappear, too. It cracks me up now when I hear how DJs have been losing work by people bringing an iPod to a party/reception and putting on shuffle. Who needs a DJ now? I went to a show this summer at one of the local beer fests. Martha Reeves (of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas fame) was playing one of the local beer fests, and her band was an iPod…literally. That’s a job I would’ve gotten at one point. I had since found other ways to make a living. While I miss the craft of that kind of work and the comraderie of the musicians, I have moved on.
As a musician, the key to survival is learning how to shift the paradigm, and find a way to do what you do in a way that makes it harder to steal. I know for a fact that John McLaughlin can stil show up and draw a crowd. You can’t bootleg a personal appearance by the man himself. That opportunity still remains but you have a lot more competing against that kind of thing. Protecting and having real control of your intellectual property is another matter entirely. Maybe the fix is just another technological advance that hasn’t happened yet.
That people freely steal with impunity is a cultural freight train barreling down the tracks that nobody is gonna be able to stop. Human nature is something you’re just not gonna be able to change. If you want to avoid getting run over by that freight train, you have to get off the track and find another way to get where you wanna go, and try to stay out of harms way as best you can.
You can only grieve so long, when somebody or something dies. Eventually you get back to your life and get on with it. Things change…it’s inevitable. You have to change along with it and evolve. There is no alternative, because life won’t let you stay the same. I will let someone else fight the cultural wars, because I don’t think I can win that battle. My thing is to find an opportunity in what exists in the here and now and making that work.
While technology has effectively taken away opportunities, it has also created opportunities. For instance, I feel that technology has had a very positive impact on music instruction. It is mind boggling to me what’s available now that wasn’t when I was a kid. This is after all the age of information!
Another thing that I feel is a positive is that the mechanics of making a record have become more accessible and affordible. Yes that has taken away work from some folks, but that’s probably a more honest form of competition. But from a musical standpoint, I think it’s resulted in a lot more great music being heard that wouldn’t have in another time.
Another positive is that as an artist, it is now far easier to launch yourself as a result of the internet. If you wanna be in the game, it’s pretty easy to hang your shingle out there and get started.
What the industry has figured out for it’s emerging stars is that the music itself can serve a purpose as a loss leader, and drive other sales, concerts, merchandice, TV & Film, clothing lines and etc. That is a great example of how the paradigm has shifted and at least part of the industry has shifted along with it. I realize that not everybody can or even has interest in going down that path, but if you take that kind of thinking and apply it in a way that suits you a little better, maybe there is some hope.
For me, it’s a badge off honor to carry on and try to make the opportunity that I have in the year 2011 work. I make exponentially less money off of music now than at any time in my adult life, but I have not allowed the meltdown of the music industry stop me from creating music and working with great musicians. I am fortunate to have found other ways to bring in money. There is no more entitlement to being able to make a life for yourself as a musician and artist than there is any other career path. If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen. In closing, I will reiterate that the answer is not to grieve and bemoan. I believe it will be found in thinking outside of the box and finding a way to shift the paradigm in a way that works for you as an individual.
Kurt’s comments are very well-reasoned and quite accurate. Of course, progress stops for no one and we all must live with it. My lament is so much more about the human nature that Kurt speaks of. Can I be saddened and angry that it has taken such a turn? I have no problem with the technology, but when it becomes « human nature » to use it to steal; that just bothers me more than it does Kurt.
I agree with what John has said in many ways.
« What could be done here in the ‘civilized’ west, is that the governments take on the telecom companies. If they are found to be hosting ‘pirates’, they need to be sanctioned. The telecom companies know all too well who is doing what, and if they find themselves hit with large fines, for example, they will terminate the ‘pirates’ very quickly. »
This gets into huge issues of privacy and enforcement. We’ve seen how badly the industry has handled this with lawsuits…
Ultimately everything we’re talking about here is related. The current economic irresponsibility of the corporatocracy is directly related to the whole thing and is a huge huge conversation. Arts funding is pathetic over here, and media provides dismal exposure.
Technology, does allow for spreading of this music. I think in many cases people really don’t know what they’re doing when they pirate. It’s not real to them. It’s sad, but that’s the case.
I think we’re going to need to move toward a kind of patronage system. Whether that is something like Kickstarter or Mr. Kai-ji’s mentorship, or a hybrid or something altogether different, I don’t know. Real fans of intellectualism and art will have to bind together in a small community.
Maybe this also means, for better or for worse, an greater institutionalization of this music. Unfortunately it loses it’s « folk » authenticity, to a certain extent. But that’s life.
What about a kind of software program that just streams the music and contains it? Of course, pirates could record and edit it and it’s in the same scenario.
Ultimately I think the era that artists like John and my father and any number of great artists came up in may well have been a passing time.
Many of the great blues artists lived in poverty (yes, I’m aware there are serious social issues to be broached in this domain). Muddy Waters painted Chess Studios, as I understand it. Mississippi John Hurt lived in damn near a shack.
It saddens me to see so many of my heroes forced into dire economic situations, but at this point, as many artists have pointed out, it’s all speculation.
The 21st century is going to put forth a lot of change, and a lot of it is going to be extremely uncomfortable. The massive amounts of propaganda that lead us to believe that this lifestyle is sustainable will have to end. I say have to because it’s not sustainable.
There are other outlandish ideas floating around in my head, but that’s about all I got for now. We can either lament and fume about pirates or we can think about what to do and live out of here now reality.
Thoughts, questions, comments and snide remarks welcome!
Although I agree pirating is stealing, there is a much larger issue that John Kelman and Kai touched on. There aren’t many people interested in jazz anymore.
The fact that John is one of the bigger names in jazz but only has 5,000 followers on his website and that jazz record sales have declined from seven figures to a few thousand a year for a « big name » artist over the last 40 years, tells me that even if there was no illegal downloads at all John would still be hurting financially.
If there was a list ranking the most pirated musicians/bands where do you think John would be? My guess would be near the bottom.
In the same way bop killed big bands, other forms of music are making jazz less and less popular.
This isn’t a slam on the quality of jazz or the musicians, but more the reality of the music industry (especially in the US).
Not to end in a snotty tone, but when my buddy’s local bar band has as many followers as John McLaughlin does it makes me question the competency of his marketing/promo team.
The problem is, Mr. McLaughlin et al, that pirates are dealing with a vague concept, unlike murder. Murder has a victim that is a concrete result of an action. Music piracy is quite different in that the pirate does not see his victim. The victim is most often purely ether. I have enjoyed John’s music since first hearing those stunning Miles and Emergency records back in the day. But records were killed by CDs, just as CDs are being killed by mp3s. It may be difficult to lay blame for this on any one particular action. But I do believe that greed on the part of the industry is somewhat responsible. I think that prices had a large effect on the creation of the pirate market. This may be a bad example but I will put it out there anyway. I probably paid about $3 or $4 for a brand new sealed copy of Bitches Brew in 1970. Same for Emergency. I am not comparing 1970 prices to 2011 prices, but merely that the price was affordable and didn’t require a second thought. Now comes reissue after reissue of Bitches Brew in ever differing configurations at somewhat starling prices. What is the consumer to think? Record companies are greedy therefore it is ok to rip them off. It is not stealing in the customary fashion in that I walked into a record store and left without paying. It can be justified in some minds as perhaps revenge. It’s human nature to take this route, since most of us do not know John personally and don’t really believe that we are directly harming him. And of course Miles and Tony are no longer with us so what harm is there in downloading BB or Emergency? Those in the industry will have to adjust. There is no choice. Allowing Apple to control out put was a large mistake, IMHO. But that’s fodder for another day.
After ten years of widespread file sharing there is more music being released than ever (especially in niche and fringe genres) and more musicians than ever are making money off of their music. Where exactly is the problem (other than for major labels, Luddites and record executives)?
I understand and respect the opinions of Mr. McLaughlin, but would counter that the music industry is by no means dead nor is it dying. It is simply changing.
As technology created an industry of selling recorded music from musicians, technology is pushing further towards accessibility of music. It seems music is headed for a cloud and nobody will own the music as much as have access to it at any time. Is this a bad thing for music? NO! Is this a bad thing for musicians? No, especially musicians who are capable of playing music in a live setting. Is this a bad thing for folks in the middle, marketing and selling the music? Yes, they will have to adapt. But is the art gone?
Music as an industry is not dead. Mr. McLaughlin, as a musician who recently played in my town in a large hall with tickets ranging from $36 to $72 before fees, you must know that music is alive and well and still capable of bringing in money to sustain careers. Perhaps not as much as the heyday of record industry profiteering. However, many millions of folks have been displaced from their jobs by technology. This is not new and purely « pirates » fault. As before the invention of recorded music, touring musicians playing live music can certainly find a path to a successful lucrative career.
The joys of finding music online for today’s youth is markedly different than spending time in record stores, but is it somehow worse? Or just different? The art translates the same way and the desire to consume music is equally inspired. The market of inspired fans remains the same, it is figuring out how to remain in a sustaining partnership that is the way forward.
My own take on this, plus lot’s of fascinating comments here:
http://www.treygunn.com/blog/2010/7/19/free-downloading-and-the-creative-process-part-one.html
and here:
http://www.treygunn.com/blog/2010/7/28/the-whinging-musician-and-downloading-part-two.html
The short story, I believe, is that pirating/file sharing is a vote to take the creative process out of our culture that creates great works. It « appears » to propagate the works by extending their reach, but it actually is a vote to send musicians to a day job.
This our culture’s big question, at the moment: Do we want fully involved, specialist pros or do we want semi-pros? In many fields, not just musical.
The number of non-musicians who are prepared to tell musicians how many awesome opportunities there are now with the new digital world is fairly staggering! And they would be partially right. The right part is the wonderful ways you can now record and make music available that would have been impossible in the 1970-80s. But that just addresses the getting the music out there. Getting compensated for one’s work is another story. It is not hyperbole to say that audio sales have dropped enormously in the last five years. In my own case 95%! See the above links for hardcore data on my King Crimson royalties. The « why » of that may not be completely definable, but having websites where, with one click, you can download my entire catalog HAS to be a huge contributing factor.
Personally, I think I am in the last tail end of the generation where you have full-time professional musicians. The semi-pro way is much more sustainable and realistic, and I bounce back in forth between the two states as needed.
Great discussion!
Uncle Eb,
While most musicians enjoy the luxury of touring, thus recouping some losses on their appearance fees, most mainstream animators do not. How does one apply your theory to those who are not touring?
Also, it is largely a myth that going on the road actually generates income. Especially in the US. Much, much harder and more precarious than most think.
cheers,
TG
Dear Sir,
To be absoluely frank I feel a little intimidated leaving a comment here. I have grown up on your music (and records which I bought or borrowed from friends since I couldnt always find them growing up in India in the 80’s) an am generally a sincere admirer of your work. But reading this thread I couldn’t resist sharing a few thoughts of my own since what you address is so close to my heart.
At a recent concert of my own, I had to stop playing after half an hour because the crowd and their gossip (some of which I could eve hear while playing!) at the cafe I was playing at were louder than the PA system. What surprised me was not the fact that their total disrespect of a live act playing forced us to bring a scheduled set of 2 hours to 30 minutes but that about 85% of the audience were young musicians and ‘music business’ students in their early twenties who are at the venue regularly. An that they didn’t even seem to notice that the act had stopped playing 3/4ths earlier.
On an even more shocking note, I recently attended a workshop by the very distinguished and respected bass-player/composer Kai Eckhardt where half of the group (composed of music students studying to be professional musicians) seemed to be more interested in talking about their breakfast than listening to what Mr. Eckhardt was trying to bring across with a great deal of generosity from a very heart-centred, non-ego based place (which not all musicians of his caliber make the effort to do). For me personally it was one of those moments where the world didn’t make much sense to me.
I try sincerely not to be judgemental when I say this but one of the most shocking things for me as a musician in his early 30’s in observing how an entirely new generation of musicians are growing up thinking music is a compressed computer language free to download at the click of a button. And fact of the matter is, they never even have really had the chance to know that it was ever different due to the way the Media and technology portrays things, desperately trying to hang on to that last dollar they hope to grab at.
Not sure if this is all too far away from the context. But fact of the matter is I wonder a lot where the life of professional musician/artist is headed in an age where the attention and ears of even students of music are not necessarliy to be relied upon for support anymore. No, I’m not a pessimist but I meet more and more colleagues looking for day jobs and more and more DJ’s (the kinds who only run through a playlist on their laptop) giving up theirs. Every now and then, it scares me a good bit.
So here’s a little prayer that live musicians will keep what they doing inspite.
Hari Aum.
Hey John – I very much agree with your original posting above. We have a real problem when great artists who have contributed so much are not compensated for their work. Kai’s comments make this all the more painful – a great musician with a fantastic group whose income isn’t even coming close to merely covering expenses? ouch.
And I too miss the fun and thrill of discovery from finding new artists and their music in record stores.
But as others have implied we need to look forward. The RIAA has apparently conceded defeat to the thieves after waging battles in court up until 2008.
So, in the spirit of optimism, I’d like to offer some suggestions or ideas from the perspective of a fan. (I gave up on trying to make a living in music in the late 80’s after my touring group imploded.)
First off, I think I have bought everything you have ever recorded, and will continue to do so. There are also quite a few other artists whose works I anticipate fervently and purchase as CD’s or downloads. I would like to suggest that some of these artists have employed website designs and internet strategies that you might also find useful. I hope it is okay for me to mention them here for reference; Bryan Beller has a great site. I have bought all of his recordings and DVD’s and look forward to much more. He bundles a download with a CD purchase so you can listen almost immediately and have a physical product too. Phil Palombi and his group Tri Fi also have excellent websites. When I first found him I liked his music so much that I purchased
everything he had available and he rewarded me with a bonus download. Matt Garrison is doing a nice job with his website as well, I have bought everything he has for sale (except a lesson, more on that later). And Wayne Krantz used to record his shows at the 55 Bar and made those available as
limited time downloads on his website, they were great!
Now, I have no idea how much money any of these guys are actually making but I do know that Bryan is doing okay now and getting better. But he is the former vice president of SWR corp. so his business acumen is quite good too.
So here are some ideas in an effort to help out;
1) Record your shows and make the downloads available for purchase on your website. I missed my one good chance to see you live last year. I will gladly pay for good live recordings. You could do board dubs, or 2 good mics into a Metric Halo ULN2 or similar AD/DA to a Macbook, or even decent mics into a portable like an Olympus LS10. Put it on the site for sale as .flac files. A little story here; I had the good fortune to see Lee Konitz last year at the Kennedy Center. It was one of the most amazing performances I have ever witnessed. I had my Olympus LS10 recorder set for high res in my pocket, but it never came out at that show. Why? The Kennedy Center emcee told us not to record. And Lee also told the audience not to record. That show was a moment in art history that will never be heard or witnessed again. If Lee or the Kennedy Center had recorded the show and made it available for purchase on CD, as a download, or even better, as an actual DVD with closeups of the musicians during their solos (none of that stupid MTV flashing around crap though
please) I would have gladly paid almost whatever they asked for it. And I’m betting a high percentage of the audience would have stood in line for the privelage to hand over more money to Lee or the Kennedy Center so that they could relive that amazing moment in time again too with a high res DVD or live sound file. And John, your shows are that way as well!
2) There is a growing segment of audiophile fans who are paying a premium for high res downloads. For recordings where you have access to masters at 24/48, 24/88, 24/96, or 24/192 consider making these available on your site or through HDTracks.com. I have bought second copies of quite a few
recordings when they became available as true high res downloads including Bill Evan’s Waltz for Debby remastered by Paul Stubblebine, and Diana Krall’s Girl in the Other Room. Both are sublime in high res, big difference from the redbook cd’s and a real treat to hear. I would happily buy new copies of any of your recordings in high res, and I’m sure there are many others out there who would do the same. And the audiophiles are the ones who truly understand the need to financially support the artists they like. Also, it’s easier now than ever before to recruit new audiophiles. All that’s needed is a decent computer, a program that plays high res files such as Foobar, MediaMonkey, or Decibel (my favorite), a decent DAC such as those made by NuForce (or a Metric Halo LIO-8, amazing!) and a good set of headphones such as Audio Tecnica ATHM50’s or Westone UM3’s. Sit somebody down, play a song or two with that setup and voila – a new audiophile enthusiast is born!
3) Consider a music lovers « club » for your fans or website fan club. This could be a service where for a monthly fee special club members would receive the exclusive downloads of the live recordings from your concerts. The options for this could be really fun for you and the fans too; how about a deal where club members could submit requests for songs at your shows that would then be part of the recordings and downloads? Or a « submit a set list »
competition where the most creative set list (which of course would be approved and selected by you) gets played at your show, recorded, and made available to club members for download? And for musician fans a song writing competition; fans could submit a chart to you and you would then include
your favorite at one of your shows? Which leads me to…
4) Online lessons – the technology is now available to have face to face lessons with another individual almost anywhere in the world. I am sure there are many students who would pay a premium to study with you (maybe you’re already doing this too?) And how about a songwriting/critique service? Fans
could again submit songs and for a fee you would help with the arrangement, adding, subtracting, improving, and the best songs would be played in one of your sets. The ultimate would be for one of these fans songs to be included on an album release with writing or co-writing credit given to the fan. How cool would that be?
5) Get a little help from your friends; I am sure there are fans out there with expertise in web design who would be happy to help you set this stuff up in exchange for a music lesson, or some downloads, or dinner with you when you come to town. Or the ultimate; a house concert. That would be worth some serious web design help, promo, whatever you need. If I had web design expertise I would be volunteering right now gratis. Your fans are your friends and
your future. For example, I found out about a prog rock band called District 97 that I really like. I bought all their music. They made an appeal to fans on their website to make donations to help pay for their next recording. I sent them $75 without knowing for sure if or when they would actually be able to record. But I really like them and want to hear more and see them succeed. They are now making that next recording with money from fan contributions which proves that there are a lot more people out there like me!
6) Get some help from other pro musicians; I have talked with the guys whose websites I mentioned above and know that you probably have too. They are great people. Maybe you could brainstorm ideas with these guys, find out what is working and what isn’t. Yes, music is a competitive business but maybe if the artists get together towards the common goal of making a decent living again a solution can be found. I most certainly hope so. Because you all make this world a much better place. Which brings me to my last point for now…
7) Education. I know most of us don’t have the time to go volunteer a performance in a school, and the schools no longer have the money to pay. But if you can make the time to get out there, do a performance for the kids, whether in grade school or upper schools, and explain to them what you do, and why, and how you make money (or not) it will probably be very enlightening. When they see that this great artist makes nothing when somebody downloads illegally, makes very little from Spotify or Mog, makes very little from iTunes, and still doesn’t make a lot even with direct purchases after expenses are paid, I think their support of the arts will have a different meaning. And if a public education campaign could be started by a large group of artists explaining how the fee structures work, and that the artists need to be paid or there will be no more new recordings and a whole lot less concerts, then maybe people will enthusiastically adopt the direct support of musicians by purchasing and contributing through their websites. I believe that most people have an innate need to help others and make a difference. And if they see that their direct contributions to their favorite artists
means more great art will be made then the contributions will happen.
Guys. Stop. The real issue of piracy in music is waaaay simpler than 99% of what’s being said in here today. Really, way simpler.
Keep in mind I’m not taking sides nor saying what’s right or wrong, I’m just pointing out the obvious: when illegaly downloading LPs, a vast majority of people reason pretty much this way – « how come no one raised objections back when you had no other choice but to pay 25€ for one single CD? » And let’s be objective: 25€ was never an objective price for a CD. You know it, I know it, John knows it. Don’t even try to argue that. So, what happens? Think of a 15y/o kid discovering fusion/jazz/whatever in the nineties and having to pay roughly 100€ to buy, say, « Kind Of Blue », « Now He Sings Now He Sobs », « Birds Of Fire » and « Black Market ». 100 €. Obviously, the labels, musicians and whoever else involved in musicmaking would respond « Life’s a bitch. My CD costs 25€, take it or leave it. »
What’s happening right now? That 15y/o kid stroke back.
That’s all there is to it. And honestly, while still buying CDs (including the complete John McLaughlin discography), I cannot say I fully blame those kids. Actually, I don’t blame them at all. And it’s those kids sharing music via eMule, torrents and what not. So, ok, take down The Pirate Bay or whoever makes money out of piracy, but your real problem are those kids who just decided they don’t want to be ripped by labels anymore.
PS – John himself said it: « I am fully aware of their innate arrogance, and above all, their insatiable greed. Since the vinyl LP, they have systematically overcharged everyone for recordings. In a certain sense, they share the responsibility in the sorry state of affairs that the music industry now finds itself in. »
But, while offering his ideas on how to stop the piracy, he never offered a solution to that good old « insatiable greed » and « overcharging of the records » that contributed to the present situation. That’s a bit one sided.
As Kai and John M. and most of my musician friends know, in our current culture we tend to use commercial success as a measure of quality. You protest, but don’t we all believe cream rises to the top, just a bit? Perhaps it is a good measure if we think of music as an entertaining distraction among many others. But for artists who are lifers, or should I say long-term survivors, we absolutely know this is not the case. Cream rises to the top? It may sometimes and others not. Of course no one knows about the submerged artists as they, by definition, are unheard of. And what of the cream that rises to the top but only after the artist’s death? Van Gogh & Gauguin, Melville, Poe, Bach? Cream in this context means talented. If the dictum were true wouldn’t the top be primarily cream? Does anyone remember when Joshua Bell went busking with his Stradivarius in the DC metro?
There is much lamenting, not to say bitching, these days about the state of the music industry. Things are changing of course but the life of artists seems surprisingly stable. And it has been so for some time. While Victorian England was considering sexual liberation and the injustices of industrialization one part of the community had no need of such awakenings. This is what historian Jacques Barzun had to say about it:
“Artists and literary men had by and large not put on Respectability; they had no need of it, not being in business, politics, or the professions; their work made its way by and for itself—or it did not. But to be at ease in good company while producing it, they created in the 19C an institution tailored to their wants: Bohemia. It afforded cheap living, enforced no moral code, allowed modes of dress as singular as desired, and required no sustained solvency. It was first established in the “Latin Quarter” on the left bank of the river in Paris [see the two operas on this Bohème]; it had branches (spontaneously) in other capitals; and it remained a refuge for the gifted young and the anti-social of any age. There too the artist failures, often headed for drink or drug addiction, are fraternally looked after. Economic support comes not alone from the working girl who lives with the poet and feeds him, but also from the local shopkeeper or restaurant owner, patrons of the arts who should have a commemorative plaque on their premises.”
From the book “From Dawn to Decadence” by Jacques Barzun
I have been well served my entire adult life by Bohemia (at one time on the rive gauche!). Hard working restaurant & club owners with free food and a high tolerance for anti-social behavior and hard working girls with a couch and a high tolerance for broken promises; by them all I have been tolerated, loved and assisted. I am grateful. There have also been those in the music business who supplied studios and artwork and even cash. I am grateful to them. I have been “fraternally looked after” my entire life; by family and other musicians, journalists like John Kelman, Anil Prasad and Walter Kolosky and all of Bohemia. I hope the gratitude I feel can be heard – because music is all I have to offer and it will make its way by and for itself—or not.
Hansford
Dear all,
beeing a John Mc Laughlin fan for decades I’m honored to be able to express my opinion on that post from John here in that forum. I think there are 5 main arguments which killed the music industry over the past 20 years:
1/ technology evolution. today it has become easy to exchange music with no loss of quality over generations. Home taperecording has been done in the 70’s as well when I grew up. But if you were really intersted in a band or group you went into the record store and bought that record. Today you do not have to leave the house for this and the kids grow up in a cyber environment, even if parents try to fascinate them for the real world outside. For me this is simply evolution – no matter if you like it or not.
2/ music industry overstretched the arc. In Germany where I grew up I had to pay the equivalent of 10 EUR for a record, I had to pay 15-17 EUR for a good CD. Both were expensive at their time but both had a distribution network behind, but there were good margins in that game for everyone. Now I’m asked to pay 12-15 EUR for an album download in the e-stores with no cost behind other than the musicians and the record companies? Why? Record companies were just ignorant for over a decade and didn’t react on any sign of the market at all. Decreasing numbers are just the result of this ignorance.
3/ give it the right price and you can still earn a living from it. There was a russian server called allofmp3.com for years. I know lots of (!) people from all over the world who bought music from them for good money. They sold a song for 10cents and the average album was 1USD. I don’t even want to think about it how much money they made, even if they (what I doubt) gave some percentage of it to the artists. Pricing a product in a way that it doesn’t make sense anymore to steal it from elsewhere makes sure you are selling enough to life from it. For a Dollar you can buy an album even if you’re not sure you’ll like it, for 15 EUR you will think twice.
4/ home recording became reality. If I’m looking over the music I was listening to over the past months, more than half of it was recorded in the garage rather than in a big studio. Today you can produce a technically excellent album with gear that costs less than 20KUSD, 20 years ago the gear to do the same recordings was well above a million and more. Since I was 14 years old I wanted to become an audio engineer, today I am more than happy that I failed the entrance examination with my saxophone playing of Sigfrid Karg Elert’s 25 Sonate fuer Saxophon solo op. 153…
5/ variety vs. classes. Am I to young or to old? When I was a kid there was Jazz, Pop, Rock, Classic and the rest that I didn’t like. My records and my cassettes were sorted in these categories. Today there is good music, ok music and music that I do not like. But I can’t put them into categories anymore. progressive-punk-fusion-jazz sounds almost like horn-driven-funk-noise-beat. There is a plentitude of music in our life that makes it very difficult to follow an idividual band or musician but if you do you’ll find them on the web, in facebook, live in your town, on the webradio, in TV…. not sure if it is better, but it is different today. As John said, he grew up in the record store. I can also show you on a picture of my favorite record store where the Zappa section was, from which shelf I bought Pat Methenys 80/81, and also where I was looking for a record by John that had Pacific Express on it…. this was a great time and I loved it.
Please don’t get me wrong. Piracy is still piracy and should be pursued for good reasons. But the development of things is something we can not change, we have to adapt to new things. Some things will change to the better, some things become worse in our lifes. Look for the positives things, simply enjoy music, good musicians will always make a living from what they do. The market for musicians has a certain size, it can feed a certain number of people, if there are to many there will be some who will live roughly from it naturally. But was this really different in the 70’s and 80’s?
So, if I go into a supermarket and « download » a handful of « pick n’ mix » choccy delights into my pocket, then this is ok? And if I do this many times per day on a regular basis with my friends over the years then this is ok, too?
Now if this was YOUR shop.. how long would it be before you called the police?
There are two kind of people here doing wrong.
You have the ones who can afford paying for the music but on their greed they do not, and you have the ones who can’t afford it and steal it.
In the past it was making cassette copies,now technology made things easier.I am happy to pay for my music, like paying the entrance fee to a concert.
No government agency or internet police can solve this problem,it is up to the individual like so many other things in live, you can do right or wrong.emilio(proud owner of all original JMC cds)
G. Ford, believe it or not, it was the artists who were ripped off more than the consumers by the record companies.
@ Walter: Absolutely right. I’m not arguing that. But the kids were ripped as well and they found a way to kick back, that’s all I’m saying. I can only ask again: how come no musician ever said « wait, my CD is being charged way too much, poor fans, I have to react »?
@ Dave Revelle: ok, now immagine « a handful of pick n’ mix choccy delights » costing 25$ and tell me you wouldn’t smile when someone nicks them.
Having said that, yes, piracy is a crime and yes, I still buy my CDs. But the kids have their good reasons.
We should be talking about something else instead: the digital download affair offers a perfect opportunity for the artist to cut out the labels and (more importantly) the distrubutors by communicating *directly* with their audience. Now, here’s a way to reestablish some healthy relationship based on good economical grounds as well (bypass the distribution issue and suddenly your CD price should be way lower while providing higher income for the artist). How come only Radiohead tried that?
Many posters seem to think that the internet killed record stores. I just want to point out that by the mid 90’s when the internet exploded, most independent record stores had already gone under, at least here in the northeast United States. It’s not very profitable to have a huge amount of money tied up in an inventory that may or may not sell, only to see that inventory devalued by the introduction of a new, more expensive format that you also have to stock, tying up even more money in inventory….not to mention needing to carry cassettes….not to mention the advent of superstores and Wal Mart taking away a good chunk of your sales…… It wasn’t the internet’s fault, it didn’t exist yet.
Anybody notice that with all this talking we’re not anywhere near reaching any type of conclusion we can do anything with?
Thank God love of music can’t be stolen – it;s free and always will be (credit to FarceBook).
G. Ford suggests that « the kids were ripped as well and they found a way to kick back ». I have had countless discussions with teenagers and young adults in their early twenties about the subject of « file sharing » and illegal downloading. Very few of these individuals seemed to view their actions as a way of « sticking it to the man ». Most did not grow up buying music at all and may not even have a reference point for what might constitute an « unfair » price for a CD. It would seem that what drives most of these people to steal music are two simple facts: illegal file sharing/downloading is free and it is convenient. What’s more, it is generally not condemned by peers or parents. To suggest that kids are simply « striking back » at robber record labels is to endow such attitudes and actions with a certain nobility. There is nothing noble in the actions of these pirates – and nothing as calculated as what G. Ford puts forth. This is a quintessential example of a « sense of entitlement » in effect.
There are all kinds of products and services in the world that many deem « over-priced » and a rip off. In a civilised society, however, the acceptable response is not to steal or pillage but to move along – silently or in protest.
I’m in complete agreement with John (Mclaughlin). Music is the industry of musician’s who have spent their life honing their art and craft. I have the utmost respect for musicians, being one myself (not professional). There is a personal reward for those who buy their own music. It’s the same as buying your own house or your own clothes. It’s a sign of independence, a sign of individuality. I buy the music I listen to. It’s very much worth the nine or ten dollars for a record. I like it. I like to support the musicians. Where would we be without them? I disagree that the price of CDs is too high. If you want music, save for it, the old fashioned way. You might just appreciate it more if you actually pay for it. If musicians go away the world will be a lesser place. Support them. It’s well worth it.
If permissable I would like to re-post this words on my site. I have a no tolerance policy on file sharing and any and all form of piracy that you mention. People speak of the death of jazz. It’s the pirates and not the musicians that have done it.
Before the rise of recorded music in the 1930s, people bought sheet music and played the songs themselves. People bought the songwriters’ product, not any one performance of it. Except on special occasions popular music was the tune, not the performer. Technology created the situation whereby particular performers could sell particular performances, and that was how it went for a relatively short time. The whole focus on one performer getting paid by people everywhere to, in effect, play for them in their houses without actually having to travel from place to place really only lasted about forty years, and the LP Album that people fetishize lasted maybe two generations, from the mid-60s to the mid-90s. It was a transitory phenomenon based mainly on the industry’s strangling anything different — note their fight to get royalties from producers of blank cassette tapes. Then technology — the same thing that made the « traditional » record industry possible — kept developing instead of standing still, and now it has changed pop music yet again. No one — not even an instrumentalist as brilliant as John McLaughlin — has a right to music as a job. If recording studios close, then music will be recorded in other places. That’s life. If the money available doesn’t make certain kinds of groups and musical endeavors to last very long or support itself properly, then different kinds of groups and different endeavors will replace them just as an outright ban on mahogany and ebony and rock maple will force other materials to be used for guitars. And if they don’t sound as good playing electric blues, then the sound of electric blues will change to accommodate the new materials. People who don’t want to play for the money they can make will stop playing, and other people, who are willing, will take their places. Might be worse sometimes, might be better. But that’s how life goes. Songs won’t stop being written and musicians won’t stop playing them and people won’t stop liking them and wanting to preserve them in some form and hear them, both recorded and live.
One way to make people pay for digital music is to add value to what they pay for. I know an artist who goes from living room to living room; after playing, she sells coupons with unique single-use codes that entitle the buyer to an album of music plus a couple of live tracks that change weekly so everyone gets different ones.
It’s pointless to worry about change. It’s only useful to figure out how to adapt to it and make one’s strengths play to the new situation.
David Lowery of the band Camper Van Beethoven has been keeping a wonderful blog, and addressed the issue of replacing record sales with touring revenue in this post:
http://300songs.com/2010/08/30/40-sad-lovers-waltz-camper-van-beethoven-a-viking-funeral-pyre/
Quote:
« The traveling minstrel business™ is not what people think it is. You make very little money on the road, and you have these enormous up front costs. And if for some reason you don’t get 90% of the way through a tour you usually lose money. That’s why I hate it when these new media music theorists opine about songs being promotional tools for touring and then the musicians are supposed to make all there money from touring revenues. It’s an iffy proposition that you make any money on a tour, even when you plan it carefully. All it takes is one broken arm or skull fracture. Every band on tour in Europe is always one makeshift toboggan ride with a drunken Finnish transvestite away from financial disaster. »
Also, Dean Friedman, a singer/songwriter who I have a lot of respect for, has recently been trying an experiment, offering some of his albums for download with a PayPal button for paying whatever you’d like to contribute (including free).
Dean reports that it’s been successful: « By and large the average price people choose to pay is surprisingly close to the asking retail price of $10 per album, only off by a dollar or so. In practice what happens is those folks who opt to pay less (say $5) are offset by those handful of well-healed music supporters who actually pay more ($20+) than the typical market price. »
Radiohead did something similar, of course, but I don’t know the results of that.
Wow, I can’t believe you just equated piracy with killing and murder. That’s pretty far-reaching.
Piracy is an easy scapegoat. It’s easy to point the finger and blame it for the downfall of the music industry. But there are a lot of reasons the music industry collapsed. Not the least of which was the arrogance, entitlement, and crony-ism of record companies that you acknowledge.
Times change, industries die. We’re not going back to horse and buggy, and we’re not going back to the pre-Internet music industry.
Frankly, I’d be more concerned if people weren’t pirating my music than if they were. As Tim O’Reilly said, « Obscurity is a great threat than piracy. »
Why not use it to your advantage? Why not leverage it to sell more physical/tangible goods like ticket sales, collector’s editions, signature series guitars, or what have you? Or even MP3s themselves from retailers like iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, etc.? Get on TuneCore or CDBaby and start selling your stuff online. (People are more likely to pirate if you’re not in the online stores.) Get on SoundExchange and collect your royalties from online streaming. There’s a lot of money to be made online. I would look there rather than bemoaning the small corner of the Internet you don’t like.
I would also be careful of advocating governments to become Internet police. That’s a slippery slope to censorship and control that has no place in free society.
So sorry to hear your plight John boy.
Not as a pirate, but as a competitor in the unfair and unbalanced past of the selfish record business. I record tunes, too. And, guess what dear Johnny boy? I’ve given away hundreds of thousands of songs since the late nineties just to do away with the old system. Chew on that for awhile and get used to it. You are not the end-all-be-all just because some magazine said so. I have taken advantage of the level playing field you despise. I have taken part in destroying the gravy train.
As another poster noted, it’s time for you to go on tour and make a living. Why? Because that’s the way it is. Get used to it sucker.
@ Dave Revelle…as soon as you can convert chocolate to 1’s and 0’s I will hear your argument. Until then, push on.
Thank you so much for writing about that subject and for all the serious comments.
I think the main problem is that people who download music illegally know too little about the music. Ironically, one reason may be that they never get to see the cover or liner notes of a record. Some people seem to think that all the money from record sales goes only to John McLaughlin or the record company but there are so many people involved in those records who also want to make a living. Also, many don’t seem to understand that a recording of 5 minutes doesn’t mean 5 minutes of work. They just hear 5 minutes of music, not all those years of learning to play an instrument and weeks or even months for composing and recording an album. Like Mitch Sams I also think education could help here. Also his other ideas are really useful. Usually people only see the « fun part » of the business like concerts for example. They don’t see musicians sitting in a bus for 6 hours to get there or recording a hundred versions of the same song until it’s perfect for a release (of course not everyone does that). They also don’t see how much money a musician earns and how much money he has to spend on equipment and everything. They just see that an album costs 15 € and assume that someone who is famous enough to release an album will easily sell hundreds of thousands of copies so that « a few » illegal downloads won’t make a big difference.
Another problem is that many people see music as some kind of background noise. In many countries people hear music all the time, everywhere: there’s music in shops, in bars, in restaurants on mp3 players while jogging. They don’t take the time to just sit down and listen to and enjoy the music. And they get used to hear music all the time so that it isn’t anything special anymore, just the usual noise in the background. I’m pretty sure that this doesn’t apply to the McLaughlin fans because this music just needs attention to make any sense but it may apply to other music.
I think piracy in the eastern bloc countries has a different tradition than in the West. Before the collapse of the USSR many records weren’t available and prohibited in those countries and people had to copy them or record them on tape from the radio to get them. People who were able to get a Beatles record or a copy of Orwell’s « 1984 » were heroes in those days because they sometimes risked their lives for that. Maybe that spirit survived somehow though there’s almost no risk nowadays to get any form of punishment. In the West it is probably more about making or saving money with piracy. Or maybe both attitudes in Eastern and Western countries?
Whatever you do on the internet you need electricity and an internet connection so the companies who provide that always make money from the content on the internet. Without content, the internet would be worthless and noone would use it. Audio or video files are interesting content and they take longer to download than loading a website like this. These companies make a profit from these files no matter if they’re legal or illegal. The more interesting stuff there is on the internet the more time people spend using it and those companies get more money. So why shouldn’t they share their profits? This doesn’t necessarily mean spying on individual internet users and looking exactly who downloaded what.
Another point is, that some of those « new business models » don’t work for everyone. Touring is not an opportunity for composers who write scores for others to perform them. Shouldn’t they also get money for their work? Some music can only be done on recording and not be played live for technical or other reasons. And if touring is an opportunity often tickets get more expensive. Also merchandising isn’t interesting for everyone. The band « Kiss » are even selling condoms with Gene Simmons’ face on them but can you imagine John McLaughlin doing that? I can’t and I don’t want him to do that and don’t think I would buy them. Should musicians sell everything else but music to make a living and give away the music for free? That’s not their job.
I also don’t understand the argument that records are too expensive or more expensive than they were. Nearly everything is more expensive than it was 20 years ago except for computers. If you really can’t afford buying new albums you could also buy second hand records or get free music legally. I bought a few second hand records by John McLaughlin (and many others) on vinyl and they usually cost less than 5 €. (I know the sound quality isn’t as good as on a new record but the quality of mp3s isn’t either). Unfortunately that won’t help him to make more money now, it just shows that illegal downloads aren’t the only way to get good music if you don’t have much money and at least it helps the record store to survive.
A big disadvantage with legal downloads and buying CDs online is that you can’t listen to the whole album before you buy it. Usually it’s just a 30 second snippet of every song or no preview at all which is not enough for me to decide if I like it or not. In a good record store you can listen to the whole album before you buy it. If you could listen to the whole album online before buying it, you could of course record it on your computer and have at least a low quality copy of it. Maybe that’s the reason why full previews are rare but I think that also prevents people from buying digital records by artists they don’t already know.
I think that in the whole discussion you are missing a certain point. Illegal downloads are only a small part of a bigger picture. I bet that even if all Jon McLaughlin’s recording were withdrawn from free circulation, he would not notice any substantial increase in the sales of his records. The fans who care about his music have already bought his music or will do it anyway, while the vast majority of listeners can simply do without it. The sheer abundance of old and new music available in the Internet (much of it legally) makes modern music consumers rather indifferent towards any particular musician outside of the current hot trends. The old system where access to music was scarce and hierarchies were firmly established by music mags, radio DJs, club and record shop owners and friends with big collections is long gone.
In the old world John McLaughlin could gradually build his position using his great skills and connections/collaborations with popular and influential people. The probability that a fan visiting a record store picked his record was hugely augmented by favourable reviews in musical press, own section on a shelf, staff’s advice or enthusiastic recommendation by a knowledgeable friend or a favourite radio DJ. Of course the whole chain was backed by the money of his music labels, which controlled and supported promotion and distribution of their records.
However, in the new world John McLaughlin is represented by a mp3s-filled folder (often mislabelled) sitting among thousands of other folders with various music content, a blog note about one of his recordings lost among hundreds other notes published every day and a composition randomly and rarely played by a streaming service. The chance that his music gets played (just played, not even purchased) by a modern listener is very, very low. Even if we assume that he feels like listening to some jazz guitar stuff he has a very large choice of jazz guitarists from the whole history of the genre, obscure ones, semi-professionals and amateurs included. The virtual shelf of this particular section is miles wide and there are hundreds of different guiding signs in the cyberspace, which one has to face whenever he boldly switches off automatic shuffling or gets tired of random surfing.
In this environment even the old guard, still faithful to physical formats, get easily tempted to pick a new band (from ever longer list of new releases delivered by email newsletters) or a recently hyped and formerly unavailable disc of an obscure artist, instead of investing money in another McLaughlin’s record. In the new age of unlimited supply and lack of any hierarchy, the value of a particular musician, record or song is largely diminished. All mp3s seem equal, each one is easily replaceable. Welcome to the modern times.
I have read and posted in so many threads about this subject that I’ve fairly despaired of learning anything new. Thank you Jean Emil for proving me wrong. I don’t even use condoms, but I might have to get some with Gene Simmons’ face on them.(it’lll be a lot less scary than my unwrapped member in any case) The idea of the Eastern European pirate as a cultural hero was also new to me, so thanks for that.
Furthermore, Mr. Emil has put his finger on the heart of the matter; this battle isn’t about piracy, nor downloading. It’s about education and the survival of our culture. Certainly, the battle over downloading is already lost; the future will be streaming. Why fill a hard drive with nigh-worthless MP3 files, when you could hear the history of the world’s greatest recorded music for a small monthly fee? (albeit at low quality, at least for the present)
Furthermore, Mr. Emil has correctly identified the problem as a failure of education, not a failure of musicians or record companies to provide an adequate product at a fair price. Yes, music itself is fine, but only up to a point; you may not notice what’s missing; it’s the influence and input of the non-performing songwriter-the poor bastards can no longer earn anything at all, unless their song is in a movie. It is ultimately a failure of appreciation when Martha Reeves has to perform with an iPod instead of a band. I think he also correctly identifies music’s ubiquity as a leading factor in the devaluation of music, if not the primary cause. I advocate an international Day Of No Music, just so people can begin to understand the value of music. http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/music/karl-paulnack-welcome-address#top
So what’s to be done? I hardly think Mr. Hansford Rowe’s argument bears dignifying with a response; that we should all become gigolos and live at the mercy of whores and innkeepers seems as untenable as playing in the subway, though apparently Joshua Bell could make quite a nice living at it, given a Stradivarius. I believe that it’s not human nature to steal from the artists we love, but I also believe that our children aren’t human until they’re taught to be so and act as such, and that character is defined by what we do when no one’s looking. I believe a generation will have a lot to answer for in that department, come the judgement day, and it’s my generation, sorry.
Where recorded music is concerned, we can certainly do better than we have, in terms of sound quality and metadata; why not give music lovers the visual and tactile pleasures that once came with a vinyl album, perhaps even including some smells?
Building the next music business is a more productive use of my time (or yours) than whining, but as a musician, it’s part of my responsibiluty to pass our great musical culture on to the next generation. That music has only the value you give it, and if you don’t pay for it, your music sucks, and you suck. And so, apparently does mine, because you didn’t buy that, either. ;D
Kudos John! you combine the pirate, the political, and the pathetic with as much grace and style as your musice. Why would it be otherwise with you though? Thank you John! Your mentioning of the once golden age of the record store is something that I can really relate to.
The whole problem with the new media seems even to be a generations-problem. Like John I grew up with record stores and the old vinyl-albums (born in 1951). And ev’rybody knows that the quality of the analog recording is superior in sound compared with the digital. I liked the old vinyl-albums for another reason: the art work of the album covers! I even wrote my exam in fine arts (1974) about cover art and the relation to the music.
When the CD-age started I was somehow sad about the loss of the sound quality and of the bigger album size, but still I had my booklets with art work and information like liner notes.
Maybe I’m old fashioned and nostalgic, but ’till today I do not have an mp3-player and refuse to download music because of the reasons mensioned above. I like to read in the booklets and watch the art work whilst listening. Not to talk about the quality difference of sound compared to downloaded music.
And this again seems for me to be a generations-problem. Why the hell should I listen to a minor quality like many young people do?! They will lose for sure more and more the feeling for a high sound quality like they lose it
for the world of cinemascope movies – only watching fims on the display of their iPods and iPads. What a poor « new » world!
Parallel with this down going level of quality and taste comes the loss of quality in the popular music scene during the last years. I know you should not dispute about taste, but I own a huge collection of the best music written during the last 50 years – so why should I be satisfied with acoustic rubbish?!
@Robert Fairweather (68)
It doesn’t require a great leap of imagination, let alone improvisation on my part, as to why you’ve « given away » so many of your tunes, as you call them. I assume yoiur « music » conveys the same sardonic condescension as your message, yet, it’s flat…and anything but sharp.
Take a look in the mirror « sucker ».
Whilst I have no wish to download an artist’s CDs for free (when they charge for the CD or download), I feel it’s important to draw a line, a distinction between downloading/filesharing/piracy of ‘official’ product, and the free sharing of live concerts, radio broadcasts, and the like.
Pioneered largely in attitude by The Grateful Dead’s fans, there’s a wide community out there where free sharing of non-copyright material is encouraged, and any attempt to share officially-released product is iscouraged, frowned upon and banned.
For artists in the same vein as McLaughlin, one live concert is never the same as another. I therefore want to hear what’s different from the different concerts. How can I do this, if the artists don’t release their own CDs or downloads of concerts?
I’ve got tapes and CDs of Mahavishnu and McLaughlin concerts from 1970 through to present day. I didn’t start listening to
The Mahavishnu Orchestra until 1983 or thereabouts, but MO1 played their last concert in 1973. Through the medium of the
internet, file-sharing, tape-trading, I’ve been able to hear what MO1 sounded like in concert – how, for instance, a tune like Dance of Maya stretched out in concert to (sometimes) 15-20 mins; how it was combined as a medley with other tunes; how the arrangement changed from night to night. This isn’t available to me via the official albums, where there’s only one studio version of Dance of Maya.
I already have the studio version. I’ve bought two vinyl LPs with it. I’ve bought the original CD with it, and also the remastered CD. I’ve paid my dues there. I want to hear more. I want to hear live versions.
Would anyone seek to deny me this pleasure? Would anyone say that I should be forced to only listen to official Mahavishnu albums, and should be banned from listening to the live tapes?
Geographic and financial considerations come into play here; I physically can’t attend all the concerts I would like to. Not even all of those taking place in my own country. I like to hear what my favoured artists do in concert, and the only way I can hear much of this is to freely download concerts that others have recorded, perhaps from the audience. Robert Fripp
holds, or held, the view that this is an intrusion, and compares it to the recording of a private conversation for later publication; that the ‘conversation’ between performer and audience should remain within the concert hall. That seems to me a retrograde attitude. We have the potential to share the music performed by fine artists all over the world. No longer
does it have to be only the privileged few within a geographic radius of the event who can hear it. Again, would you deny me the chance to hear a concert that took place on the other side of the world, that I couldn’t attend? If so, why
would you want to deny me this?
I absolutely agree with John. It’s just stealing and I can’t see why people are trying to justify this action. Yes, it is a like walking into a shop and putting a CD under your coat and walking out, it’s the same, end of story. Of course the way technology is going is helping to spread the music and make it more available. But is it actually helping? Things seemed to be fine 30-40 years ago, people still found out about gigs, bought records, etc. Saying it’s good and it’s helping to spread the word might be partially true but in fact it’s just a way of finding an excuse to justify the core problem which stealing some else’s possession. It should never be shared for free unless the artist decides that himself. It’s his property, he paid for the recording, musicians and production. Why on earth would someone think they have a right to share it for free? It’s just ridiculous! It’s same like stealing cars from a car factory and giving them out for free and saying it’s helping to popularise the brand, yes maybe it is but it’s still stealing. For some reason most people understand in this case it is stealing but when it comes to music they think it’s ok to have it for free? Why? People spend £3-4 on a pint of beer and you can actually buy many CDs on Amazon for that or a bit more, you can also legally download most of albums for the price of two beers. Most people though prefer to spend it on something else and download it for free, why is that? Everyone should wake up and completely restrain from using pirate sites and download things for free. Public should stop believing that music is free. I am so often surprised when people even expect musicians to play for free ‘ in order to promote yourself ‘ and they find it strange when I say I simply don’t play for free. A lot of non-musicians believe albums should be free and musicians should play for free. It’s crazy but true! I have asked some managers of certain venues if they are happy to come to work everyday and ‘promote their skills’ for free or for a ridiculous fee which they were offering. Guess their answer?;) Free downloading should be treated as any other crime and people should be heavily finned for doing so, maybe that will stop them and make them think twice.
Best wishes to all
Maciek
This is a very simplistic view of the « problem ».
Brian Eno said it best when he compared the music industry to the whaling industry. Once, we relied on the whalers to bring in the oil and the bone and the fat to light our lamps, make our soap and bone our corsets. Then mining became developed, electricity was harnessed and the whaling industry died in a couple of generations. Eno reckons that musicians were lucky to have it so good for so long – and he’s right.
Again, we must remember that the « music industry » has developed along with technology. Before the phonograph, the money was to be made in sheet music and musicians would buy the hits of the day and memorise them. There was no way of insuring that every pianist would buy a copy of the sheet music, the music companies just hoped that demand would be sufficient. Piracy in those days would have been musicians with a good memory and ear for a melody!
Then the phonograph came about at the turn of last century, but it wasn’t until the refinement of PVC and vinyl records as we know them (the 45 and then the 33 in the 1960s) that the music industry took off – because before that shellac records could only hold about 10 minutes of sound.
Before the 1950s, celebrities were invariably movie stars but with the advent of the 45″ single, musicians slowly became popular and so every teenager with a tennis racket in their bedroom dreamt of becoming a musician. Up until that point, to become a professional musician (and to make money from it) would be to work in an orchestra or in the pit in a theatre or perhaps be a player in the clubs. The idea of making money from recordings was completely foreign. And so the dream was created and this is why musicians today (aspirant, amateurs or professionals) feel that they have a god-given right to be paid for what they produce. Ask yourself: would I pay for the music I produce? If the answer is yes then you are lying to yourself.
But they are artists. They have rights. They have to put food on the table. But you are talking about an industry that is barely 60 years old here and has been transformed incrementally by technology – the FM radio, the cassette tape, the Walkman, the CD, the Fraunhofer MP3 codec, the iPod, the mobile phone, the broadband high-speed internet connection. Technology brought the MusicBizTM into the world and technology will take it out.
Now people can record broadcast quality audio and video from their spare room. There’s no need for the MusicBizTM, there’s no need for recording studios or even the record companies that have screwed over artist over artist over artist since the dawn of the industry. This is the punk ethos of DIY music made real for the 21st century.
But again, there’s this self-aggrandisement from the musicians. The pirates are responsible for my problems, it’s all the pirates fault. Wah, wah, wah!
Firstly, Mr Musician – ask yourself would the person downloading your music for FREE actually buy a copy of that album? The answer is probably not. So they are not stealing because it was never going to be an actual sale of physical, tangible product. Many downloaders tend to access music the same way people of a certain age used to listen to FM radio. If their source dried up, it is doubtful that they would spend their hard, earned cash on your tunes – they have many other, more interesting ways of spending their cash. But those that do, do – if you know what I mean.
Secondly, since the high-point of the MusicBizTM which we’ll call the mid-1970s, there has been a proliferation of alternative ways of spending your leisure time and money. Now we have computer games, DVDs, mobile phones, home computers, iPads, and what-not and so these are all competing for the same cash as you. The era of MTV and multi-channel television, musak in shopping malls and the general proliferation of « free music » (i.e. the music that is all around us without any perceived cost) has rendered music valueless. Something that is commonplace instantly loses its inherent unique value – imagine if it started raining diamonds tomorrow, eh?
There is also a global recession on at the moment too, so don’t expect people to dig deep for luxuries like music and art. That’s just daft.
Do you want to know where the money spent on the MusicBizTM has gone? Just look at the computer games industry, which has gone from strength to strength over the years, even surpassing the movie industry in some cases, and yet their whinging about piracy is almost minimal these days.
So what to do if you are a musician who wants to get paid? Simple – look for employment in which you get paid a regular salary. If you were a shop owner and you owned a shop where no-one bought your goods, you would go out of business and be forced to do something else to provide you a living wage.
And before you ask, I am one of those who has consistently (and still does) support musicians by buying product. Keep making music, but don’t expect to earn a living from it.
Death to the MusicBizTM!
They’d steal the sugar out of your tea if they could!!
Well I have read some of the comments posted here and I have read John’s blog. For the people who think touring is the answer, I am afraid it isn’t as simple as that. In Australia a lot our venues have gone the way of the Dinosaur, this is because of pubs being able to make more money with poker machines. So going out and performing live is just not an option, then there are some of us who believe that the studio is where all the important works is done. I mean Sgt Pepper and The Beatles albums were never played live. Spotify and all those other cloud servives are pretty evil, apperently you have to have 4,000,000 streams just to earn the average American wage of 1200 dollars a month, who could get that? The Beatles in their heyday if they were lucky but they would have never devoleped into the artists they were for payed 1200 dollars a month 4 ways. What is the answer?? Well we are def in a rebuilding phase amd there is hope, the technology is def there. For 10,000 dollars you can now have a whole studio in your home and it will produce a pro sound. What is the point if no one wants to buy it though and lets get this straight, nobody wants to buy it. Itunes is dirtying the water, yes it does sell music but it is a bitch to backup and save, so I have tried to stay away from it and so have a lot of other people.Another problem we have is audio schools muddying the water as well, these schools are odius places that cost upwards of 40,000 dollars for a degree, yet the people who finish there degrees have no real creativity, they are saugages who have no idea of history and perspective. This is another reason everything is starting to sound very similar and another reason the industry is in decline, there is no musical genius’s taken us on their journy, and no Lady GaGa is not a genius, even if she does have Brian May in her corner!!That leaves us the artist in a bad place but once again I will not bow down and submit and neither should any of us, I have accepted my place in medocity but I am continuing the fight even though I am down to bread and water some weeks (poetic license).I am continuing the fight by getting educated, yes I have finished one of those « audio schools » degree but I was almost expelled from where I got my degree and was expelled from another school. I continued on and got my masters in music technology and now I am waiting to hear about my PHD application, so there is places to hide in a melting industry and from these bunk holes we can plot the return and fight this endless war of attrition and come out on the other side stronger.We have to find new ways to get people interested in music again but most of all we have to be seen as leaner than the dinosaurs that brought the industry to it’s knees. Peace Ben BCT MMusTech
Ps what I meant by all that is that it up to us the academics to fight this war now, yes I know academics are not suppose to be agressive but I am a new breed or part of the old stock who belives all great changes and movements come from university’s, this was destroyed in the 90’s when uni’s become business’s but this will not stop me from fighting on and finding like minded indivduals to help in the cause.
Wow ! This is very interesting. I always told / tell people , that buy bootleg movies and cd’s, that they are destroying the creative artists’ careers ! .. Resulting in talent leaving the land.
Mr. John McLaughlin is 100 % right ! I’m against bootleg … stealing . Does anyone remember what GOD says about it in Exodus 20:15 ? HE is watching ! Also When John McLaughlin mentioned putting pirating in the same context as killing and murder he is once again right on… Jesus (God’s Word) says if you break one commandment you are guilty of all… James 2:10.
I will continue to buy John McLaughlin’s music the right way… where he makes a profit from me.
Also , being a composer the works I’ve heard of John… He’s one of the best composers and timing masters I’ve heard in my 58 years .
I hope there’s a solution to this situation.
GOD bless John and all !
Here is the voice of a music lover that still buys records and has JM as one of his (very few) true heros in this art.
I urge musicians to get moving and adapt to the times. So I endorse the post by Mitch Sams (#49) which comes with concrete ways to do somehting positive about this problem.
Question: I come across live recordings from some of my favorite artists in jazz blogs. Recordings that are not available anywhere else (for sale or otherwise). What is the right thing to do? Let them go? I am sorry. I can’t do that.
Artists need to find ways to offer this stuff in their websites. I would a million times pay the actual cost of downloading that art and get the file from the artist rather than download for free. Even if it were the exact same file. I know there are many people like me.
Hard to offer every possible recording in your website? Ok, put a « Donate » buttom and let people pay back that way. Or get a fan club like Mitch writes above.
Crisis is both danger and opportunity. Artists need to get moving and take the initiative. There is so much for them to gain!
Considering that in « the good old days » the standard record contract would be a CRIME in ANY other business, any artists (like JM) must have worked very, very hard to get better conditions.
Selling other people´s property w/o their consent is a crime, pure & simple. The old jazz musicians & many Rock Legends have been ruined over this kind of thing. And saying the someone is « crying » over being stolen from… well, I that´s the attitude of a pirate.
And here is some food for thought on how to deal with the new scheme of things:
http://janekgwizdala.com/home/articles/the-pirates-are-coming/
As one of the commentators has pointed out, it would be great to see legit releases of John McLaughlin’s live tapes. I would definitely invest my money in CDs documenting first period of his career, especially any live material from Emergency, Mahavishnu Orchestra Mk 1, his early solo discs and touring bands he played with at that time. « Live-Evil » sessions are all we can enjoy for the moment and it is just too little.
I am aware that many musicians from that generation disregard their early years (especially live registrations) as naive, immature, underproduced and messy, as opposed to their later output perceived as well-thought-out, grown-up, carefully engineered and fully controlled. However, many fans (including much younger ones) do not share this perception at all and have no option but to resort to the stuff from illegal or uncontrolled by artist sources. Maybe the current decline of sales of regular recordings will force the musicians to get their hands dirty and open the vaults. If that happens I will be more than delighted.
@marc downson – you are an ignorant ASS! End of story
The problem is way more global as most of you know.John (McLaughlin)speaks not only about music.He points out ‘finding stuff on the internet’.
One thing is for sure.The illegal download of music ,software,movies…whatsoever… on internet is an act of theft.And every pirat knows it.No one has the right to steal anything for any « noble »reason or because of inability to afford himself a certain product or worst because it’s easier!
Yes we live in 21st century but wait where are we goin’ to?I have lived for 20 years behind »the iron curtain » and trust me you don’t wanna go there!
First of all we have to realize that the act of theft is an act of theft no matter where or when or how we are livinig and when,where or how it is made.Then everything else will come easier.It’s a moral question .To do(steal)it or not to do it?I know so many people downloading stuff illegally though they can afford it!
Anyway ,so many people involved in this polemic is a good sign definitely!And I said nothing else than most of you.
God bless all the creative people!
there is no intersection of art and business. if you seek monetary profits stop calling it art.
Theft of Music. How about theft of a musician’s life? that’s what is really happening. People who argue otherwise and do otherwise take part of a life. « taking a life » get’s you some serious penalties in some states. And alot of dialogue. No so with this.
Isaac Newton had so much theft and negative events that he stopped publishing and even researching. That was at age 25. I wonder what the world missed out on?
A guy once told me « I really love your CD so I made copies for my friends » I was shocked to say the least but this person didn’t even realise what that meant for me. I’m not even signed and paid the CD myself…I don’t see an end to this unfortunately!
John is 70. He has seen it all.
He is rightfully concerned about many of his friends and upcoming musicians that are getting ripped off by people who are simply stealing food of their table . The idiots here who are disrespectful and have no issues with stealing should be tracked and found who they are. Then we need to go and find out where they work and steal their way of livelihood. Thats the only way those people will get it.
Thanks for the excellent dialogue…hopefully my 2cents isn’t too redundant….In my limited experience I percieve the business model of music to mirror the business model of markets…..in the world of finance most of the movement of resources is done devoid of morals/ethics etc. through the manipulation of markets with derivatives, many trillions in shadow banks, and ghost trades that never have to be filled so profit is made w/o any sort of real investment…all done without ever having to see or engage with the millions who end up w/o jobs, homeless, or hungry…those engaged in the profit taking would reply that the ones who are affected just need to be smarter, or work harder…..this mentality hurts my heart to no end, and it is this same mentality that allows for the justification of stealing music. While on the surface this may seem small or even trite compared to a financial or physical war that causes obvious hunger, death, and suffering, for me it is the same thing, and connected to the very real state of our societies sufferings. When a cultures heros are those who can make profits in the billions in very short periods of time (facebook, google) and an elevated and generational artist like John have to fight for their survival I am left with little hope for a society.
Though I only have experience releasing 1 self produced low budget Cd (really just a 5 hr live session with a handful of edits), I can attest to the reality of free downloads, and the lack of support that this causes towards musicians. Through a Jazz web-site (All about Jazz) and my own website I had over 15000 free downloads, and though I did not promote the Cd through touring/playing live (due to cost etc) I only sold around 1200 cd’s. I would love this existence to be one of art and nuance, where light, sound & vibration are recognized, but I don’t think we live in that Yuga 🙂
Heartfelt thanks for your lifes work and inspiration John
PS I personally have never downloaded 1 tune in my entire life
Someone, up there, wrote:
« So, if I go into a supermarket and “download” a handful of “pick n’ mix” choccy delights into my pocket, then this is ok? And if I do this many times per day on a regular basis with my friends over the years then this is ok, too?
Now if this was YOUR shop.. how long would it be before you called the police? »
You do realize that what you’re describing wouldn’t be ‘downloading’ at all? Do you seriously believe that making a digital copy of something is analogues to taking something from a supermarket?
I’m also a musician, and although I’ve never seriously recorded anything yet, I plan on giving it what I do record away for free when I do. It’s my view that charging people for mere « permission » is what’s wrong here. You people do realize that the music itself isn’t what’s being sold, but rather a contract allowing that person to listen to the music? The whole argument that ‘the artist put so much work into it’ is irrelevant, because what’s being sold here isn’t labor (you are not an employee of your ‘customers’), but rather mere permission to listen to organized sounds. No one forces us to create those sounds – we do so of our own free will. No one forces you to put that amount of ‘work’ into something. How much time an artist put into something seems to only be brought up for emotional purposes. People are paying you because they want to listen to your music, not because you spent x amount of hours creating it.
Are we seriously equating creating a copy of something that can potentially be replicated ad infinitum with murder? Are we rationing air now?
And no, it’s not ‘stealing’. It’s copyright infringement. Learn the difference.
There can be no doubt that there is a new paradigm in the music field, technology gives us the ability to download music for free (and e-books, software, etc), and probably we’ll not come up with a way to get around that anytime soon, so we’ll need to come up with a different way to make money from our efforts.
However, that doesn’t make it right. Music is first and foremost an art, but it is second a business for many people. Just because it is able to be stolen easily doesn’t mean that it should be stolen. I certainly consider the reproduction of any digital material without the owner’s consent to be theft (or copyright infringement, either way you say it, it results in a loss of a dollars to the owner). Some have posted the truest, saddest part of this whole problem: musicians need money to survive, and if they have to get that money through means other than making music, then they won’t make all that incredible music that has enriched our lives so much.
I have been a John McLaughlin fan for about thirty years. I have bought nearly every album he recorded on vinyl and many on CD. John’s royalties won’t amount to much. I have travelled and paid a lot to see him play live and have watched him about eight times. In recent years my wages have not increased but the cost of living has. I go to less gigs, I buy less CDs and DVDs. A Mahavishnu bootleg that appeared on the net from 1975 is one of my favourite recordings and if it were an official release I would pay whatever it cost to own it. I have to choose carefully what to buy because I have virtually no disposable income anymore. I have never been able to afford to buy John’s guitar tuition dvd set, which I would like, because my kids need shoes.
The fundamental problem is funding the creation of new work. Music is not a CD or a tee shirt. Music is a relationship between the people who make it, and the people who love it.
http://patronism.com facilitates that relationship primarily via pay-what-you-feel subscription. Part crowdfunding site, part publishing platform and part fan club, the people who love your music will create a monthly income for you to make more of it to share with the world.
Patronage is the oldest form of arts funding, this is just the most modern way to do it. And you no longer have to kickstart a project, your patrons will keep the whole engine running.
In the future of music, he who funds creativity best, wins. At the current average rate of over $12/mo, each 100 patrons represents $1020/mo in an artist’s pocket. 500 average patrons nets an artist over $60,000/yr, from between 5 and 20% of their fanbase, before they ever set foot on stage or sell a single piece of merchandise.
And it leverages on the idea that people will share your music, but you are now monetizing what you mean to them, not just what you sell to them.
John, long time fan of your music. I have had the opportunity to see MO live many times in the early 70s. I totally respect your view up to a point. Yes theft is wrong and I will never dispute that point. However their are hundreds of thousands of musicians and bands posting their music for free as a complete listen or download. A whole new society emerged when the internet came to be. This allowed all artists to take control of their own advertising through the social media internet outlets. In my opinion the record companies failed to see the explosiveness of it. The artist at this point should be controlling their own destiny with a web page and selling their music through these internet outlets. I believe most people are honest and you should be able to sell in spite of the criminal activity. Promotion is an important aspect within the social networks. I host a small but growing facebook radio show that promotes fantastic artists that are not played on airtime radio. Because many of the songs on Friday Night Progressive are 12, 17, 22, 30 minutes long. If your interested I would love to have your music on the show and FNP posts links during the show allowing listeners a direction to purchase music.
Peace…
Ronald Marquiss
Dear John
As a distant believer in your quests since early days
whenst you stayed in a back room at Gavins in Baker St … and who hung late nites at Ronnie Scotts in Frith St chatting with Tony Williams, I so believe in your values.
It seems to me that the digital outfield overtook the record industry & it is them to blame for not stepping in to protect both artists & content.
As you have pointed out it is the isp’s who allow anything to go on-line, both Govt & the contract fillers, who have scooped the funds from the players
have the wherewith all to protect, as they did in vinyl Yores. So where have they been whilst this has been going on. Answer me this and you will have the mechanisms to reorder the frontiers.
There are many ways to protect digital media & Appke took up the baton ahead of unscrupulous opposition, even taking the Supreme powers to court
go prove that you could make a personal copy.
Appke is only 4% of the world, and the demons you speak of come from a darkside.
It saddens me to think of musicians & their families missing out on a life so truly adhered to.
The Isp’s can control this but no one is bothered to deal with this, because as usual here is nothing in this fo. Them.
The electric car bears witness.
Much Love & health to you and yours as you continue to keep the creative love flying high above such evolving worlds.
Stanley of Eng, SurvivIng Basses beyond a Recording World!
Ney Mello is concerned about internet piracy.
but…
He does not have to worry about anybody stealing any of HIS stuff, because nobody wants it.
I do love the way you have presented this problem plus it does provide us some fodder for thought. On the other hand, because of what precisely I have observed, I simply just hope as the actual comments stack on that people stay on issue and not embark upon a soap box associated with some other news of the day. Still, thank you for this exceptional point and although I do not necessarily concur with this in totality, I regard the perspective.
I don’t create a lot of responses, but i did a few searching and wound up here Pirates. And I actually do have 2 questions for you if you tend not to mind. Could it be simply me or does it give the impression like some of these remarks appear like written by brain dead people? 😛 And, if you are posting on other places, I’d like to follow everything fresh you have to post. Would you make a list of the complete urls of your communal pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?
Copyright infringement is not theft. Nothing is taken from you. The Supreme Court has ruled on this: Dowling v United States.
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There is something more than money when you talk about reaching out to people. Somebody talented like yourself should share that without the repercussion of getting monetary value back .How many people cannot even afford to hear any of your music and therefore cannot connect to your energy. What can you do to change that, is what is what you should ask yourself first!
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Hadrien Féraud played on John McLaughlin’s american tour back in 2009 at the age of 25. This guy has stolen my life, I was supposed to do this kind of stuff. Still, I can hold my breath for 2’20 ». Take that, Hadrien Féraud.