8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

‘Flexibility Is Key’ In The New Creative Economy

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Cuepoint:

It’s always worth looking at who remains silent in many of these debates; while some Western artists have vocally opposed streaming, you don’t hear artists from developing markets doing the same. Maybe the heart of the debate about the new creative economy is this — are creators who were in power for so long willing to secede some of that power if it means other voices can be heard?



Is it true that some artists have a harder time making a living than they did fifteen years ago? Absolutely. Is it also true that other artists have been able to make a living where they never could have before? Yes. We now operate in an economy where flexibility is key, and if you expect to keep making a living the same way your entire career, you’re going to have a hard time. This doesn’t mean that we should ignore copyright and condone piracy, nor does it mean that artists and their supporters shouldn’t advocate for fair compensation. But to suggest that creative workers are doomed in the current market vastly overstates the case.


Steven Johnson’s infamous New York Times article really raised some dust, and I find this Cuepoint piece a notable addition to the fray as it focuses on the most important point, which was missed by most of the critics. Indeed, we’re seeing a breakdown of traditional avenues for creative livelihoods, as well as the problems caused by legacy corporations struggling to shove the genie back in the bottle. But the emerging self-employment opportunities presented by this internet disruption – coupled with a potential ‘leveling of the playing field’ in distribution and promotion for creative works – makes for exciting times for the budding artist. I’m not saying you won’t have to work a day job; was there ever a time that the overwhelming majority of musicians didn’t? But the chances of that job existing in orbit of your creative field, or under your own authority, are now greater than ever, especially if you can think on your feet. I believe that counts for something.

I also love the caption on the article’s banner photo:

iOTA, the flame-throwing guitar hero from this year’s Mad Max: Fury Road, proves that there will always be work for musicians, even after the bombs fall.

Music Break: A Beginner’s Guide To Yabby You

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FACT:

(Yabby You) was responsible for some of the most compelling and individual pieces of roots reggae ever recorded, having worked closely with King Tubby, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, the Gladiators, Tommy McCook and members of the Wailers band, fronting the harmony group he called the Prophets during the 70s and 80s. He also helped initiate the careers of several early dancehall innovators, including Trinity, Wayne Wade, Tony Tuff and Michael Prophet, the latter named through his association with Yabby.


Click through and listen to some Yabby You. Here’s a favorite of mine from the ‘guide’ to get you started:

The Wild West Days Of The Web Are Over

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The Verge:

(Josh Greenberg) had violated the tenets of intellectual property law, of course, but there was precedent for that. Nullsoft’s Justin Frankel had coded Winamp without licensing the underlying mp3 technology; YouTube’s Steve Chen and Chad Hurley had looked the other way as users had uploaded thousands of infringing videos; Napster’s Shawn Fanning had acted as if the entire concept of copyright was obsolete. Greenberg resembled them. He was a scion of middle-class America; he’d attended a state school; he was young, and male, and comfortable with the internet’s culture of appropriation. The template was to move fast and to break things, and to let the lawyers figure out the repercussions once you’d earned your millions.



If Grooveshark had debuted in 2003, or maybe even 2005, he might have gotten away with it. Like a claim-jumper in the 19th century, Grooveshark could perhaps have emerged from the era of digital lawlessness with enough leverage to force the music companies to the negotiating table, and borrowed enough expertise from the venture capitalists to become a functional business. With a little luck, the company might have outmaneuvered Spotify, and Greenberg would have been a business icon.


I had a link to this month-old article hidden in one of my recent posts, but I think it deserves its own place as it’s well worth a read. The author shapes his piece as more of a commentary on changes in the Internet / entrepreneur industry – he believes the days of the budding teenage tech billionaire have passsed – but, of course, it’s all intertwined with developments in the music industry. The required move over the past decade from ‘digital lawlessness’ to legitimacy enlightens a bit about SoundCloud’s recent troubles, as well as how smart Spotify has been from the outset. The article also reminds me how it’s a deep shame that we won’t get to see what Josh Greenberg will come up with next as there was some seriously brilliant idea-making behind Grooveshark.

YouTube As Well As SoundCloud Should Worry About PRS Lawsuit

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Music Ally:

We reported yesterday on PRS for Music’s decision to sue SoundCloud for copyright infringement. Over the course of the day, the key contradiction between the two parties’ statements became clear: it’s about whether SoundCloud is willing to strike a licensing deal, and specifically whether that deal would apply to both its existing free service and its upcoming subscription tier.



Meanwhile, it also became clear that this lawsuit may have strong implications for YouTube, not just SoundCloud.



In recent months, when rightsholders have complained about what they see as misuse of safe-harbour protection, they have often grouped SoundCloud and YouTube together as examples. YouTube, of course, has a licensing deal with PRS for Music last renewed in 2013.



If PRS for Music takes SoundCloud to court and wins, delivering a blow to that mooted safe-harbour defence, think how much stronger its hand will be when the time comes (as it soon will) to renegotiate its YouTube deal. Multiple sources have suggested to Music Ally that this is the real significance of the SoundCloud lawsuit. “The stakes are super high,” as one of them put it. Indeed.


2016 may turn out to be ‘The Year Of The Shake-Up’.

(previously)

Amazon Clogs Up Pressing Plants With Most Pointless Reissue Series Ever

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FACT:

Reissues make up a fair chunk of the vinyl market, so it’s no surprise that Amazon wants a piece of the action. However, its attempt isn’t a Death Waltz-style endeavour with bespoke artwork and coloured vinyl, it’s a shameless cash-grab that will no doubt clog up more of the world’s already stretched pressing plants.(



*The five reissues up for pre-order are soundtracks for five of the most 80s movies to come out of the 1980s: Dirty Dancing, The Goonies, Top Gun, Footloose and Rocky IV. Great for a Spotify playlist, but probably not worth mining our planet’s precious resources for.


The Vinyl Factory:

All well and good, and the world is full of unnecessary reissues, but when you realise that all five are available for under £10 on Discogs, the choices are somewhat more mystifying. All five will be available on the 9th October.



It’s been a strong week for wholly necessary soundtrack reissues though, with first Jackie Brown and now The Sopranos getting the wax treatment in the last few days.


Admittedly, that Jackie Brown soundtrack is pretty solid.

It may be a bit elitist to poop on these opposite-of-hip vinyl titles, but it’s hard to argue that there’s any demand for them. They were probably very cheap to license due to pre-existing soundtrack agreements, and Amazon sees this as a potential nostalgia-fueled win. If you have never pressed a record, or haven’t done so in at least a decade, then you may not understand why some are up in arms over this news. Clogged up plants and incredibly slow (or even unpredictable) production times make things very difficult for a by-the-seat-of-one’s-pants independent label. With a limited number of record presses available (previously) any major entry into the production line will have a decelerating impact.


Update: Errol Kolosine comments:

To be fair, this says they are “getting into the vinyl pressing business” – they aren’t, although one can certainly imagine Amazon doing so if it made sense.



Also, these do actually seem like pretty standard soundtrack reissues that are on the reputable Legacy imprint (Sony). Yes, they are only available via Amazon, but maybe that’s because they already surmised that their audience wants this stuff. A little investigation into the track listings of these records reveals pretty quickly who the demographic might be – both ironic and un-ironic.

The Cure’s Head On The Door Revisited

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The Quietus:

The Head On The Door has the feeling of a solo effort in that Smith holds all the music credits, something that wouldn’t recur. But unlike The Top’s near total isolation and inward drama, The Head On The Door looks outward and brims with confidence, not least in the respective choices of opening songs – no ‘Shake Dog Shake’ and wailing anger, instead, New Order. Well, not really, but ‘In Between Days’ may be as famous for a bit of Peter Hook-style bass as for its video of dancing socks, swinging camera and black-light makeup. Above all else, it’s just a good song, sprightly, immediate, contrasting with the lyrical sentiments about feeling old and a love triangle’s aftermath with rushed acoustic guitar, musical hooks for days and a simple but perfect keyboard part that was the cherry on the cake. It feels like summer, a ruinous summer perhaps of mixed weather and mixed emotions, but summer nonetheless. All that and it starts with a perfect drum fill by (Boris) Williams, who as the one truly new member was at once the wild card and the secret weapon for the next seven years; The Head On The Door is as much his introductory showcase as anything else.


Released thirty years ago this year, huh?

“In Between Days” is one of the great album openers of ’80s ‘alternative rock’. I never thought to compare it to New Order, though, but I guess you could when thinking of another fine album opener, “Age Of Consent“.

How Much Is Music Really Worth?

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Pitchfork:

In 1889, when the first “phonograph parlor” opened in San Francisco, saloon patrons could listen to a song through a tube for a nickel. When Thomas Edison began manufacturing wax cylinders of recorded music for home entertainment in the late 1890s, they cost 50 cents each, played at 120 RPM, and could hold only two minutes of music. Loosely speaking, what cost a nickel in 1889 would cost $1.29 today, and what cost 50 cents in 1900 would go for $13.89 today. (Then as now, how much money ever ended up in the hands of musicians remains murky.)



We create the value of music through a sort of community consensus, whether in terms of its emotional impact or its monetary worth. As units of music have become difficult to price, they’ve also lost their economic value—so I agree with a recent Future of Music Coalition op-ed arguing that “the music business has a transparency problem.” Would more detail about dollars and cents restore the music economy’s spirit? Maybe. The industry has recovered before, and there are reasons for optimism, but ultimately music and business, though inextricable from each other, aren’t the same.


A useful article here from last April, just discovered thanks to contributing article-finder Jon Curtis, that doesn’t quite answer the headline’s question but does lay down some interesting facts and figures. And the historical information on formats and pricing that comprises the middle section of the article is fascinating as well as providing some context.

The vague conclusion from the writer seems to be not to think in terms of a recording’s worth, but in the overall income an artist can wrangle through his / her creative endeavors. One can also reach the assumption that artists controlling their revenue inputs – that is, not sharing huge portions of everything with a label – come out on top. But one might want to have a trusted manager to handle the numbers, to keep artist types from getting creatively derailed, as one interviewed musician put it. As I like to say, managers are the new record labels.

We Now Return To The SoundCloud Soap Opera …

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FACT:

The Performing Rights Society for Music has taken legal action against (SoundCloud).



In an email sent out to PRS members, the body explains that “after careful consideration, and following five years of unsuccessful negotiations, we now find ourselves in a situation where we have no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against SoundCloud.”



PRS is responsible for collecting publishing royalties for musicians, for radio plays, public performances and more. Its issue with SoundCloud stems from the fact that despite having over 175m unique listeners per month, SoundCloud “continues to deny it needs a PRS for Music licence for its existing service available in the UK and Europe, meaning it is not remunerating our members.”


Now here’s a thorny situation for SoundCloud to address, especially if other PROs (BMI and ASCAP especially) choose to follow in PRS’s lead. There are rumblings that indeed these US counterparts are also considering action. I’m thinking an amicable resolution is required as part of SoundCloud’s impending alliances with the three majors (see below) but, if not, is it a realistic possibility that litigation from the publishing royalty collectors could finally bring the site down, Grooveshark-style? Do the majors, with their shiny new percentage stakes in the company and cash advances, even care?

Let’s reminisce about the early days of SoundCloud, pre-2010. It was a godsend to producers and musicians, promising a social network where they could not only post and share their own material, but also create embeddable players for their own sites. I know I was excited and, like many, ponied up the $500+ a year fee for the convenience and potentially powerful new avenue for self-promotion. I believe this was the early intention of SoundCloud: a place for audio content creators to share and promote their own material, and royalty and rights weren’t a concern. The fact that we’re uploading our own material implies compliance, and how easily we can spread our SoundCloud players was an agreeable trade-off.

Of course, SoundCloud’s growth seems to have gotten in the way of that good thing we took for granted. Remember the numerous times the site was down five years ago? Running all those audio streams isn’t cheap, and I’m figuring the powers that be saw mainstream adoption as a way to solve revenue drought. The nearly $1000 a year ‘Pro’ accounts suddenly were reduced to about $99. SoundCloud was becoming less of an exclusive club, and it seems a lot more users – and not just ‘content creators’ – came on board. (Side note: I remember, a mere few years ago, telling a friend to check out my SoundCloud account for my new music. This friend – not a musician, but probably a bigger, more obsessed music fan than me – had no idea what SoundCloud was. Never heard of it. It was an interesting realization that SoundCloud was kind of this insular club house, and this was probably the root of its woes at the time.)

As SoundCloud’s earliest adopters were electronic musicians (who, more often than not, double as DJs), DJ mixes have always been a major part of the offerings on the site. Growth meant that DJ mixes were becoming more commonplace, especially as mixes were the sole offering of many accounts (it would be interesting to know how much DJ mixes make up the total percentage of site content). The issues with these mixes weren’t completely under the radar in the early days – I received a take-down notice for a DJ mix containing a Marvin Gaye track about four or five years ago – but there certainly seemed to be a permissiveness, or at least a fingers-in-ears “nah nah nah” approach to the problem. PRS, in the article above, claims to have been speaking with SoundCloud about this for five years … probably mainly about their represented tracks included in DJ mixes.

It’s far too late, but it would be great to see SoundCloud try to pivot back to their content creator-focused days. Perhaps they can have a two-tiered system – a paid option for musicians to post and embed their own work without the hassle of advertisements, and then one for the DJ mixes and whatever else is being posted outside of the uploader’s copyright authority. I can’t imagine this happening … now that the majors are stake holders I’m not sure that they would like to see SoundCloud re-focus back towards independent and unsigned artists.

But it’s not all bad news for SoundCloud … or is it?


Digital Music News:

Universal Music Group and SoundCloud are now ‘days away’ from finalizing a momentous agreement, with sources close to the negotiations pointing to a pact potentially by the end of this week. The deal follows a massively-protracted, multi-year and cantankerous tug-of-war over licensing costs and a range of other issues, with critical financiers and a stable of lawyers hovering on the sidelines.



According to key sources with knowledge of the negotiations, the deal with Universal contains a substantial percentage stake in SoundCloud, with a significant upfront payment likely but not confirmed. That bears similarity to ongoing major label licenses with mega-streamers like Spotify, and reflects an interest in capturing an elephantine payout around a ‘liquidation event’.



“The majors are getting more interested in making money around the acquisition or IPO,” one industry lawyer told Digital Music News. “That’s more important than the huge advance but a lot of times they’re getting both.”



Indeed, we may be looking at the beginning of an entirely different SoundCloud, one that would replace billions of unpaid streams with actual payments to rights owners. Great news for artists, right?



Not exactly. Fast-forward a few months, and a fully-licensed SoundCloud is likely to replicate the problems currently dragging rival Spotify, with artists seeing tiny micro-payments while labels hoard gigantic lump sum payments. That includes proceeds from a massive acquisition or Wall Street IPO, something the largest rights owners will now enjoy as part owners.


The entire Digital Music News article is worth reading, as it goes into great detail about these sorts of deals and the aggressive maneuvering of the major labels. As a music publisher myself, I certainly know and applaud the benefit of royalties accrued from DJ mixes – especially those reaching thousands of plays – but I’m not certain that the deals that are being made will deliver for songwriters, especially independent ones. These agreements aren’t being made with the artists in mind, as evidenced by the lack of distribution of the upfront cash payouts (at least the PRS grievance is legitimately in representation of affiliated songwriters). Instead, my concern is that SoundCloud will become crippled or useless as a ‘level playing field’ promotions platform, and we’ll look back wistfully at the site’s golden days as we receive yet another tiny ‘micro-payment’ for our trouble.

8D Projects: Chris Forman – Presents ‘Reaching Out To The World’, Part 1 (Them On The Hill)

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New Zealand’s Them On The Hill label has charted a path towards a top notch catalog of modern house music tracks in a classic style, often created by criminally unheralded veteran producers. This upcoming release, and our latest project at 8DPromo, continues this string by enlisting New Jersey’s Chris Forman, who has previously worked with renowned imprints like Nite Grooves, Vega Records, and King Street. The single features two terrific tracks, and there are definitely some nods to house music’s celebrated past, especially in the familiar vocal sample in the second.