Category Archives: A to Z of Making It

A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy

Piracy

The debates and arguments never cease. There is no doubt that piracy has grown the fan base of established acts but it hasn’t brought the recorded income with it. For newer artists, look no further than Ed Sheeran, who used peer to peer services to spread his music. Without it, he wouldn’t be the megastar he is.

Researchers also try to quantify how ticket sales equate to people who pirated music. And there is a lot of research out there supporting it. Metallica post Napster started to play stadiums on their own. They rarely did that previously. On top of that, Metallica tested the waters on ticket prices.

Read this interview about how they seized the moment.

I know I became a fan of a lot of bands because of pirated material. Bands like Trivium, Coheed and Cambria, Shinedown, In Flames, Evergrey, Killswitch Engage, The Night Flight Orchestra and Corroded just to name a few. And I had no qualms paying ticket prices if these bands came to town.

High profile bands from the Eighties also had a renaissance in the 2000’s because of pirated material. Motley Crue, Metallica, Guns N Roses, Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Europe and Whitesnake come to mind immediately.

In the same way MTV gave the Seventies bands another chance in the Eighties, piracy gave all the Eighties acts who had some traction another chance in the Two Thousands. Provided they still wanted to work together. Bands like Skid Row, Ratt, Warrant and Dokken unfortunately missed out because key members hated each other.

It’s a pretty simple business model.

Have your music available worldwide for free and people will access it.

All of those bands mentioned above have played cities they’ve never played before and to crowds larger than before. They played these cities without selling any real recorded product in those cities.

But the Copyright holders still complain.

Seriously, is stream ripping really an issue these days. Think about the work/time involved to rip a stream. The people who are doing all of that are not interested to pay for recorded music. Those people will pay via other methods.

I can tell you that in Eastern Europe, I have not come across a legitimate music shop. The few shops I have come across (and I use that term loosely) sell rips of albums. So how do you think the people in Eastern Europe will access music.

In most cases, they will download a copy of the album. But that hasn’t stopped bands from hitting Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Russia on tours. And streaming services are fragmented. Spotify is not available in Serbia, Romania and Russia. Apple Music is available in Russia, but not in Serbia and Romania.

And YouTube is always to blame when it comes to stream ripping, but all the service did was to provide a gap that existed in the market, which Napster highlighted and the labels tried to kill.

Seriously if stream ripping us an issue, then video ripping of video clips in the 80s would also have been an issue.

Who knew that my video ripping ways would end up being a $2000 a year music habit.

It happens. People start to invest when they are ready or have the means to. And again if there is no artist to fan relationship, all of these issues the labels find are pointless.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

The One You Loved Is Gone

What a solo from Slash! Actually two solos.

But it’s the middle one that hooks me.

It’s one of those moments that brings a smile to my face. You feel the emotion in the phrasing and the note bends. It’s on par with his “Estranged”, “November Rain”, “Sweet Child O Mine”, “Civil War” and “Don’t Cry” solos.

The way Slash starts off the solo in the lower register playing G major pentatonic notes in the open string position, then sliding up to the 5th fret position of the scale and finishing up on the 10th fret position of the scale. It’s a lesson on using the modes of the scale and a lesson in constructing a solo to any wannabe guitarist.

Each time he moves up the neck it’s by sliding and he bends the fuck out of those notes either half a step or a full step.

And this is where Slash is a natural.

He bends the string before he picks it, so when he does pick the string, the listener hears the bent note first and then when Slash eases off the pressure on the string, the listener then hears the natural note. This is a special skill as Slash must know the right pressure to apply to the string to achieve the right pitch for the bent note.

For example, Slash will have his finger on the 7th fret on the G string. This is a D note. But what he will do is to bend the string so the listener hears the E note first. And then he will release the pressure so the listener hears the D note.

Other guitarists will pick the D note and bend up to the E note and back. It’s easier as you hear the D note and your ears can guide the bend to the E note.

But Slash, while he also employs this technique goes a step further and pre bends to the E note and when he picks it, it’s spot on the pitch.

Of course Slash isn’t the first to this. But he is the one we are talking about now.

And that acoustic intro where Slash takes an open C chord shape and plays it on the 10th fret of the 5th string to make a G chord and then he plays an open G chord on the 10th fret of the 6th string. It’s brilliant and again, he’s not the first to play open string chord shapes higher up on the neck but he does it in such an assessable way.

This combination between Slash and Myles is musically excellent. And yeah, it might sound like an Alter Bridge song, but that solo is 100% pure grade Slash.

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A to Z of Making It, My Stories, Stupidity, Unsung Heroes

The Discrimination Against Grassroots Clubs

We played a tournament recently that involved accepted grassroots and representative teams. The difference between grassroots and representative teams is money. The parents of kids who play in grassroots pay no more than $200 in registration, while the parents of kids who play in representative teams pay $2500 in registration.

So now that you know the difference you should understand what happens in these tournaments.

The tournament had three high performing grassroots teams enter an age group. They put all those three teams into one group with two low performing representative teams. So that meant 5 teams in Group A. The other two groups (B and C) had four teams each and all representative teams.

Now for the interesting part, only the team that came first in Group A would progress to the Semi Finals, not the team that came second. So effectively, the Governing State Body ensured that the high performing club teams knocked each other out, so only one would survive to make the semi-finals with three representative teams (who by the way played cross over matches of 1 v 3, 1 v 3 and 2 v 2 to decide the three SF spots).

Basically, the Club teams needed to come FIRST to get a spot in the SEMI FINALS and the representative teams could have come first, second or third and they still had the same chance.

However if they put these three club teams in each group, there could be a possibility that the semi-finals could involve the three club teams and one representative team.

And this is how discrimination occurs to protect an income source.

You have footballing associations so scared of failure and the brand damage which might come with it, they use their local area monopolistic power to influence everything.  If three club teams made it to the semi-finals of this tournament, how can the representative teams justify their inflated fees.

Imagine a starting line for a second.

All the kids that play football (soccer) are lined up on the starting line. A person says for all the kids who play football to take a step forward. And all of them do. The person then says, take a step forward if you want to play professionally and 80% of the kids step forward.

The person then says, all the kids who have played in a representative team take a step forward and 20% of the kids left take a step forward. The person then says, all the kids who are playing at grassroots, take a step backwards while the representative kids take another step forward.

The person then says, if you’ve played for a representative team for one year, take another step forward, for two years, two steps forward, for three years, three steps forward and for four years or more, take 4 steps forward.

And suddenly, you have 16 players who are steps ahead of the rest. But are those 16 kids really that far ahead or so much better than the grassroots kids.  Maybe there are 15 kids who don’t belong there, however due to being born earlier in the year, they have matured and grown faster than the later born players.

As the kids get older, those late developers are progressing and catching up or those players born at the start of the year that didn’t specialise early in football are also now catching up, but the Coaches and Technical Directors of representative teams (not all of them, but a lot of them) have a fixed mindset.

These people cannot believe how kids outside of their academies/representative teams can develop into great players on their own initiative or under the guidance of a grassroots coach or their own parent.

The Germans have shown how this is possible.

“Of those who were recruited at an age of under 11 or under 13, at the age of under 19, only 9 percent are left. On the other hand, those who made it to the national A team of Germany, those we see in the World Cup for example, were being built up gradually across all age stages.

The population of senior top athletes emerges in the course of repeated selection, de-selection, and replacements across all age stages rather than developing from those early selected.

There were athletes who did not exceed initial D squad (regional junior squad), they were first recruited into the system at 15 years. The C squad (the national junior squad) were first recruited at the age of 17. Those who made it to senior world class (A squad) were first recruited at 19 years. So the more successful at the senior level, the later was the recruitment into the talent development system.

Most early selected youngsters do not become successful seniors. Most successful seniors were not selected particularly early.”

Professor Güllich gave an example from the German football TDP (talent development programme) system

In Michael Calvin’s documentary, “No Hunger In Paradise: The Players. The Journey. The Dream”, of all the boys who enter the academy at 9 years of age in the U.K, less than 0.5% make it or make a living from the game. Of the 1.5 million boys playing football, only 180 will make it to the Premier League. A success rate of 0.012%.

As the article states, the odds are the same as being hit by a meteorite as you are going home.

There are good coaches and Technical Directors  in Australia, however there are also TD’s in denial. So focused on their source of income, and the selling of their curriculum pathways.

Governing sporting bodies have done a great marketing job in making people believe in the pathway. This magic golden brick road, a linear path, that promises athletes who start as beginners will end up as experts.

It’s a myth. It doesn’t exist.

The belief in “The Pathway” is destructive to the sport. The road to being a professional is different for every player. Kids start playing a sport for various of reasons. Some enjoy manipulating the ball, others want to have fun, others want to be a professional player from a young age, some just like competing and winning.

The pathway puts forward the idea that if a player joins an academy, then a rep team, then a National Premier League Team they will eventually progress to the Professional League and the national youth teams and main team.

Instead of everyone investing in “The Pathway”, maybe the monies and the coaches should be invested in building the grassroots clubs, there facilities, and growing Football from the grassroots clubs and not the other way around. And one thing is clear, if the child isn’t technically proficient, then they will struggle.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Douche Posts

There are posts on this site from a few years back that I call douche posts.

You see in 2013, a few friends and I were talking about Blabbermouth’s link bait headlines and how in most cases Blabbermouth always picked some content of an interview that could be deemed controversial as their headline.

Anyway I said to my friends I would do a few douche posts like that as an experiment and see what kind of reaction we get.

It’s been over 4 years old and I can confirm those douche posts are the least viewed posts on the site.

You see, these posts are part of an experiment to test a few internet theories.

Theory 1;

With so much information available to us, nothing lasts on the internet. In other words, the post of today is forgotten tomorrow like the album you spent 8 months recording is released this week and forgotten the next week.

Theory 2:

Clickbait always wins. This was based on how Blabbermouth and Loudwire promote their posts.

My posts were designed to be a “not too obvious” click bait post. Maybe a douche post to some people, but in order to prove or disprove experiments, you need real life actors.

Results

In this case click bait doesn’t win.

The experiment is still in the early stages but this experiment has shown to me that clickbait news stories are not really worth it. You might outrage some people, and get some views but it’s not the way forward in the long term or if you want to build something that lasts.

Clickbait brings the wrong audience to the site. For sites to grow, they need users who are engaged with it, creating their own social culture group. And that’s my aim.

The bigger websites like Blabbermouth care about the clicks to the story. That’s how they make ad revenue. All the best to them.

And while these posts are the least viewed they sure have some interesting comments.

Of course, comments need to be taken with a grain of salt here. Insulting ones are ignored, however some comments asking me to check out other things that support the commenters viewpoint are engaging and worthwhile.

What these posts have told me is that people shouldn’t take things too seriously. I sure don’t. We are all imperfect and I don’t mind poking some fun my way. That’s what makes us human after all.

And one more thing, good or bad, everything lasts on the internet. Sometimes it takes time for people to find it. You know that song you released today, it could be forgotten for years, maybe decades. But as long as it’s out there, someone will find it.

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A to Z of Making It, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Coheed And Cambria

“Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures” is the new album. The title can turn people away who are not fans and to be honest these long album titles did sound peculiar and they triggered an interest for me back in 2007, however I still needed another recommendation to dive in.

It started with a recommendation that came from a Guitar World interview about the “No World For Tomorrow” album, which also came out in 2007 but I still did nothing with it.

Then a few months later I was given a burnt copy of “In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth” by an old band member. I was at work and I couldn’t wait until I got home as I had some after work activities to do so I would have been home late. Anyway I placed the CD into the CD player of the PC, grabbed the shitty e-training headphones from work and pressed play.

The rest is history as I became a fan for life.

So here I am 11 years later and another new Coheed release has hit the streets. Being a fan, I have no problem spending the $172.95AUD for the Deluxe Box Set. I’ve done this same routine for the last four releases.

It’s another concept album.

My first concept experience was “Operation Mindcrime” from Queensryche, then “The Crimson Idol” from WASP and then “Streets: A Rock Opera” from Savatage. But Coheed take it to another level, with more or less each album except one being part of a concept story called “The Amory Wars”.

Here is a quick summary. There are more detailed ones out there.

A scientist called Sirius Amory discovers an energy source called “The Keywork” is actually souls who haven’t transcended. This happens on “The Afterman” album.

Many years later, a person called Wilhelm Ryan starts using the energy of the Keywork to murder and rule. Coheed and Cambria are robots created to destroy him. Along with a person called Inferno, who also is a robot, they attack Ryan’s fortress and manage to destroy it. But Ryan survives. However Coheed and Cambria think he’s dead. Thinking it’s over, their memory is wiped. This happens on “The Year Of The Black Rainbow”.

In “The Second Stage Turbine Blade” Coheed and Cambria get killed and their last surviving son, Claudio, is left to take up the charge. I’m still not sure how humanoid robots have children. But the recent Bladerunner movie also had this story arc.

Claudio finds out that he’s like the chosen one in “In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth”.

In “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. I: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness” there is a character called “The Writer” that starts to fuck up the story because he’s going through a relationship break up. It reminds me of the Matrix characters “The Keymaker” merged with “The Architect”.

In “No World For Tomorrow”, Claudio destroys the Keywork and releases the trapped souls. And the new album takes place after this event.

Now of you want to read reviews of the album I suggest you check out these reviews from Metal Injection and Rock Sins.

I more or less agree with everything they say. In my view, if the album music doesn’t convert new fans the narrative will. It’s a win-win for Coheed and Cambria.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Dynazty

Dynazty came onto my radar in 2016.

Actually I heard of em a few years before but avoided them because of the band name, thinking they would sound like Kiss, and why did they spell it with a ‘Z’.

They are a typical example of what its like to be involved in the music business today for a Swedish band. They exist completely off the mainstream radar screen, doing their thing and building their catalogue of songs. And eventually, people will notice. But it takes time. Hell, I’m a fan of their last three releases and I don’t even know who is in the band.

How is that possible?

It’s so far removed from the label gatekeeper 80’s/90’s model. Anyway I looked em up this time and here are the member’s. Nils Molin on vocals, George Harnsten Egg on drums, Rob Love Magnusson on guitar, Mike Lavér on guitars and Jonathan Olsson on bass. Yep, I can’t say I’ve heard of em.

The new album and number six overall is called “Firesign”. It’s a European sounding album, so it’s fitting that I am listening to it in Europe.

But it was album number four “Renatus” that hooked me in which I heard at the same time as album number five “Titanic Mass” in 2016.

And people are listening. Music is a lifers game. You’re either in it for life or it’s just a passing hobby.

And Dynazty are in it.

A label head would call this pop power rock. But I hate labels, so to me, it’s just a cool rock album with kick ass guitar solos. Actually really good guitar solos.

Breathe With Me

The kick ass intro gets the foot tapping, the vocal melodies gets the head nodding and when the guitar solo comes in, it’s got so many cool licks from sweep picking to legato lines to string skipping to pentatonic lines.

It’ll be cool to sit down and figure it all out.

The Grey

Any track that starts off with just drums and bass hooks me in. When the keys and guitars kick in, it’s melodic heaven.

And that guitar solo. It starts off with a repeating open string lick under changing chords. After that it’s time to tastefully shred.

If the first two songs don’t hook you, then the rest won’t.

In The Arms Of A Devil

One of the heavier tracks on the album and another guitar solo moment which hooks me.

My Darkest Hour

The vocal melodies, the symphonic music and that guitar solo. Brilliant. I scrubbed it back 8 times just to hear the lead again.

Will these songs sustain and penetrate?

Who knows.

I thought Dokken would rule the world and instead it ended up being Metallica.

Firesign

Rammstein riffs merged with In Flames riffs merged with Joey Tempest style vocals.

What’s not to like?

And when you add in another tasty guitar solo.

It’s perfect.

Follow Me

It’s everything that’s great about Euro Metal wrapped up in a 4 minute song.

And again the guitar leads shine.

The Light Inside The Tunnel

Malmsteen influences are all over this album, but by the last song it’s clear that the Dynazty guitarists have surpassed the Fury Master.

And apart from the symphonic nods, this song grooves. It has an addictive chorus on the album and another great guitar solo.

Check it out purely for the guitar heroes.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Music Is A Relationship Between Artist And Fan

With chaos comes opportunity.  For centuries, progress is made from learning how to deal with the chaos.

Copyright is in a chaotic state. The corporations who hold the rights to valuable art, are fighting battles against infringement, organising web blocking and are trying their best to get stricter copyright enforcement laws passed while also lobbying hard to extend copyright terms. As if the current “life plus 70 years after death” term is not long, enough.

In addition, these copyright monopolies don’t want works entering the public domain, so in the late 90’s these large organisations got a law passed that would prevent works meant to enter the public domain from not entering until 2019.

For those that don’t know, the public domain is culture. Keith Richards once said, ‘you can’t copyright the blues.’ Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Presley and all of the sixties greats took songs from the Public Domain and built a highly lucrative career from it.

Culture is built and expanded by sharing stories and building on the works of others. But the Copyright organisations have manipulated and changed copyright so much, it’s far removed from its purpose of giving creators a short term monopoly on their works, so they have an incentive to create more works.

Short terms meant 14 years to 28 years depending if the artist renewed their work.

Works that should be in the public domain do not benefit the original creators in any way. The majority of them have passed away, however these works (the valuable ones) are beneficial for the few copyright monopoly gatekeepers.

For culture to thrive once again, it is important to respect the public domain. If you want another 60’s culture explosion, we need to have a public domain.

It’s not going to be easy, because you have the RIAA who continually push lies out into the world, so that technology companies can do something to protect the labels crap business models. You have ISP’s who are fighting their own battles about what their users do on the net. You have the techies who provide services, using channels supported and owned by the ISP’s. You have the various lobby groups for the public, for the techies, for the ISP’s and for the labels/movie studios. And when these tribes come into a room, it’s exactly what Frankie sings, they go to war.

And nowhere in the mix is the artist and the customer. Because in the end, it’s the relationship the customer has with the music/art which creates value. The labels claim they are there to represent the artists, which is complete BS. The labels are there to represent themselves.

For the recording business to thrive, you need the artist to create and you need a customer to become a fan and connect with the art, so they could be monetised. If that relationship is not happening, all of the other crap going on is pointless.

If you are an artist, you need to realise your fans are king. Exceptional fan service is the key driving force behind a bands success. It’s good old business 101, “treat your customers right and they’ll stay with you forever”.  Because if you build a community of customers and are serving these dedicated customers with something great, then you would expect profits to go up.

In all of the wars happening around access to music, the most important one, the artist and the fan connection, is continually ignored. Don’t be an artist that falls into that trap.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Logos

In the “No Sleep Til Sudbury” book there is a chapter on Motley Crue. You need to read the book to find out what is said as I don’t want to give away spoilers.

Anyway the chapter got me thinking about Motley Crue, because the band was huge in my life growing up and still to this day I fork out dollars to buy stuff from em and I’m sure I’ll be forking our dollars for “The Dirt” soundtrack as well.

I know it’s insane, especially since the band was average at best with Tommy Lee being the most talented in all areas, musical and home video making. And I’ve watched em live every time they came to Australia, only to walk away saying how shit is Vince and why didn’t someone unplug Mick Mars. But I’ve gone back time and time again.

The one thing that always hooked me in with the Crue is the marketing. Each album has its unique band logo. It’s never the same logo, like Acca Dacca’s, Maiden, Judas Priest and many others. I can see a logo and I’ll know which album it’s connected with. And as soon as I got good drawing one logo, I had to learn to draw a new one. I think its a marvelous move.

A friend of mine called Herman who I don’t really see anymore had a denim jacket with logos sewn on and by 1989, that jacket had five Crue logo patches on it and two Whitesnake/GNR logo patches compared to one Metallica, Megadeth, Dio, Van Halen, Maiden, Acca, Slayer, Poison, Jovi and Kiss. Again, genius marketing move from the Crue and also by Coverdale in reinventing the Whitesnake brand and Guns N Roses who had the two guns facing each other logo which was generic and the “Appetite For Destruction” logo.

If I owed a generic AC/DC top with only the logo on it, I would be known as having an AC/DC top regardless of when I purchased it and I would have no need to purchase a new AC/DC top unless it faded to grey or ripped completely.

But if I owed a Crue top with the Girls logo in 1992, I would be known as owning an old Crue top. It was a symptom of my generation. And because it was a genius marketing move from Crue/Sixx, I always felt the need to get a new top.

Ka Ching. Ka Ching.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

This Shall Also Pass

And the sun will rise
Dawn will break through the blackest night
Distant in its glow
This shall pass be still and know

I think Phill Demmel wrote the lyric.

It was inevitable that something had to give. People do grow apart. Yes that’s true and the songs that people want to write and play also changes. That’s also true. But in this social media world, artists also don’t want to piss people off. So a lot of artists choose to live with a filter in public. Not Robb Flynn.

So Phil Demmel and Dave McClain leaving Machine Head was just a matter of time. All the best, thanks for the great tunes and two unbelievable albums in “The Blackening” and “Unto The Locust”.

But the show must go on. Robb Flynn needs to continue and fly the Machine Head flag high. Maybe he won’t. I hope he does.

Because when members leave and the band name continues, those people who were in the band previously would still need to get paid, especially if you play the songs they were involved in writing. So lawyers get involved and band agreements get messy and Robb Flynn would think, why the fuck am I working my arse off, city by city, to pay people who are not in the band anymore.

Remember when the Osbourne’s sued Tony Iommi because he continued to release albums under the Black Sabbath name which Sharon claimed Ozzy helped to build up as part of the original line up, so he must be entitled to a cut even though his solo career was running riot over Sabbath’s.

And Machine Head have made some changes to their line up, probably not as much as Megadeth but still a decent turnover. Then again Mustaine parted ways with Effelson, got sued by Effelson and then brought him back. Maybe Adam Duce would come back.

And new bassist Jared MacEachern has done nothing wrong to be fired. Then again, Jared is a guitarist and could fill the vacant guitar spot if Duce returns.

But I’ve always seen Machine Head as Robb Flynn. As long as he’s there, it’s Machine Head, the same way James Hetfield is Metallica and the same way Dave Mustaine is Megadeth and Tom Englund is Evergrey.

Those guys can replace the band members around them and it will still sound like the band. But bands are also about friendships and the hangs. So members stay in bands for those friendships, even when they feel they shouldn’t.

A million dead end streets and
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet

Everybody goes throw changes as Bowie said. Machine Head is changing. Robb Flynn embraced the social side and is connecting with his fans. The loyal ones. Who are there through thick and thin.

And there are fans who are swingers. They move in and out based on the new music. And then there are fans who like a certain line up or just a certain album.

This is who we are
This is what I am
We have nowhere else to go
UNITED we will stand

The lyric in capitals is actually divided but it always should have been united in my eyes.

Into glory we will ride.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

Missed Opportunities

The record labels and music news sites that benefit from reporting positive articles about the labels, talk about the billions of dollars the music industry made in the financial year just before Napster hit. So from a simple viewpoint, when Napster hit, sales of music started to decline. For the RIAA and the record labels, these two events correlate, so it implies that one is causing the other to move. But actually the sales of music have been falling for some time.

What happened during the 90’s just before Napster went worldwide was a lot of re-purchasing. This is people who had music on vinyl or cassette and they started to re-purchase the music they already owned on CD’s. These re-purchased items, in most cases re-mastered or super deluxe editions with bonus content at higher prices would skew the record label figures to make it look like new music was bringing in billions of dollars when in fact it was people purchasing old catalogue items of their favourites. And once you had those albums on CD, you didn’t really need to re-purchase them again.

Lars and Kirk from Metallica maintain that it was the right action to go after Napster. No it wasn’t. The right action was to build a business model to replace the gap in the market that Napster was servicing. That gap was basically to allow people to share their music collections (bootlegs and original recordings) in a very simple and convenient way. Napster got popular because of it, and the record labels should have created something to match it.

But the labels did nothing, and then a small company called YouTube did fill the gap that Napster was really servicing. And YouTube today, generates billions of dollars. These billions could have been in the profit and loss statements of the record labels but they messed up. Remember, we are 20 years post Napster, and Napster still gets talked about, while the record labels did absolutely nothing to counter it, except scream for legislation and gestapo like police powers.

So going back to Lars and Kirk, creating a service that allowed people to share their music was the best course of action and as YouTube proves a very profitable one at that.

The arrival of YouTube and eventually streaming services put a dent into the traditional sales model, however with the increase in people attending concerts and festivals, one needs to ask the question, did piracy assist in these increased crowds?

Iron Maiden came back with Bruce Dickinson, bigger than ever and played to sold out crowds in countries they’ve hardly sold any recorded product in. Twisted Sister and Motley Crue also came back bigger than ever post Napster and played to their biggest ever crowds until they retired. Did piracy assist in these concert attendances as well?

And what about Metallica?

Having their music illegally available on Napster basically made sure that their music was available in every place in the world that had an internet connection (it was the same deal for Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister and Motley Crue).

In other words, their music was worldwide, which of course led to more fans having access to their music and a correlation of super large concert attendances and highly ridiculous ticket prices to capitalise on their world-wide reach. Even Metallica sold out concerts in countries without really selling any recorded discs in those countries. In some countries their music wasn’t even available legally, only illegally.

And here we are in 2018, with the record labels still trying to kill the market gap that Napster serviced. In this case, YouTube is the one in the firing line. YouTube and Spotify should just become labels themselves and start financing the production of music themselves, the same way Netflix and Amazon create their own content and also license content from others. Then the argument will be different.

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