Tag Archives: piracy

Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy

How bad can piracy be? A Case Study involving Protest The Hero, Iron Maiden and Digital Summer.

The MPAA and the RIAA are trying their best to stop all file-sharing services. They still don’t realise that the moment they shut one down through legal action, several more appear in its place. 

The RIAA has shut down Napster, Kazaa and Limewire. The MPAA has gone to the ISP level, first trying to get verdicts that ISP’s facilitate copyright infringement, then trying to get personal information of ISP customers for copyright trolling lawsuits. When that got complicated, they resorted to getting blockades against certain websites. They have even resorted to using law enforcement agencies to shut down “rogue” websites (MegaUpload comes to mind).

So with all the activity going on, has file sharing ceased? Nope. Sharing still happens. 

I just went onto The Pirate Bay and typed in “Iron Maiden”. The discography is available for downloading and it is free. There are 840 seeders and 290 leechers. So is this illegal sharing of Iron Maiden’s music bad? Is it harming the band?

Okay, so Iron Maiden is a “big” band and they broke through in the Eighties on the back of the dreaded “Record Label”. People can argue that the impact of piracy to a band of Iron Maiden’s stature is minimal. In 2011, Iron Maiden played 33 shows and had total gross earnings of $33,085,671. Yep, that’s right, they grossed $33MIL. The band is still signed to a major label and they have full control of their merchandising deals.

They are on Spotify and “Fear Of The Dark” is leading the way with 16.74 million streams.

What about bands that where on a major label and are now classed as independent? I typed in “Protest The Hero” into The Pirate Bay search engine. Their 2011 album, “Scurrilous” is available for downloading and it is free. There are 64 seeders and 3 leechers. Their 2008 album, “Fortress” is available for downloading and it is free. There are 48 seeders and 1 leecher. So is this illegal sharing of Protest The Hero’s music bad?

Between January and February, 2013, Protest The Hero had a Indiegogo campaign with the following slogan: “Protest The Hero – New Album. We have completed all of our obligations to record labels. It’s time to go it alone and take control of our careers. It’s now or never!”

The goal was $125,000. By the time funding finished, the band raised $341,146. Yep, that’s right. They almost tripled their funding goal. All up 8361 backers.

What about independent DIY bands? I typed in “Digital Summer” into The Pirate Bay search engine. The discography is available for downloading and it is free. There are 12 seeders and 3 leechers. So is this illegal sharing of Digital Summer’s music bad?

In 2012, Digital Summer had a Kickstarter campaign to give fans the opportunity to contribute to the release of their next album (which ended up becoming Breaking Point) in exchange for cool incentives and it also helped the band raise the money they need to finish the album and market it nationwide THE RIGHT WAY. They had a goal of $25,000. They got 340 backers and raised $51,080.

So is this illegal sharing (12 seeders = 12 people) of Digital Summer’s music bad? Is it harming the band?

The band released “Breaking Point”, toured behind it and are now prepping an acoustic album.

The unbelievers would say that the guys from Digital Summer all hold down day jobs, so the RIAA must be correct in their viewpoint as artists are not making enough money solely from the activities in the music business.

If you listen to the stories from the RIAA, you would believe that piracy is harming everything to do with music and this is so far from the truth, it hurts just to think it.

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A to Z of Making It, Alternate Reality, Music, My Stories, Piracy

Dreams of Machine Head’s new album, Great Fear Metaphor and the views of Mr Sixx

Machine Head’s trajectory in the 2000’s is comparable to Metallica’s trajectory in the Eighties. Yep, I know that Machine Head began in the Nineties and that their first album came out in 1994. However, after “Supercharger” in 2001, Machine Head pressed the reset switch on their career and due to certain circumstances, they started writing songs that they were producing as well.

In 2003, Machine Head released “Through The Ashes Of Empires”. To me this is comparable to “Ride The Lightning” from Metallica released in 1984.

In 2007, Machine Head released “The Blackening”. To me this is comparable to “Master Of Puppets” from Metallica released in 1986.

In 2011, Machine Head released “Unto The Locust.” To me this is comparable to “…And Justice For All” from Metallica released in 1988.

It looks like the new Machine Head album will have a street date sometime in 2014. The question is, will the new Machine Head album be comparable to the spectacular Black album from Metallica released in 1991.

Robb Flynn has put out some thoughts around the consumption of music and the way it is released and marketed. He was asking fans, what do they want Machine Head in respect to the new album. I agree with his mindset and his view point. So the question is, how will Machine Head release their new music?

Will they focus on just the existing CD format and packaging that the record labels have done since day dot?

Will they focus on the idea, that if you purchase the CD, you also get a digital rip of the album at the same time? (Amazon does this for participating bands and Coheed and Cambria did this for The Afterman releases).

Will they have a super deluxe packaging option for their hard core fans?

I actually had a dream that I purchased a super deluxe pack from Machine Head for their new album. In my dream, my subconscious mind gave the album the title of “Great Fear Metaphor”.

The pack included the following items (I still can’t believe I dreamt this stuff);

*A unique T Shirt, with band art on the front and on the back of the T-Shirt, the fans surname with a number like 00001 for the first person to purchase it, 00002 for the next and so forth. Each premium package focused on it being unique  and personalised.  I was allowed to purchase extra multiple T-Shirts in different sizes for a decent price so that I had the same shirts for my wife and my kids.

* Different album art for each Premium box.

* A 30 page booklet, that talks about the songs, their meanings, the musical inspirations behind the riffs with each page littered with tab like musical drawings/excerpts of some of the riffs and their leads.

* The usual CD plus DVD plus access to a digital download area, where I could download the mp3’s of the songs, plus early demo drafts of the songs.

In my opinion, the super deluxe packaging is for the super fan market and if bands are not satisfying this market, they are leaving money on the table.

I remember reading some of the negative comments in relation to Robb’s views on the CD format, and a lot of them said the same thing, like how can Robb Flynn be talking about abandoning the CD format when he is in the business of selling CD’s.  

Umm, no. Machine Head and Robb Flynn are in the music business. First and foremost, they create music. They are not in the business to sell CD’s. That was the role of the record label. In the past, for a fan to hear that music, it needed to be placed onto a format that could be distributed. These formats involved, LP’s, Cassettes and CD’s. This in turn gave control to the Record Labels. The record labels made money by exploiting the work of the artists it signed.  

Read this article about the introduction of certain formats and the resistance to those formats initially.

Two main things stood out to me in the article. The first is when cassettes came out in the seventies. People started to copy music onto these cassettes. So what do the music business do? They scream piracy and demand government action. In 1971, the music business had a Piracy convention in Geneva, to put into force an agreement to stamp out piracy. This is the comment from the article;

“Twenty-three countries have signed the agreement, which is expected to be widely ratified to provide an effective international protection against the pirating menace predicted as formidable enough to disrupt the whole of the world music industry if allowed to continue unchecked.”

Sound familiar to 2013. It looks like the music business didn’t get the hint back in 1971. People want to copy and share their music.

The next thing that stood out is the following comment;

“Unless you find another way of making money besides controlling copying, you will not last in the digital age.”

A person by the name of Ram Samudrala made that comment in Billboard Magazine issue that was dated July 18, 1998. That is 15 years ago. The Record Labels and the RIAA ignored the advice and as such, they failed their artists on their roster.

Fast forward to 2013, and you have the real artists trying to find other ways of making money besides record sales, while the record labels are still ignoring this advice and are trying to get back the control they had over copying and distribution by litigating against ISP’s, sharers, downloaders and trying to get legislation passed to benefit them.

Does it all sound familiar? A failure to innovate leads to a piracy unchecked problem. A failure to service the customer base leads to a piracy unchecked problem.

On the topic of innovation I want to comment on a favourite artists of mine, Nikki Sixx. He posted the below comments recently and I was very surprised at his stance, as I always viewed him as an innovator and someone that was always trying to find other ways to make money besides selling recorded music;

When I was scrounging through record shops as a kid you usually (unless you just shopped for single’s) bought the whole album. I always fell deeper in love with the band because “ALL” their songs spoke to me. Of course some jumped out at you right away while others grew on you but you didn’t skip any songs, you would listen from top to bottom over and over again.

When I started making albums I always believed the WHOLE album was the adventure. Of course there is the lead single for radio but when did THAT become the whole experience?

I talk to more and more people every day who tell me they only buy singles now. iTunes hasn’t helped for that of course. We have asked them many times to bundle our album as one download so fans wouldn’t cherry pick the hits and miss the hidden gems but it’s not part of their business model. I love iTunes and buy music almost daily from it but it still frustrates me. I just wish more people clicked “BUY ALBUM”. Maybe I am old fashioned in how I believe music should be listened to but I refuse to ever buy just a band’s single. I always buy the WHOLE album. I encourage you to do the same. Technology may have changed but the fact that a band makes a WHOLE album for you hasn’t.  Dig deep and I promise you, you will fall deeper in love with the artist than you ever could only listening to one song.

In relation to his first paragraph and the comment “you usually (unless you just shopped for single’s) bought the whole album”.

Yes, that is correct, we usually purchased the whole album because that was the only way we could hear the music. In a lot of independent record shops during the mid to late eighties, you couldn’t even find a single. The only option we had to buy was the album.

Remember the comments from Brad Paisley, it is always about the songs. That is why the fans stick around with the artists. As soon as the quality of the songs disappears, the fan becomes burned on the artist and they turn away. For any artist these days, if you want people to purchase the whole album, you need to create greatness. If you have 8 great songs, put 8 great songs on it. Don’t put 8 great songs and 4 fillers.

I have always purchased the albums from Motley Crue (as well as their box sets Music To Crash Your Car Vol. 1 and 2, Loud as F… and so on), Brides Of Destruction, Sixx A.M., 58, Tommy Lee, Methods of Mayhem and Vince Neil’s solo albums.

I always skip tracks from each Motley Crue album, because they are just not great.

One thing that Motley Crue has been very poor at is releasing super deluxe packaging for their super fans. They are dead set not satisfying this market.

I really like what Nikki Sixx has done with Sixx A.M so far, in the way that they have a book and a body of music with each release. However, as a fan you still needed to buy them separately. There was no super deluxe pack that was unique.  

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

It’s Always About The Songs

I am reading an article on Brad Paisley.

When he was asked about why he thinks his popularity resonates so strongly with audiences around the world, Paisley answered with the following:

“It’s always songs.”

He further adds that the minute an artist starts to think it’s them and not the songs they are singing that resonates, it is the moment that they start to think they are larger than life.

We are fans of music. We are attracted to the songs. If that same artist keeps churning out great songs, then we stick around. If they don’t, we go looking for something else.

I got into the band Bon Jovi because of the songs, not because of an individual. Desmond Child and Billy Falcon have co written alot of songs for the band, however their solo careers didn’t get any traction while Jon Bon Jovi’s solo career is a one hit wonder and Richie Sambora’s is aimed at a whole different audience.

I got into Coheed and Cambria because of the Amory Wars story and the songs. If I got into Coheed and Cambria because of an individual, then I would be also listening to all of the side projects.  

When it all comes down to it, the song is the only thing that remains. The top 10 list for my kids are the following songs;

1. Eye Of The Tiger from Survivor
2. Lick It Up from Kiss
3. We’re Not Gonna Take It from Twisted Sister.
4. Livin On A Prayer from Bon Jovi
5. Anyway You Want It from Journey
6. Smoke On The Water from Deep Purple
7. The Final Countdown from Europe
8. We Will Rock You from Queen
9. Back In Black from AC/DC
10. Iron Man from Black Sabbath

The kids of today don’t say the band name, they say the song name. In time the above songs will be covered over and over again, further obscuring, the original writer. All The Young Dudes from Mott The Hoople and originally written by David Bowie, has been covered by Bruce Dickinson, Ozzy Osbourne, Aerosmith, Angel, Tesla, The Smashing Pumpkins, Judas Priest and Stone Temple Pilots.

My kids love the song Cum On Feel The Noize. They don’t care which version they hear (Slade or Quiet Riot), they only care about hearing the song. I never went back to hear the original Slade version. I was quite content with the Quiet Riot version.

In the same interview, Paisley talks about some truths in relation to technology.

“It’s a constant challenge to try and get people’s attention,” Paisley said. For instance, he can put a huge amount of effort in a music video (such as his recent “Southern Comfort Zone”), “and then you’re upstaged by ‘David at the Dentist.‘”

This is real life example of an artist and their backers, spending time and money to produce something of decent quality, only to be trumped by a video that cost almost nothing to make.

The record labels whine and complain about piracy, however their real problem is that they do not know how to compete in the market place.

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

Musicians can’t be immune to reality – Say Hello To The Entrepreneur

Piracy can never be handled with a one size fits all business model. Each product that is released needs to have its own strategy to combat piracy.

Sending a million takedown requests to Google will not solve the problem. It is a waste of money and resources. Even a recent study by the Computer and Communications Industry Association challenges the long-held perception that search engines actively promote unlicensed content. According to the paper, even if all capability to search for pirate sites is removed, sites like Isohunt and The Pirate Bay would still survive.

So how will artists get paid?

If the artists’ works are copied, does it mean they need to be paid and if artists are not paid, is going after the people who shared their content going to get them paid?

The answer is NO. The only ones who get paid are the lawyers.

So if artists are not paid for the songs they write and record because, hey, they spent money doing these songs, so they should be paid. If they are not getting paid then the industry needs to get powerful people to write up laws that give those same powerful people even more power and we will say it is for the poor old artist who will still not paid.

In the end, once artists start looking for sales of their recorded music they start to become entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur is an individual who organizes and operates a business, taking on the financial risk to do so. As an entrepreneur you have to offer something which somebody else wants to buy. If you want to make money you need to provide something of value that somebody else wants to pay for. I want to show the difference between the mentality of the majority of artists and a software developer.

John Saddington is a software developer from the U.S. He loves to snap photos of his life. As a WordPress blogger, Saddington grew restless with the services available for uploading images to his blog and the lack of ownership he had over them. So what did Saddington do? He decided to build his own iOS app. Read the full story here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/toyota/2013/08/19/entrepreneur-develops-new-way-to-share-images-online/

Saddington started doing it part time, then went on a Kickstarter campaign, got backers/funding and has now spent all his time working on the app. By July 2013 it was in testing. He wants to monetize the app, however he wants to avoid advertising and purchases inside the application. Saddington is also looking for venture backers, however many are waiting to see whether the app gains traction after its August launch in 2014.

The last part of the story is a great piece of advice for any artist starting out:

“In the end I may be called a simple-minded fool, a perennial idealist that believes in a simple rule that seems to work quite well: If you reward and treat your users with respect and create exceptional value for them that they will return that in spades,” Saddington said. “The challenge is finding a way to extract that tangible value without offense. That’s the entrepreneur’s challenge, that’s their mission, that’s the goal. It’s a noble one, at the very least.”

The reason why I am highlighting the above example is to show artists the amount of work that has gone into this iOS application and there is no guarantee that it will make any money apart from the $56K it got from KickStarter. However a lot of misguided musicians and record label executives believe that just because they spent their time and money writing and creating a song they need to be paid, over and over and over again for it.

Musicians can’t be immune to reality. If they want to stay in the game, they need to innovate on the rules that came before. NOT FOLLOW THEM. Innovate on them. Great artists innovate. Entrepreneurs innovate. Entrepreneurs take what has come before them and create something new. Hell, that is the Steve Jobs model.

Singing generic songs about relationships and heartbreak over and over again is death. How many times is David Coverdale from Whitesnake going to search for love or ask for love to be given or to be in love? Is there any motivation to create something different.

Knowing how to play and writing a song is not enough these days. The public needs a point of view, something of substance. Musicians need something to say. This is getting harder in an era where people are concerned more about stardom. Just because music saves your soul and rocks your world it doesn’t mean that the rest of the population is interested.

Dream Theater recently had a listening party in New York. In the show bags given out, the attendees got a CD. Those CD’s had the attendees name on it. It also had a certain form of DRM. The only way to play the CD was via a good old fashioned stereo. If the disc was put into a computer CD tray it wouldn’t play. You can say that this is a way to control any leaks of the album.

So let’s just say that if I put the CD through the stereo and plugged the stereo output into the computer. I think I would be able to record the music on my hard drive. I also believe that it would be decent quality.

Or let’s just say that if I put the CD through the stereo, cranked it, had the microphone out and recorded the album into the computer. I think I would have a pretty decent recording on my hard drive as well.

So what Roadrunner Records would have done is given some company a lot of money for this form of DRM and charged it back to the band. To be honest it can be easily circumvented if people WANTED to do it.

Piracy is hard to be stopped however it can be competed against. Piracy is a service issue. Pure and simple.

Read this story from the Economist. http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21583688-internet-really-so-different-phonograph-pennies-streaming-heaven

The internet is just another disruptive service to the entertainment industries; you know like the time that the VCR was going to destroy Hollywood. Instead the VCR opened up a whole new ownership and rental income stream for Hollywood. Or when Cassette tapes came out and home taping was said to be killing the music industry. With all new technologies, the entertainment power brokers try to destroy it at first. When they release that they are going to fail, it then becomes part of the new market. In 2012, recorded music had its first year of small growth.

Music-streaming services will reduce piracy. The free option is already there for Desktop users. It is ad supported. The next step is to move this free option to smart phones as that is where the market and subscriber base resides. Otherwise, you will lose the customers to YouTube, which is unlicensed.

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

The Master Manipulator

Lady GaGa is the master at manipulating the mainstream media and the public. She is that good at what she does that everyone is blind to it. I am not a fan of Lady GaGa nor do I have any interest in her music or what she will be releasing. The reason why I am even commenting on her is that she is so good at self-marketing, her recent anti-piracy dummy spit went viral and entered the topic circles that I am interested in.

Let’s recap. Lady Gaga will release her new album ‘ARTPOP’ in November.

Just last week she was in the news for appearing nude in a bizarre video to fund a campaign for Marina Abramovic and some weird art meditation retreat. Of course, all those news articles mentioned the release of her new album ARTPOP. How convenient that this video happened so close to her single release date?

This is Perfect Marketing 1.0 and she didn’t even spend a cent. Her appearance in her birthday suit went viral. The story of the ARTPOP album also went viral along with the news that a new single called ‘Applause’ will be released towards the end of August.

So over the weekend (August 10 and 11), several snippets of the songs are leaked onto the Internet. At first no one really cared. Leaks of songs these days is not even news. So what does Lady GaGa do? She goes to her Twitter account that has almost 40 million followers. She tells her fans she is not impressed at the leak of the snippets. So what do some of her fans do; they launch their very own anti-piracy campaign. Gaga then re-tweeted the campaign on Twitter and then it really gained traction. The snippets went viral. How convenient for Lady GaGa?

Fast forward to today (August 12) and Lady Gaga has released “Applause,” in its entirety a week earlier than planned. Her Twitter account said the following; “DUE TO HACKERS AN ABUNDANCE OF LOW/HIGH QUALITY LEAKS…WE ISSUE THIS POP MUSIC EMERGENCY…MONSTERS SPREAD THE WORD,”

Kudos to Lady Gaga. She played her part in this mainstream media exercise to a tee. Her manipulation of the situation is one that all artists can learn from. This was the plan from the beginning. Watch the track go straight to number one and get ready for further media manipulation marketing strategies as the album date approaches. Lady GaGa is the master.

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

What can artists learn from The Pirate Bay?

As most tech savvy people are aware, The Pirate Bay turned 10 years old a few days ago. In all of this, the Pirate Bay has stood strong against the pressure put on it by the MPAA and the RIAA and their sister organisations throughout the world. Much larger organisations have tried to stand up against these bodies and have failed. The fact that the Pirate Bay is still alive is something to respect.

So what can artists learn from The Pirate Bay?

The Pirate Bay spread via word of mouth. It didn’t embark on a scorched earth marketing policy. For an artist there is no better marketing strategy than word of mouth. That is how virality works.

Metallica – built their fan base via word of mouth on the strength of their album releases and live shows. It wasn’t until 1992 that Metallica decided to form a fan club.

Heartist – built their fan base all on line via fan to fan connections. This was all done without even playing a show. It was a total online strategy.

Volbeat – built their fan base via the strength of their material. A song that they released back in 2008 got traction in 2012, which in turn started to bring attention to their 2011 album release. Success comes later in today’s world. In some cases much later.

Galactic Cowboys – Back in the late eighties, Geffen Records signed a band called Galactic Cowboys. I have three of their albums that I picked up in the bargain basement bin. Geffen just kept on pushing the band onto the public with a pretty high profile marketing campaign, however the public just didn’t take to them.

Mutiny Within – I remember the Roadrunner marketing campaign for the band Mutiny Within. The campaign had the band linked to Killswitch Engage and Dream Theater. Instantly this is putting a pre-conceived ideal into the mind of the listener and in my opinion, didn’t do the band any favours. One of the flyers that I saw, had phrasing like “Mutiny Within is the twisted child of Killswitch Engage and Dream Theater.” The public decided that the band was not worthy of that title and the band was dropped from their label deal.

Artists (especially major artists) should seriously consider using The Pirate Bay to market the release of their next batch of songs. There is still a demand for free mp3’s. At the moment iTunes cannot service that demand as the iTunes platform needs to be paid. So what options do the artists have to provide their fan base with free mp3’s.
1. Use their own website and collect geographical information and email addresses. Get to know their fans and survey their fans.

2. Team up with Bit Torrent

3. Team up with The Pirate Bay

4. Team up with a crowd funding platform, where the perks involve t-shirts and so forth, with a free Digital Download of said music.
The Game Of Thrones creators have recently said that the piracy of the show has contributed to the cultural buzz of the show and that it is better than winning an Emmy. The creators have also said that they have seen a high increase in DVD sales. I always bring people’s attention back to the Southern and Central Americas’. Sales of recorded music is not high in countries that fall in the Southern and Central America zones, however bands have had great success in touring these areas.

The recent IFPI report shows Brazil as a market set to surge. Go to http://www.ifpi.org/content One of the comments on the report is a WTF moment. It’s on page 24 and it states the following;
“The launch of iTunes showed that Brazilians are prepared to pay for music. We thought consumers were so used to piracy that they would never buy music again. But this has been proved wrong. Moreover, a new generation of consumers can now have their first music experiences in the legal environment.”

To put the above comment into perspective, iTunes was launched in Brazil at the end of 2011. Seriously this is a terrible business model from the record labels. While they screamed piracy in Brazil and then had a real draconian Copyright law passed that can take down sites on the say so of the entertainment groups, the actual consumers, the music fans, could not download a legal mp3 in the country. Instead of trying to get licensing arrangements in place to launch iTunes earlier in Brazil, the Record Labels spent millions fighting piracy in the courts. Instead of trying to get licensing arrangements in place to launch iTunes earlier in Brazil, the Record Labels spent millions lobbying politicians to vote for SOPA and PIPA.

The Pirate Bay is easy to use. It has an ecosystem built around Trusted and VIP uploaders to Helpers and Moderators that delete hundreds of ‘spam’ accounts and fake uploads every day which in turn keeps the site running smoothly and its users happy. This ensures that the content is exactly what it is described to be. The ranking system of uploaders (which is a skull in different colours like the Karate belt system) allows any novice downloader to form a bond with a certain uploader.

As an artist, you need to have a unique reference point, something that is easy to find. Having a generic band name is not a unique reference point. If you Google names like Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue or Metallica you know you get back searches that are related to the band name you Google’d. Google a band name like Today I Caught The Plague or Burnside. Then Google the same names with the term band attached to it. Any artist starting off needs to make it is easy as possible for people to find them online.

There is always room for improvement. The Pirate Bay keeps on evolving as technology evolves. Now it is simply an indexing site, that services the needs of its users, the same way Google service the needs of its users. It is always re-creating itself with the rise of new technologies.

All artists need to be doing the same thing. The web presence of any artist needs to be maintained, updated and recreated. It needs to adopt to changing technologies, to offer as many features as it can to its fans.

Why do so many Dream Theater, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Motley Crue or Five Finger Death Punch fans spend so much time on Forums that have no connection to the main web site of the band. Bands should be fostering these kinds of interactions on their main website. They should even be contributing to it, the same way they contribute to their Facebook and Twitter accounts. At least you know on the band forums, the real fans are there to interact and respond.

The Pirate Bay’s user base is growing because the users are prepared to share and people are prepared to download. This alone should inform the legacy gatekeepers that the fans of music are no longer sheep. The Pirate Bay showed the RIAA and the MPAA that their rules and prices suck and that service is a problem (remember iTunes launched in Brazil in 2011). The old model of basing success on record sales is gone. The old model of going to the record store and planning what albums you were going to buy in the months to come is over.

Artists need to service their fans. Make it hard for a fan to get your music, and they will go elsewhere. Trivium is a great example. They recently had a very complex (also brilliant) smart phone strategy that once you completed all the steps needed, the fan got to hear a sample of a new song. I can tell you that as a fan engagement tool, this attempt failed miserably. It was too hard for fans. So what do Trivium do next. They offer the full song for streaming via their website and as a free download. Now it is easy as hell. To paraphrase the Eagles, keep it easy…

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

Where are the new Classic Rock heroes?

The main classic rock bands were all about individuality. The Eagles, Boston, Styx, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Rush, Bad Company, Foreigner, Aerosmith and Cheap Trick all had a unique sound. 

The Eighties gave us Metallica, Motley Crue, Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, U2, Duran Duran, AC/DC, Journey, Whitesnake, Van Halen (and yes i know that some of these bands formed in the seventies), Aerosmith again and Foreigner.

Look at the list, Metallica played fast speed metal that was labelled thrash, Motley Crue played a hybrid version of pop, punk, rock and metal. Van Halen wrote the book on the nuclear band, Guns N Roses rewrote the seventies classic rock period with a dash of punk and Def Leppard merged Queen, with Bowie with Mott The Hoople with their NWOBM leanings into a pop rock format. Each band spawned thousands of imitators.

Today, all the young bands want to be a member of the same club. Metalcore is one club that is completing suicide on itself. Each year, thousands of bands come out that sound the same as the original bands that came before it.

Modern Rock is another genre that is suffering from over saturation. Where is the uniqueness. The reason why Imagine Dragons are at the top of the food chain is that they had that uniqueness that separated them from the pack.

What is the difference between Pop Evil, Young Guns, You Me At Six, The New Black, The Maine, Tango Down, Smile Empty Soul, Red Line Chemistry, Redlight King, Pillar, Plan Three, Projected, Nonpoint, Three Doors Down, My Darkest Days, Rev Theory, Three Days Grace, Eye Empire, Egypt Central, Emphatic and so on? Absolutely nothing is the answer.

All the young uns want is to be a member of the club however individuality is the key to creating everlasting art. Don’t shun your individuality. Dream Theater stayed true to themselves at a time when grunge, industrial and nu metal ruled the mainstream. Tool came through on their terms and in the words of Frank Sinatra, they did it their way.

Today’s world has everybody Tweeting and Facebooking just to be liked. Where is the edge of the Classic Rock era?

Dave Mustaine and Ted Nugent have an opinion and everyone has a knee-jerk reaction to it.

Rolling Stone is coping a lot of flak for their cover of the Boston Bomber. What did the outburst of David Draiman or Nikki Sixx or any other celebrity that wanted to join the anti-Rolling Stone club do to change the matter? Nothing.

If anything they brought more attention to the Rolling Stone article. It’s the Streisand Effect all over again. However at least they are going out there and stating an opinion. Did anyone come out and say that the Rolling Stone cover was cool?

Magazines like artists live in the culture of being paid right now. Do the people that work for Rolling Stone magazine care if the magazine is still around in 12 months’ time? Of course not. They will dust themselves off and get another job.

Everybody’s got their own agenda. When I read a tweet or a post from a celebrity, I evaluate where they are coming from as opposed to accepting it as truth. Has anyone seen a news story that says piracy doesn’t hurt sales?

A lot of research has come out from various Universities that support this argument. Instead we get the RIAA/MPAA piracy stats banded about on major television, with no information as to where those numbers come from. Why? The major televisions are owned by the giant copyright monopoly organisations.

Another important distinction from today’s artists and the Classic Rock era artists is that no one can say no to the money. Rush could have recorded a mainstream radio friendly album in 1976 just to please the record label. Instead they recorded 2112, an album that set up a very lucrative future for Rush and an album that made the record label very nervous when they heard it. As guitarist Alex Lifeson has stated in numerous interviews, 2112 set up a career for Rush.

Egypt Central wanted to be a member of the Modern Rock club and have disbanded. Three Days Grace were a member of the Modern Rock club and lost their vocalist with the parting words that the recording industry just want hits and push artists to write songs in that vein. My Darkest Days and Rev Theory are all modern rockers and they have lost their lead guitarists, which are normally significant songwriters.

Remember, individuality is the key. How good is Machine Head, since they broke away from following the trends that the label used to push on them. Since 2003, they have gone from strength to strength. 

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

Record Label Innovation – Kill Music Service to Protect Old Business Models

What are the Record Labels worth without the talent? ZERO!

So what do the Record Labels do to their talent?

They treat them to a world of creative accounting.

They treat them to a world where they spend monies on DMCA takedowns and litigation to protect the old income streams, instead of nurturing new income streams for their talent. Throughout life, people are always looking for something new, however the recording industry believe in selling the same old thing in music. When something different comes out like Mumford & Sons, Adele, PSY and Imagine Dragons it triumphs in unforseen ways.

The whole approach of the Record Labels and the RIAA has been if they can’t control a business, their next best option is to kill the business off. Napster showed the music business what the fans wanted, however they killed it off and to this day, not one legal service has risen to offer what Napster offered, which was Community and Convenience.

There is a song called Red City on the new Stone Sour release, House Of Gold and Bones II. In the story line, our hero is in the clutches of the bad guys and the song Red City marks the beginning of the end for the main character. If the Entertainment Industries and their stooges get their way, it is the beginning of the end for the Internet and the opportunities it gives to creators.

Sort of like the lyrics in the new Black Sabbath song, End of The Beginning that states “rewind the future to the past”. That is what the Entertainment industries want. The past to return. That is the future they want.

Look at the recent behaviour of the one they call Prince. Even the Electronic Frontiers Foundation has inducted Prince into its “Takedown Hall of Shame”. To sum up, Prince has issued DMCA takedowns on six second clips of a Prince concert, on fan recorded concert videos of him covering Creep from Radiohead (which by the way he doesn’t even own the rights to the song), threatening to sue people for thinking of doing a tribute album to him and a takedown of YouTube video of a toddler dancing to a Prince song (which is in the Courts at the moment).

The reason why I am mentioning Prince is to show people what a misguided artist he has become. The labels send millions of DMCA takedowns each day and in a lot of cases they censor free speech under a copyright claim. They have even taken down their own websites. Universal Music Group even took down Black Sabbath’s God Is Dead YouTube stream from the Black Sabbath YouTube page.

When is the Recording industry and people like Prince going to stop complaining? When are they going to stop lamenting the passage of the good old days? When are they going to stop blaming the technologists and the fans for ruining their business models. There is a reason why Indie labels have claimed a large slice of music sales this year than the three majors. It’s because they are working on the outside, digging deep and finding those real stars, the real golden nuggets.

Music used to be cutting edge and it used to drive the conversation and the culture. These days music is just another consumable, ready to be consumed like milk. Musicians like Prince, Jon Bon Jovi, Jay Z and so forth are trying to get in bed with the Fortune 500. Where is it written that musicians must be rich? You create quality that resonates and connects, then you will be a star.

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

Quality Equals Success and Those Doomsday Scenarios From Misguided Artist

Remember a time when people used to fear Doomsday. Back then Doomsday was the end of the world through some act of nature or nuclear warfare. These days Doomsday has gone all up market.

Doomsday now has a three piece suit and it is a trader on Wall Street. Each week, there is a new poll that states, “Doomsday; 98% risk of 2014 stock market crash”. “Doomsday; Critical Warning as 2013 shocker looms”. This is how far we are gone as a race. Our whole doomsday scenarios now revolve around the loss of money. Our priorities revolve around wealth and the accumulation of it.

I remember back in June 2011, Chris Clancy the vocalist of Mutiny Within, posted on his Facebook page (which was then removed) about the labels not making any money from music sales, so they take from the band’s income and after four years of working almost every day, he had only earned $100 in all of that time. There was also a rant about illegal downloads and how the band was dropped from Roadrunner because they sold less than 10,000 legal sales in the US and that their album had been illegally downloaded more than 60,000 times. It is that same argument you get from ignorant musicians, that their music is stolen because the label didn’t make any money of it.

So what does Doomsday and Chris Clancy from Mutiny Within have in common. Clancy’s priorities revolve around wealth and the accumulation of it. So when he got signed by Roadrunner, he must have thought he made it. The cold hard reality is, if he wanted to be paid millions, he should have gotten into banking. Even then, not all the people that get into banking get to make millions. That is life. Some win, some lose, others just do enough to get by. Making money is not the be all and end all.

Quality = Success

I listened to both albums that Mutiny Within did, the one under the Roadrunner umbrella, and the second one, under their own umbrella. In my view, Heartist and Mutiny Within sound very similar. So why does one band have more traction than the other.

THE BUZZ

Heartist took as much time as they could to build up an online buzz for themselves before they played any shows. So Heartist end up playing their first show and Roadrunner was there along with a few other labels. Mutiny Within didn’t build up an online buzz. They did it the old way, by building up a local scene buzz, which then got the label interested. Heartist went cyber world-wide with their buzz. They did it the new way, connecting with fans and letting the fans spread the word. That is why Heartist are touring everywhere and Mutiny Within are not. That is why the Heartist EP has sold a lot of copies, even while it is still downloaded illegally. Mutiny Within when they got signed only had a buzz in their local market.

DO IT YOURSELF

Heartist did it themselves. They kept on writing and creating, on their own time schedules and own budgets. The first Mutiny Within record was a Roadrunner financed record. Heartist was all DIY.

LETTING THE MUSIC TAKE SHAPE (without thinking it will sell)

All artists and songwriters come from a variety of music backgrounds. If you write and allow those backgrounds to come to the fore, each song will end up being different and unique. Don’t stick to one song formula, just because it could generate a hit. Remember the real hits, the songs that last forever are the outliers, the rule breakers, the game changers.

Stop thinking about the RECORDING INDUSTRY and start thinking about the music

Here is a DOOMSDAY scenario for you: The record industry started to collapse when it lawyered up and went to war against technology, beginning with Napster.

So why are artists still playing to the rules set by the recording industry.

In Sweden, Spotify is the king and the queen. Digital sales (downloads and streaming) accounts for 80 percent of music revenue in the territory and remember Sweden is the original home of The Pirate Bay.

Remember quality equals success.

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Music, Piracy, Stupidity

Alice In Chains

Techdirt story

Why, Jerry, why?  I like it when artists speak their minds.  Once upon a time, the fans listened to every word and never questioned the words of their idols.  These days, it is different.  Alice In Chain’s need to wake up and realise that it is a different game now.

“something you’ve worked on and poured your soul into, and invested your money in, somehow it’s no longer deemed valuable. That’s fucked up, to me. “

No Jerry, it is valuable to the people who find it valuable.  Just because you spent two to three years creating your art, doesn’t mean that people will find it valuable to pay you for it.  The ones that want to pay, will pay.  They will also come to your shows, buy your merchandise and spend money on meet and greets.

The ones that don’t want to pay, will never have paid to begin with, even in the glory days of record label control.

To be honest, I heard the Alice In Chains comeback album and I didn’t like it.  They should have called the band something different.  So to be honest, I have no real interest in the upcoming album.  According to Jerry, I should care because he spent time pouring his soul into the new album.  Sorry guys, there is just too much competition these days for listeners attention these days.

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