Tag Archives: streaming

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

Just Some Thoughts on Copyright, YouTube and Rock Music

Nikki Sixx and many others want Google to pay more for each YouTube stream so they could bring their payment rates up to the same standard of other streaming providers.

You notice how the people who are now speaking out against YouTube, are the ones who control the rights to their music. It’s because they know exactly what payments they are getting compared to other streaming services. The rest of the artists are clueless and at the whim of the record label creative accounting machine.

In case you were not aware, both Motley Crue and Metallica own their copyrights. Peter Mensch on behalf of Metallica spoke out about YouTube and called it the devil. Nikki Sixx is now calling out YouTube on payment rates.

Anthrax on the other hand are clueless. They kept their new album off Spotify for a few weeks, but it was all over YouTube via fan uploads. As a band, you cannot control what your fans do with your music and how they choose to share it but what you can control is how you release it. Anthrax can’t have the release cycle the way they want it to be (pre-Napster), much the same way any business that has customers, can’t run their business the way they did back in the past. Look at Apple as a perfect example of a business trying to operate like it did when Steve Jobs was alive, while Amazon, Facebook and Google have moved on and surpassed Apple as a leader.

Because the customers are king and they decide what is of value and what isn’t.

Imagine Prince’s post death stats if his music was actually available to be streamed on Spotify. In case you were not aware, every news outlet reported how his sales increased post death. It’s fantastic that his sales have gone through the roof again, as it will benefit his current management team/label. Not him.

And trust me when I say this, the people that will end up controlling Prince’s music will orchestrate a rich licensing deal for his music to be on streaming services. Because it’s all about the greed. Then the lawsuits would come against any artist who has a song that might feel and sound like a Prince song.

If people want to respect Copyright again, then all of Prince’s songs and his catalog of unreleased songs should be part of the Public Domain.

So which way do artists want.

Do they want strong Copyright enforcement forever and a day which leads to censorship and Corporate monopolies and billions of dollars in the hands of executives who created no art and fly in their own private jets, while the actual artists are paid pennies and fly economy?

Do they want the Tidal exclusives and making copyright infringement/piracy relevant again in the process?

Do they want their fans to purchase their music only, have big first week sales and to make copyright infringement/piracy relevant again in the process?

Do they want to make it as easy as possible for fans to access their music forever in any format the fan desires and as easily as possible?

Because in music there is a lot of value in recorded music, regardless if it’s streaming or mp3 purchases or actual vinyl/CD sales.

If you want to look at the value of recorded music and how you can make money when legal alternatives are better than the pirated alternatives, look no further than China. As a music market based on recorded sales, China, had no transactional recorded music business. Piracy was huge. However it is now bringing in some serious dollars. The difference here is that the record labels have built partnerships with the techies and ISP’s, instead of litigating them to death in the courts with stupid troll like suits and take down notices.

They tried a paid model in 2012, it failed. They tried again and again, until they got it exactly right for the CUSTOMER to buy in. Now digital music revenues in China brings in millions of dollars which were not there before at all. This is a good thing, but again, how much of it is going back to the actual artists.

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

All Things Music And Metal

The RIAA record label industry body a few weeks made an announcement about how are losing billions of dollars because of streaming and that Vinyl sales generate more revenue. The announcement then led to headlines across all of the news outlets.

The New York Post had the headline “Artists make more off vinyl sales than streaming services”.

Billboard had the headline “Vinyl Sales Made More Than YouTube, Spotify and Soundcloud Ads Combined”.

The Australian Financial Review had the headline “Some artists blame music streamers for shrinking the business”.

Fortune magazine had the headline “Record Industry Continues its War on Free Music”.

Mashable had the headline “Music streaming is getting bigger and bigger, but artist revenue isn’t keeping up”.

It’s safe to say that the RIAA got what they wanted with their report.

“This is why we, and so many of our music community brethren, feel that some technology giants have been enriching themselves at the expense of the people who actually create the music.”
Cary Sherman, Chairman & CEO of the RIAA.

“Last year, 17 million vinyl albums, a legacy format enjoying a bit of a resurgence, generated more revenues than billions and billions of on-demand free streams: $416 million compared to $385 million for on-demand free streams.”
Cary Sherman, Chairman & CEO of the RIAA.

 

This is the RIAA being as dishonest as you can get.

They are basically comparing gross retail vinyl sales against the net streaming revenue amount earned. In truth the net vinyl revenue is a lot lower than the gross $416 million quoted. And the $385 streaming revenue was $0 before 2011 due to copyright infringement/piracy.

As an article at Fortune.com states;

“Sherman is saying that because ad-supported services—or in fact, any alternative music-distribution method—don’t pay as much as some other music services, they must be flawed and/or stealing from musicians and record labels. In other words, the music industry’s largest negotiating body assumes that any new distribution method or infrastructure for delivering music to consumers must by default generate as much revenue as the industry used to get from records or CDs. And if it doesn’t, that means there is a structural error in the business that the RIAA needs to fix.”

And streaming companies like Spotify have a battle being profitable.

Remember that the streaming services pay the record labels a licence fee to have the music the record labels hold copyrights too on the service. These monies are never passed onto the artist. Hell, Spotify doesn’t even have long-term license contracts with Universal and Warner Music. These labels are cashing in on licensing deals on a month to month basis.

Then based on listens, the streaming services pay 70% of their streaming revenue to the record labels and publishers and based on the contracts the artists and songwriters have with their labels/publisher, these monies are paid back to the creators in cents. Meanwhile, the record labels are rolling in billions of dollars from streaming.

Maybe that’s why Spotify needed to get a billion dollars from investors.

The money will be needed for further expansions, acquisitions of tech companies and other investments. In my opinion, for Spotify to survive long-term they need to get into the record label business themselves sort of like how Netflix is creating its own content and using that content to sell their service. That is why HBO went from licensing movies from the studios (which wasn’t profitable) to creating their own content. And now look at the company.

There is no way around it for Spotify. They are under increasing pressure to remove their free tier and the latest research from the RIAA (mentioned above) is being used as evidence to build a case against ad-supported free music.

And poor old Google is always the punching bag when it comes to the RIAA.

If Google isn’t taking flak for not censoring the internet based on what the RIAA or the MPAA see as wrong, then their YouTube service is attacked for not paying enough.

So what we have is a coalition of artists and music groups asking for the lawmakers to write new laws to support their business models. Just think of it as another Lars Ulrich/RIAA vs Napster battle. And how did that turn out.

As the article at Techtimes states every law is open to abuse and while the DMCA was never intended for censorship, it is being used exactly as that:

“Over the past few years, however, the DMCA has been a cause of controversy. On one end, holders of rights to content are saying that the law does not do enough to protect content creators, while on the other end, there are warnings of abuse and censorship if the law is further tightened.”

And speaking of Lars Ulrich, in case you have lived under a rock, “Master of Puppets” from Metallica has been added to the National Recording Registry in the US as a cultural, artistic or historical significant recording.

Basically anyone can nominate a recording to be considered via sending an email to recregistry@loc.gov.

Once the nomination is sent, the lobbying starts.

Don’t get me wrong, “Master of Puppets” is a great album (although I do prefer “Ride The Lightning”), but is it really a defining cultural, artistic or historical significant recording. Although Metallica is seen as leaders of the thrash metal movement, the truth of the matter is that the movement is much bigger than one band.

I would even say that the “Metal Massacre” compilation that featured Metallica (spelt incorrectly as Mettallica mind you) is more culturally significant than “Master of Puppets”. But hey, Brian Slagel, founder of Metal Blade Records, is nowhere near as important as the biggest band. Because all history is written by the winners, the ones that have the most money.

And for Metallica albums, you cannot escape the “Black” album.

That one album killed off glam rock/metal, introduced a new heaviness to the mainstream that opened the door for bands like Korn, NIN, Disturbed, Godsmack and many others to exploit in the Nineties to great success.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Where Should An Artist Be?

Megadeth’s “Dystopia” has 1,529,342 streams on Spotify. On YouTube, the audio clip has 1 million views and the video clip has 722K.

“Symphony Of Destruction” has 14,728,297 streams on Spotify. On YouTube there are a few fan created uploads that have around 4 million views, proving, once again, that fan uploads are good for the artist. They get paid from these videos as well. And the cumulative number on YouTube is close to the streams on Spotify, but it’s fragmented and quality varies.

“Hate By Design” from Killswitch Engage has 1,375,919 streams on Spotify. On YouTube 1,386,177 views.

Meanwhile, “My Curse” uploaded back in November 2006 has 14,730,324 views on YouTube and on Spotify it has 21,940,706 streams. Remember that Spotify launched in the US in July 2011 and it was first launched in September 2008. So on a service that has been operating for a shorter period and even shorter in the main US music market, it has racked up more streams.

This is telling me that once the promotion marketing run of a new song for Killswitch is over, the fans of the band gravitate to Spotify to consume their catalogue.

Now let’s go to Dream Theater’s “The Gift Of Music”. It’s got 938,792 streams on Spotify. On YouTube, the Official Video clip has 595,906 views and the Official Audio clip has 1,249,834 views.

However, an older song like “Pull Me Under” has 5,543,276 streams on Spotify and on YouTube, the official video has 4,193,933 views, the “Live At Luna Park” has 2,449,343 views and a fan upload has 1,591,017 views.

Dream Theater is a band with a small but highly profitable hard-core fan base that purchase the music of the band in CD, Vinyl or MP3 format. So the streaming stats of Dream Theater would always be lower than others because of that ownership perspective.

Bullet For My Valentine new single, “You Want A Battle” has 8,698,284 streams on Spotify and an older song like “Your Betrayel” has 21,322,709 streams on Spotify.

Meanwhile on YouTube, “You Want A Battle” has 4,166,841 views on the VEVO video clip and 1,009,159 views on the VEVO audio clip. “Your Betrayal” on the other hand has 30,619,555 views on the VEVO video clip.

Trivium’s new single “Until The World Goes Cold” has 5,249,262 streams on Spotify and the title track of the album has 3,055,965 streams. Meanwhile on YouTube, “Until The World Goes Cold” has 4,311,064 views on the VEVO video clip and “Silence In The Snow: has 3,533,303 views on the VEVO video clip.

Five Finger Death Punch’s new single “Wash It All Away” has 8,796,100 streams on Spotify. The lead off single from the new album “Jekyll and Hyde” has 19,147,912 streams and an older song like “Far From Home” has 24,575,975 streams.

Meanwhile on YouTube, “Wash It All Away” has 10,711,212 views on the VEVO video, “Jekyll and Hyde” has 17,718,384 views on the VEVO video and “Far From Home” doesn’t even rate a mention apart from some fan uploaded clips.

It just goes to show the artist and their label how the fans can take a song and make it as big as a single. All by listening.

One track that is killing it on YouTube is the clip to “The Wrong Side Of Heaven” which has 66,552,910 views.

Shinedown’s “Cut The Cord” has 9,251,338 streams on Spotify and their big hit “Second Chance” has 32,160,803 streams. Meanwhile on YouTube, “Second Chance” has 12,967,621 views on the video clip and “Cut The Cord” has 13,346,588 views.

So…

For an artist, you have no idea how your fans like to listen to music. You might want them to purchase a CD, but the truth is, each fan is different and you need to cater for it. The beauty of Spotify and YouTube is that songs that are not singles become as big as singles based on the listening patterns of the fans. Artists should take note of what the fans like.

And metal and rock fans are still loyal enough to purchase music when they like it but the days of purchasing blindly are over. I’ve streamed the new Killswitch Engage album to death. Eventually I will purchase it to add to my collection. but there is a higher chance that I would purchase a concert ticket first before I purchase the album. That’s just the way it is.

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Music, My Stories

Yesterday and Today

YESTERDAY
We waited in line to get the newest record or we had to get the record store clerk to order an album in.

TODAY
We go to the Internet, iTunes, Spotify, The Pirate Bay, Amazon, etc.

YESTERDAY
We saved our cash and had to make decisions as to what album we purchased based on the funds available. We tried to maximise our purchases.

TODAY
We go to the Internet, Pandora, Spotify, The Pirate Bay, YouTube and have the history of music at our fingertips.

YESTERDAY
The labels believed that people would always want to buy a CD.

TODAY
CD sales are going down as the medium becomes another niche collector’s item for the hard-core fans.

YESTERDAY
We couldn’t live without music.

TODAY
We still can’t live without music.

YESTERDAY
The record labels would “Support” an artist by giving them a big advance, which the artist could never pay back due to some creative accounting from the record label. Thirty Seconds To Mars sold 3 million albums of “A Beautiful Lie” and they still had a debt of about $1 million to the label. Creative accounting I say.

TODAY
The large record labels gives out a small advance and somehow the artist still can’t repay it back due to creative accounting. The smaller record labels tell you to record your album on your OWN budget and then if they like it, they will give you a small advance to license your copyright of the album to them. If it sticks and crosses over, call the lawyers to re-negotiate otherwise, if the band doesn’t experience “success” like the bands of the MTV era, they will break up and by default, the copyrights remain with the label, which they will then use as a bargaining chip.

YESTERDAY
Music came first, money was a by-product. It was never a focus.

TODAY
It’s all about entitlement and being paid. Just because someone wrote a song and released it, it doesn’t meant they deserve the right to make money from it.

YESTERDAY
We shared our record collection with our friends.

TODAY
We share our listening habits and likes online with strangers

YESTERDAY
We lived as a pack, getting together socially, going to the Club to hear live music and building culture as we went along.

TODAY
We build a monument to ourselves on social media and get together via LIKES.

YESTERDAY
No one told us how great they are.

TODAY
Everyone is promoting themselves and telling everyone who doesn’t care how great they are.

YESTERDAY
Youngsters grew up wanting to make music to satisfy a need to create.

TODAY
Youngsters grow up thinking music is about money.

YESTERDAY
Bon Jovi was a band and the creative element behind the music was Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.

TODAY
Bon Jovi is known as a solo act and Richie Sambora is being written out of Bon Jovi history. If you don’t believe me, check out all the news recently about a recent Billboard article that talks about “Livin On A Prayer” and the writers are mentioned as Jon Bon Jovi and Desmond Child. But from the interviews I have read, the embryo version of “Prayer” was written by Sambora.

YESTERDAY
There was no overnight success.

TODAY
There is no overnight success.

YESTERDAY
Rock and metal music was a consistent seller.

TODAY
Rock and metal music is still a consistent seller.

YESTERDAY
Artists borrowed from their influences, who borrowed from their influences, who borrowed from their influences and it was okay.

TODAY
Artists borrow from their influences and if they have a “hit”, they get sued for copyright infringement, plagiarism and whatever else the lawyers can think off.

YESTERDAY
RIAA spent a lot of money, taking pirate sites to court and winning default judgement’s but never really getting the cash from those judgement’s.

TODAY
RIAA is still spending a lot of money taking pirate sites to court, winning default judgement’s and then complaining that the three/six strikes policy (that they wanted the ISP’s to implement in the first place) is too expensive to administer.

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

The Past Is Done. The Future Is Here.

The Internet age.

Where everything is thrown against a wall and whatever sticks, ends up lasting forever.

In other words, first week sale numbers don’t mean a thing. The scorched earth publicity and marketing push by the label for an album release don’t mean a thing.

If any artist is focusing on the here and now, its contra to the way  the music business works in the connected Internet era. We’re (the fans) are only concerned with what lasts.

But the media tries to sell it so that everybody who is involved in music deserves to be rich from music. But how many are willing to do the work, especially when nobody’s paying attention to them.

Being in music isn’t about the highs or lows, winning and losing. It’s about surviving.

Here is a little secret.

The ones that end up winning in the future are creating their catalogues away from the radar, in stealth mode.

And it’s not easy.

Every musician is competing against the means of production. The costs to create content are low and we (the people) are overwhelmed.

What do we read, what do we watch and what do we listen to?

Everybody’s got a book to read, a documentary to watch, a track to listen to and no one’s got time to do it all. The last four years of my Guitar World subscription are still in the plastic wrappers the magazines came in.

Unopened. As a subscriber since 1986, I thought I would keep it going until this year is over. So January 2017 is my last issue.

The last time I read the magazine, it sounded like the article was written by the PR company instead of the actual journalist. There was no guts to the story and there was no in-depth analysis. Nothing at all. Gone are the days when Wolf Marshall used to go In Deep into players styles and so forth.

But the press over the last fifteen years believes it must promote everything and is rarely critical. And the press is missing the point how we are in the midst of a revolution, living in an era of chaos that will not last forever. But no one is reporting it. It’s all about piracy, copyright trolls, Spotify royalties or something so far removed from the real issue.

Fewer people will be successful from now on than before, despite everyone being able to create. We are going to have just superstars and niches.

And for all of those rock bands and metal bands, guess what, it’s still about the one song that hooks people in. But not all people. The entire world doesn’t live and breathe music. Remember that in your quest for global dominance.

And one last thing.

Spotify is not the problem, YouTube is. YouTube has more visitors and pays less. At least on Spotify you get the whole album along with the “song” that draws people in. Notice on YouTube it’s never the whole album. Yeah I know that some user accounts on YouTube have the whole album up but you need to look for them, go deep. So if you are in the album game, then you want your fans going to Spotify. But not a lot of artists are willing to say that.

But the album is fading. Yeah I know it makes great profits, but a 70 minute album with two good songs is a bad fit for today’s listeners. We don’t have time to listen to an album twenty times to get it. That’s what we did when we had no cash and could only afford one disc. But that was in the past. You don’t see the telegram and analog mobiles coming back.

The past is done. The future is here.

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

Change Is Slow But Evolving

In Australia, an unsigned band, charted very high, purely on digital sales and streams.

There was no marketing budget and they trumped artists on major deals.

And yes, they did move physical product, however the game is rigged by the big legacy players who set rules in place a long time ago to control the game. In turn, those rules meant that the online store of the unsigned band (which is Polaris by the way) that was selling the CD with no bar code meant that the physical sales couldn’t be tracked and therefore didn’t count towards their chart position. Talk about a technicality.

So what does this tell us?

  • There is so much more power in the hands of the fans than ever before.
  • If fans listen to their favourite artist via a streaming service, it all adds up.
  • If fans purchase their mp3’s via a digital service, it all adds up.
  • The media can publish reports about artists slamming streaming services. Meanwhile the fans move on to what is convenient. Some will purchase, some will download illegally, some will stream for free and some will stream on a premium subscription. The bottom line is fragmentation.
  • There is no difference between an EP and a full album anymore. As an artist you don’t want to be out of the market for too long, crafting this magnum opus, only to see it drop out of the conversation, weeks after its release. 10 songs every two years, doesn’t cut it anymore. Four songs every 3 months should be the new norm. All of the Classic Rock bands from Seventies, released an album each year and in some cases two albums.
  • There is a connection with their fans. The band distributed the album out of their bedrooms and sent out each pre-order with hand written messages to the fans.
  • If Polaris, keep this momentum going and if they keep on replenishing their fan base, the possibilities are endless.
  • There is no sure thing in music. Just because you have a label deal, it doesn’t mean you will make it. Just because you are an independent artist and unsigned it doesn’t mean you will get a deal or even get noticed.
  • Everyone involved in the recording industry are still clueless. The labels still have no idea what constitutes a hit or what they should sign and promote. No one saw Adele coming six years ago, or Five Finger Death Punch almost ten years ago. No one expected Mumford and Sons to move millions upon millions of product or Shinedown and Thirty Seconds To Mars to be consistent sellers.

See how the media is trumpeting Adele again and how she has sold 8 million albums in the U.S. Every news outlet is reporting.

Big deal.

Whitesnake sold 7 million plus on the U.S on their 1987 self-titled album. It doesn’t mean those same 7 million people are now listening to the album over and over and over again. Poison sold millions upon millions of albums between 1987 and 1994. It doesn’t mean they have millions upon millions of real fans. If they did, they would be playing arena’s and creating new music. Instead Poison is resigned to an opening act that plays the jukebox hits.

Some might say that the success of “Polaris” is a one-off. Back in August, another metalcore band from Australia called, “Northlane” actually topped the ARIA Album charts, beating out Lamb Of God among others. This band was signed to an independent label from Melbourne and Rise Records in the US.

But in saying that, how relevant are the charts these days.

In most cases, bands that chart in the Australia Top 10 have moved less than 10,000 in product.  It’s because the old guard still focuses on sales as the main metric of success and bands still like to report their chart position like it means something. Once upon a time it did, but not in 2016.

So again, it comes back to the same old question.

Are people listening to the music?

That is the metric that matters. Listens, not sales. I listened to Polaris on Spotify and I don’t mind them. For a metalcore band there is a lot of competition for people’s attention. In the same way the early Nineties had way too many hard/melodic rock bands, the two thousands and ten period is littered with a lot of metalcore bands. Eventually only a handful will survive the cull when it happens. It’s the way of the business.

Bon Jovi’s “What About Now” charted at Number 1.

Black Sabbath’s “13” also charted at Number 1.

And if I ask fans of the band to name me all of the songs on each album without referring to the album in the exact chronological order, they would struggle.

Hell, none of the songs are even in the Top 5 Popular List on their streaming accounts. Which is very different to Five Finger Death Punch’s account, which has three songs from their most recent album in the Top 5 Popular List.

And that is why Five Finger Death Punch still move product. They are constant on Active Rock Radio, their music is being listened too and as a by-product they keep on selling.

Change is slow but evolving.

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Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

2015 – Part IV: My Horns To The Sky

NUMBER 13:
Halestorm – Into The Wild Life
Adele might get all the press, but Lzzy Hale is the one that will outlast them all. This is a pretty solid album and each week it’s still selling units and it’s being streamed. Spotify tells me that 3 million unique listeners streamed 330 years worth of Halestorm music. As an artist, that is all you can ask for.

“All you doubters and haters, actors, and fakers, I don’t have time for you” ….. from “Scream”

The truth is; we do have time for the doubters, haters and fakers. Initially, their spite; upsets us. In time, we harden up and are able to shrug it off.

“’Cause I’m a sick individual and I’m doing this thing called whatever the fuck I want” ….. from “Sick Individual”

It’s a brilliant play on words.

“And just like old school Sabbath, Zeppelin, and Lemmy
I need to drop it down low and make it heavy” ….. from “I Like It Heavy”

“Since I was 13 years old, I’ve had my horns to the sky” ….. from “I Like It Heavy”

I dig the reference to Lemmy instead of Motorhead. His legend is bigger than that of his band.

NUMBER 14:
Europe – War Of Kings
Europe had massive success back in the 80’s. You could tell that while they had fun, they just weren’t comfortable being in a pop world. You could hear in their music that they wanted to explore more territory creatively. And they did just that with their reunion in 2004. Five albums later they are making more money now than what they did in the Eighties. They have their own company, own their music and license it to people who want to work with the band. They plan their tours and merchandise. They work really hard on social media.

Spotify tells me that 6 million listeners played 240 years worth of Europe music in 2015.

I’m a big fan of Europe’s return to mysticism in the lyrics and personal reflection. They have re-invented themselves. And for lovers of the seventies Euro Rock influences, then “War Of Kings” is the album. Dave Cobb who produced “Rival Sons” is on hand to produce.

“Hit” songs on this album are “Days Of Rock N Roll” (how good is that riff), “War Of Kings”, “Children Of The Mind” (what a groove), “Angels (With Broken Hearts) and “Rainbow Bridge” (for the exoticism groove).

“Somebody told me, it’s all the same now
Somebody told me, we’ve had our turn
Gotta believe that times still ours” ….. from “Days Of Rock ‘n’ Roll”

I remember reading interviews with Europe during the writing and recording of “Prisoners Of Paradise” and how the record company asked them for “hits”. Eventually the album comes out; in a marketplace that was changing and morphing into an anti-rock movement. You can just imagine the record heads then telling Europe, “your career is over, your style of music is finished and there is a new style replacing the old style”. Sort of like “Ten Thousand Fists” from Disturbed.

“Nothing can touch the living hope the human spirit owns” ….. from “Rainbow Bridge”
“We build our lives, hopefully the one that we choose” ….. from “Angels (With Broken Hearts) Lyrics”

A decision was forthcoming for one of my kids, that as a parent I had to make for him. The road he will be on next year is a decision that was made solely by me, as a parent. Based on the information at hand right now, it feels like the right decision. Years into the future, hindsight might prove otherwise. And that is life in a nutshell. Born into this world, the main decisions are made by our parents. They set a course for our lives and hopefully it is not too far detached from the life we want to live when we get older.

NUMBER 15:
Periphery – Alpha / Omega
I saw Periphery at a small pub in Sydney called the Annandale Hotel. Impressive was the fact that six of them fitted onto that tiny stage that my three piece band once upon a time couldn’t fit on. It was a sold out show and Periphery didn’t disappoint.

I must say that I am a fan of their songs when they have more clean tone and melodic vocals instead of the screaming/growling vocals. In saying that some of their songs like “Ragnarok” have a mixture of both and a song like that needs that style.

I have seen some websites call them the modern face of metal. Periphery is a band that is technical. Nowadays, the odds are stacked against most bands that deviate from the basic verse-chorus formula. In my view, bands like Periphery and TesseracT always need to innovate with each release. Their style is such that they can borrow/be influenced from any musical style, culture/genre and fans expect that innovation.

And they are a band that is from the people, being formed via forums, blogs and other social media websites. Fans of the band ended up in the band. And they are realistic in their goals. They know they will not be as big as Metallica. So they play to their core and their core sustains them.

Spotify tells me that Periphery have 694,000 listeners, who have streamed 130 years worth of Periphery music in 2015. But if you look at their sales record, it is anemic compared to their streams.

Which brings me to the double album; Alpha and Omega. A concept story, albeit a pretty scary one if you read the lyrics. Check it out.

“What’s yours, is ours for the taking
Take this bruise as a sign that we own you now and forevermore” ….. from “MK Ultra”

“It’s never greener inside the mess we’re in
Wanting what you never have
The less we are content the more we throw away what little time we have left to grow” ….. from “Alpha”

“Staring at the hourglass, my life it feels like a machine running with no direction” ….. from “22 Faces”

“Hold your breath
We’re sinking down for miles in an ocean full of mortal mistake, where the light is much clearer
Is it time to purge our lungs amongst the shipwreck?” ….. from “Rainbow Gravity”

“Now I am a product of a mind that wasn’t ever mine and now it says “Kill them slow”” ….. from “Psychosphere”

“Suffocating in a world of human filth
Yes pull me under
Stop treading in a pool of your own blood
Accept demise” ….. from “Graveless”

“Can we show the ones who are blind?
Show them that we’re not blind” ….. from “Omega”

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

How Long Until The Streaming Well Goes Dry?

“Musicians can go out and play to fill the gaping hole that the lack of record sales has created, but streaming has actually become the saving grace for record companies. But it really is to the point of such diminishing returns for musicians that I have no words to describe it. I would turn around and say, “Okay, let’s make this work,” but now I’m hearing that new contracts that are sent out from friends of mine who are lawyers, that record companies now want to pass on paying even streaming royalties because they consider streaming “promotion.” That is beyond a grey area.”
David Coverdale

Streaming and Spotify is the best thing to ever happen the music industry. It competed with piracy and more or less won the battle. It’s subscriber base is growing and people are moving from freemium to the pay model. Adele’s record label is withholding her album from streaming services, however Pandora is streaming it, because as it happens, Pandora is a radio station.

But it is a long game. As Coverdale alludes too, the record labels want to wither away the streaming money tree as well, claiming all of the licensing fees and royalty payments for themselves. All of those writers and musicians complaining about Spotify or another streaming service, need to complain about their labels and publishers.

Because the people who used to control music, have a short-term mindset. And it all comes down to money. Streaming service Rdio is gone, claiming bankruptcy. It didn’t have the user base to support the licensing fees it needed to pay. Pandora purchased it’s assets, however Pandora has its own problems with court cases (financed by the Record labels and the Publishers) around pre 72 recordings and royalty payments on those recordings and others. And it’s a battle for which service will win the streaming wars, as to the victor, 70% market share awaits them. Like how Facebook and Apple won the social media and phone wars.

The reason why the record labels are so powerful is because they have locked up culture and copyrights for a very long time. As I have posted before, “Smoke On The Water”, a song written in 1971, will still be under copyright once we enter the 2100’s. The writers/creators will have passed a long time before that, and there is a good chance that any heirs of theirs will also have moved on to the afterlife. But the main beneficiary in this copyright hijack, is the corporation.

So what we have in the music industry are Record Label Executives that contribute nothing to music, living it up, flying private, because they satisfy Wall Street and via their lobby group, the “RIAA”, fight to get laws approved to protect their business models.

“The old copyright model – the person who creates something owns it and anyone else that wants to use it or see it has to pay them – has expired in the same way that around the world you’re seeing structures and social norms [lapse] that were standard for many years. The old copyright model has expired. It can no longer exclusively control music.”
Steve Albini

The old copyright model only benefits the labels in this day and age, so it’s no surprise that they are fighting hard to get even longer copyright terms. It’s a monopoly they don’t want to lose, even at the expense of the public domain, because the public domain is how more works are generated.

The power to make change lies with the musicians.

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Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

Sixteen Years Since Napster

“A virus that ends up eating the host”Phil Collen’s description of illegal downloading – Def Leppard 

“I think the term ‘piracy’ is absurd. Piracy is people boarding a ship with violence and killing people and physically stealing material goods. Equating somebody downloading something on his iPhone with that is preposterous.” 

Steve Albini 

“I know that bands like Ratt, that sold millions of records back in the day and then put a new album out in this era, consider an album that sells 50,000 to 60,000 today a success. There’s just so many outlets out there these days to get free music by illegal downloading. I honestly don’t know how that gauge is these days, but I’m about to find out.”

Steve Whiteman – Kix 

When it comes to illegal downloading and piracy I always think of the words that came from Nicko McBrain in the “Flight 666” video, about Iron Maiden’s popularity in the Middle East, Asian and South/Central America. For a band that have not sold many albums in these regions, Iron Maiden have no problems selling out football stadiums and arenas.

Brazil is a country the mighty Maiden machine goes back to time and time again. Downloading music and movies illegally in Brazil is high. 

However, when fans of entertainment are provided with access at the same time as the rest of the world, guess what happens;

People turn to legal means.

Netflix launched in Brazil in 2011 and at the moment it is the fourth largest market for Netflix with 69 million subscribers. And it all comes down to pricing. The cost of a monthly subscription to Netflix is the same as one movie ticket. Instead of charging for ONE movie or ONE SONG, people want access to a vast archive of songs and movies.

And guess what Netflix also did.

“Netflix also had to work hard to adapt to local consumer habits, such as issuing pre-paid cards, and getting partnerships with local banks to allow payment for users who do not have credit cards.”

Now would the “entitled” record labels and the movie studios have done all of that.

“You listen on a streaming platform because it’s CONVENIENT.”

Steve Albini 

And fans of music have decided that streaming is good for them. But greed still continues to dominate in music, and it’s funny to read stories about superstars withholding their new albums from streaming services.

The death of Rdio streaming service is an example of greed. 

 As the article states;

“The economics of streaming music are brutal. Record labels have nearly all the leverage, and take most of the gross revenue from streaming services. The only way to win is to achieve a massive scale — which is why Spotify has raised more than $1 billion, spending heavily to add subscribers in hopes they will lead to a sustainable business.”

Adele is the latest artist who has decided to withhold her new music from streaming services. It seems that she forgets that within 24 seconds of her album being released it will be all over the internet and YouTube for people to access illegally. Coldplay had their album off streaming services for a certain period of time. Their viewpoint was to capitalise on sales, however what they did capitalise on was illegal downloads. Taylor Swift is off the free Spotify service but still on the free YouTube service which pays even less. Withholding or gating any release is leaving money on the table.

So it’s sixteen years after Napster and the record labels still can’t get it right. They think it’s all about them, when in fact the artists they are meant to represent are competing with all the different entertainment products out there for mindshare.

It’s always been about listens for the artists, not sales. The more listens, the bigger the cultural impact. Sales in music is a metric designed and controlled by the labels. If sales guaranteed success then RATT’s albums that came out in the nineties and two thousands, would have gone platinum.

Let me tell you that I purchased all of the RATT albums from a second hand record store, which means the person who purchased the albums in the first place and chalked up that sale metric for the record labels, didn’t like the albums and sold them to the record store.

The first Van Halen album I purchased was “Balance”. I had the others dubbed on cassette tape. The debut album, “1984” and “5150” I had dubbed more than 5 times from the same person (who purchased the album because he like to collect music and never really listened to it). I listened to these albums a million times as I tried to figure out the guitar parts and not one of those listens made the record label any money. Once I had more disposable income, I would go back and purchase the earlier albums, but that didn’t happen until the mid to late nineties. 

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Unsung Heroes

Royalties

What happens to the pool of money when more people start to adopt a streaming service?

You see, when more people are listening (either to ad-supported free or subscription services), more money is generated. The higher the amount of money generated, the better the payouts.

What did the music industry have before streaming?

They had the iTunes store and the record labels were still hoping that people would go back to buying CD’s. Otherwise, there was a lot of copyright infringement which led to $0 in income.

So in comes streaming via YouTube at the lowest entry point.

Free for the customer.

The aim of the service is easy. Get millions upon millions of people to use it.

Streaming is a disruptive technology. YouTube demonstrated this and in its early beginnings it didn’t care about copyrights at first. Remember back in 2007 when Viacom sued YouTube for $1 billion, because they claimed that YouTube was nothing more than a piracy site. Sort of like how the VCR was nothing but a piracy tool by the MPAA, or the MP3 player. Yet, all of these services, once they had a chance to grow proved to be a profitable tool for the entertainment industries.

So from YouTube, other streaming services enter the market. They all pay the record labels a license to have music on their service. Freemium was enabled to compete and kill off piracy.

Every stream (regardless if it’s on the free platform or the subscription platform) generates a royalty payment back to the labels. The more people who stream, the bigger the dollars going back to the record labels, copyright collection agencies and the publishers.

If freemium goes away, it doesn’t mean that people will start to pay again. Sort of like how people stopped to pay $18 for CD after Napster and in the process, killed off Tower Records and other brick and mortar shops.

The recording business side of music has already hit rock bottom.

Now the only way is up.

Recorded music revenues are increasing due to the monies coming in from streaming services.

Our move to an on demand culture means that streaming has won.

There will always be the 10% who will never pay for anything. But 90% would. Sometimes they will pay more, sometimes less, sometimes none.

And the artists complaining of getting screwed need to re-negotiate with their labels, who are using the artist catalogue as leverage to;

  • obtain high license fees from the streaming service
  • obtain a share/stake of the streaming service, so when it goes public the labels cash in
  • be paid the 70% royalties from the streaming service

So it’s no surprise that a Publishing company owned by a record label is up in arms over royalty payments that haven’t come to them.

Especially when the record label and publishing company in question, Victory Records are well-known for not paying artists their royalties. I am sure there are accounting issues with the royalty payment system and there are many reasons for that.

Did you know that a lot of money just goes missing in the music industry?

A report from Berklee College of Music estimates that 20 to 50 % of royalty payments get lost in transition and do not make it to the ones who created the songs. The same report puts a $45 billion value to the music industry. When you do the math, you realise that is a pretty big sum that just goes missing.

As the Fusion article states;
“Companies that stream music—like Spotify, Pandora or Apple—pay artists in exchange for playing their songs. Somewhere between the company cutting a check to cover the music and the artist— be they a performer, a songwriter, a sound engineer, or a producer— depositing money into a checking account, dollars are disappearing.”

It’s a well-known fact that the record labels are very creative when it comes to their accounting, and until the industry increases its transparency, there will always be misuse of royalties.

Which leads to stories like this?

In case you don’t want to click on the link, it is the story of James Blunt, who claimed via Twitter that he gets paid £00.0004499368 per stream (converted to dollars he’s getting $0.0006968992 per stream). If it relates to Spotify streams only, then the final payment that Blunt is finally getting is pretty low and is further evidence of the record label and collection agencies skimming a lot from the initial payment.

And if you think you can’t make money from streaming, then read this article.

And where does all of this leave the music fan, cranky as hell as they hear over and over again how they need to pay for music, when in fact we overpay for concert tickets and merchandise. A successful act today is making more dollars than they’ve ever made, however it is less from recordings. And we are looking for ease of use first and foremost. That’s how Spotify killed P2P to begin with, through convenience. And convenience is going to generate a lot of money for the recording industry. Let’s hope they put that money back to the people who deserve it, the creators.

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