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Originally Posted by
Prog Rock Man 
My information is from lots of sources. A documentary on BBC4 about Rough Trade where many artists complained about not being paid and promotional budgets that were blown leaving nothing left. As for a large label, Richard Branson's autobiography and the rise of Virgin from small to large label is evidence that both artists and labels are capable of behaving badly towards each other. Trey Gunn, the solo artist and bass player for King Crimson has an excellent blog with a musicians view of the music trade. The producer manager Simon Napier-Bell has three excellent books out covering all aspects of management, the deals, the dodgy practices, the drugs, the lot. David Bowie, Nick Mason and Bill Wyman have also written on their experiences.
Those are mostly older examples though . . . . I have yet to see a very recent example of an artist taking a label for everything compared to the opposite.
I have not doubted your claim that only a minimal amount of money goes to the artist from CD sales. But your argument is that since it is so low, why bother giving them anything at all. Is that right? If so, what do you feel about other low paid workers? I find arguments in such debates often fall if you say, why should it not apply to someone else or even you. As Trey Gunn states in his blog, he is expected to pay his plumber or the local garage for their work. Why should he as a musician be excluded from that standard model of trade?
No, I'm saying we should help artists, and to do that we should go to more concerts for ones that are getting the few cents per CD. It makes them more money that way is all I'm getting at - buying a CD isn't necessarily going to help the artist that much all the time.
Many musicians do not want downloading illegally to be a criminal offence, but they do want a fair share of the money
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/its-not-a-crime-to-download-say-musicians-1643217.html
Under the current scheme they aren't getting that fair share - why I supported emusic for such a long time.
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The business model is different with a major label - if the label takes a bigger cut, they also may put a lot more money into promotion, allowing artists to have bigger sales and therefore more successful tours - not always of course, and there are many artists with horror stories about labels giving them no backing but also not letting them leave their contracts (p2p also likely exacerbates this phenomenon for some). I'm not arguing against touring, but a lot of artists are forced to spend way more time on the road than they would in a world without file sharing, simply to get by. When their fans say "I'll pay you for a concert ticket and T-shirt but your CD I'll download for free", do not expect artists to be happy about it.
Actually, that makes quite a few on large labels ecstatic. File sharing didn't start the requirement for touring - look at the Sex Pistols for example. The RIAA and big labels slowly dug their own hole on this honestly.
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Be clear - I don't like the big record companies or the RIAA lawsuits one bit. In this climate, it's probably foolish for an emerging artist to sign with a big label, except maybe for just distribution (which does allow them to take a bigger cut, even though the record company's name appears on the jewel case). However, when p2p downloaders say "Your business model is old-school. Therefore I'm doing you a favour by downloading your album", all I hear is selfishness.
Depends. Those that DL the discography that would have given artists a .25 boost, but instead saved money to go to the artist's concert and give them say $5+ (after all fees etc) have done the artist a favor. Those that don't help benefit the artist in anyway are making excuses (the majority). If the artist isn't happy with the situation they can very much speak up in interviews about the situation or sue DLers themselves (Metallica).
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My apologies if you are not defending your own piracy. As you mention elsewhere, you are using the same arguments as people defending piracy.
Apology kind of accepted - I think it's fair to DL OOP stuff since neither the labels nor artists can cry harm or foul if they're dead or broken up (what I do). Other than that yes.
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I'd say you're more of a prickly person. 
We seem to agree on most points but you keep arguing quite vehemently with me. No, I do not claim to be the voice of professional musicians - what does that have to do with the discussion? And furthermore what does the definition of "professional" have to do with it? I'm arguing that recordings put up for sale ought to be paid for by the people who listen to them; nothing more. You can't seem find a logical argument to make (I notice you did not suggest that most musicians do not want to be paid for their recordings), so attacking my credibility is the next best thing perhaps?
No, you're just missing my point. I consider the voice of professional musicians ones that are largely successful, and as such they are usually on large labels. There's a good many that make the argument for me of "don't buy the album, but you better come to the concert if you don't".
The starving musicians that depend on sales rather than touring can't do this, but the big names generally can and to some extent do. That's the core of the argument - you wanted to argue what was best for the artists - and here's some proclaiming what's best for them. It doesn't apply to every artist, but to the bigger names mostly.
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Smaller CD sales due to p2p sharing results in much higher need for touring - therefore piracy did "put them in that position". I agree with you that the big labels need to topple, or at least change dramatically, but if that comes with the suffering of a lot of great artists under their umbrellas, then we should be mindful of our part in this shift. Ideally it should be more artist-driven and less pirate-driven.
No it didn't, you had artists complaining about the situation with big labels far before piracy. It's just with the internet and new models being discovered artists are starting to realize just how bad they're being screwed. You're right it should be artist drive - but what about the artists that actually give the nod to pirates even though they're still chained to a large label?
It's not as simply cut as you seem to want to make it - anyone can see that pirate or not.
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And I agree with you in principle, but if a pirate fails to consider the wishes of the artists, his/her argument that p2p downloading is good for artists because it allows them to spend more on concert tickets goes right out the window. It's a system in which one person is buying and one person is selling.
And one should consider the wish of the artist - but I've made considerations of that as well in my argument.
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Picture a farmer's market as an analogy. It's a screwy system where the buyer says "I'm going to steal your lettuce and you can't stop me, but it's cool because I'll buy your beets, on which you make more profit. When you stop dealing with all those big agricultural companies who exploit you by selling you fertilizer and harvesting equipment, then I'll buy the lettuce". There has to be agreement on both sides (ie. the seller has to agree to throw in the lettuce for free) for a morally legitimate transaction to take place.
Only if society agrees that that is moral anyway. Canada has laws that protect DLing music, and if most of society agrees that it is right then society has agreed that the action of DLing regardless of the artist's wishes is indeed moral. So let's not bring up moral stipulations as they will vary.
Effectively though, the above is exactly what many chained down artists encourage it seems. Ones that have ditched those that exploit them though will have a different view entirely (mine doesn't use harsh chemicals and takes longer to grow - I can't afford to throw in the lettuce for free) which is respectable.
Don't pay too much mind to me though, I love Amazon's used marketplace. Legit and still bad for the labels, but unfortunately the artist too.
Edited by Shike - 8/6/10 at 10:10am
