[cc-community] Rcrd Lbl to offer CC and Free as in Beer Music

Kevin Phillips (home) tacet at qmpublishing.com
Sat Nov 17 18:18:06 EST 2007


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Linksvayer" <ml at creativecommons.org>
To: <cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 10:14 PM
Subject: Re: [cc-community] Rcrd Lbl to offer CC and Free as in Beer Music

> On Sat, 2007-11-17 at 12:07 -0500, Evan Prodromou wrote:
>> When it comes down to it, very few people pay money to listen to
>> music.
>
> Depending on the definition of "very few" no further qualification is
> needed.  I was a little surprised when someone close to the music
> industry recently told me that (before filesharing, though it hasn't
> changed much) only 15% of the US population buys recorded music in a
> given year, and most of the purchasers don't buy very much.  I shouldn't
> have been surprised, as the US population is about 300 million, same as
> the number of music CDs sold in 2005
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#Recorded_Music_Interim_Physical_Retail_Sales_in_2005>.

Isn't it a little scary then that a huge chunk of the recording industry's 
capital is invested into marketing and promotion to excite this (by 
comparison) small market.  Add to that an extraordinary amount of money 
protecting that market from changes or challenges to it?

> So it is not very many people who have strong preference to listen to or
> be associated with specific music that buy most recordings (and
> presumably an even smaller and more hardcore group that attend most
> t-shirts, buy t-shirts, etc.)  Which intuitively anyway seems to back up
> your conclusion below.
>
> (Of course a much larger group of people pays the music industry
> indirectly via purchase of products and viewing of ads with music
> licensing costs built in.)
>
>> They pay money for an association with the band and its work. We all
>> want to hitch our coolness wagon to a musical star.
>>
>> If you have a digital or analog copy, you're less well-associated than
>> someone who owns an "original". If you go to a concert and you're
>> stuck behind a pillar and you can't see the band, you feel less of an
>> association than someone up close. (And, of course, there's a premium
>> for getting those up-close seats, even though the music you hear is
>> the same.)
>>
>> So building business models that capitalize on what music lovers
>> really want is probably going to work best.

As much as I'm enjoying reading this debate about the motivation of 
musicians and that artists aren't so keen on giving things away, despite 
Jamendo and countless other similar channels.  I'm not convinced it's 
totally impossible for free music and non-performing artists making a living 
not to co-exist.  I do agree software and music are not totally the same 
beast, but speaking from my own point of view, I have experienced music 
creation becoming easier whilst software development increases in 
complexity.  This needs to be factored into the discussion imho.

In a future world where sampling is allowed for all (not just the brave and 
the rich) and where music software really begins to become more intuative - 
geared to workflow and most importantly musically "intelligent" (at least 
from a sound production point of view) - it may become possible to write an 
album in an day or at least a song in an evening.  As the cost of 
writing/composing/recording/distributing comes down then so does the 
financial investment and risk.

Larry Lessig recently wrote a note to everyone on ccMixter asking their 
thoughts on a transition to some kind of commercial model (ccMixter+).  At 
the end of the questionnaire there was an amuzing multiple choice which 
included "hobby/bedroom musician" as an option.  I wonder how many number 
ones have been written by musicians in their bedroom?  I know what Larry 
meant by the question, but seriously, the difference between commercial 
big-budget recordings and home studio recordings (possibly in a bedroom) 
isn't always so great (or important).

We've talked on the list before about possible income streams for cc 
artists.  Getting back on topic, I find this whole toe-dipping thing by the 
establishment a little weird.  Rcrd Lbl seems to be nothing more than a 
means to showcase signed artists whilst experimenting with unsigned artists 
using CC.  Once again we see the NC license being used because it makes 
commercial sense.

Kev



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