And yet, in the world of music, EVERYBODY drinks the poisonous Kool-Aid. We've seen headlines for ten years or more, claiming that piracy really isn't so bad. Some even blink and repeat, "Piracy is good. It's good publicity. People who didn't buy will buy the next time!"
A more recent spill of Kool-Aid? All those headlines: "Vinyl is making a comeback!"
NO. It is NOT. A few trendy Millennials buy a few hundred copies on vinyl on "Record Store Day," and that's it. People don't want turntables and needles. They don't even want a CD player. Why? Because "we like FREE," and that's what download files are. And now, there's cheap streaming.
Here's the latest headline, which looks like it was sponsored by Kool-Aid. Or maybe a publicist paid the BBC or did a quid-pro-quo. Like, "Interview MY CLIENT and call attention to his indie record label, and later on, I'll give you something MUCH BETTER..."
What a urinous load of taking the piss -- the BBC gulping down this bilge:
Got that, everyone? Downloading is that "new paradigm" we've been waiting for.
As record stores began closing all over the world, a sure sign that piracy was killing the music industry, people shrugged.
The rationalization: "Not to worry. Look at how many records Whitney Houston is selling!"
As record labels began going under or got bought up by Universal or BMG or Warners, people shrugged.
The rationalization: "The amount of piracy is very low. Everybody's buying Adele. She sells millions!"
As the number of million selling albums dwindled and vain attempts were made to include download sales, stats proved the industry is ailing.
The rationalization: "Look at how Taylor Swift can still sell a million copies!"
The latest Pollyanna grin comes from some guy interviewed by the BBC. Let's forget piracy now, entirely, and let's forget all the artists who are shouting that Spotify and the rest pay puny royalties and you need 100,000 downloads to make a dime. Everything's FINE:
Yes, yes, stiff upper-lip, and pip pip.
Why the kerfuffle? Let's have another cuppa.
Paul Simon is one of the lucky ones who was "born at the right time."
But even he didn't turn a blind eye to the facts. He sang it:
"Down by the riverbank. A blues band arrives. The music suffers, baby. The music business thrives."
The BUSINESS. That's the suits at RIAA and BPI who don't demand that Google remove blogs loaded with piracy.
That's the suits at Universal and elsewhere, who don't lobby Congress to strengthen Internet laws on torrents and foreign/Russian servers who don't recognize copyright.
That's the big artists who, unlike Metallica and Gene Simmons for example, never publicly stood up and said, "Piracy hurts," or that Spotify royalties are low, or that older artists and songwriters should not have to have heart attacks in hotel rooms on the road, but should be able to get a check now and then for their work.
I was going to add, "radio play," but that's so antiquated. Now, nobody listens to radio. They make up their own play lists on YouTube or tap a button so that Spotify can tell them what they might like.
More from Pollyanna:
As someone at an indie record label, this guy should know better. When it comes to the older bands, let's say the Strawbs, Zombies, Procol bunch...do they barely break even? Do their studio costs eat away all the profits on a few thousand sales? Do they have to hawk their merchandise at gigs, or sign items on their websites?
How about indie women such as Jill Sobule and Wendy James? One of them had to go the GoFundMe route, self-press, and as an inducement to get more money for studio costs, custom write a song on each album THANKING THE DONORS BY NAME. The other? She flogs social media, runs gruesome sex-photos of herself, and flogs how she'll autograph and personalize the CD or vinyl via her website.
That's the sign of a healthy record industry?
You probably haven't heard of Marsha Malamet, but she's a songwriter who is on a ton of albums...everyone from Streisand to Pete Allen and back, but with nobody buying albums, and Spotify royalties low, she was just one of many asking for donations to pay for her rising health woes. Same with Ian Whitcomb and many more. GoFundMe and begging is the way the music business should be?
Now, I did put out an album a few years ago, and I didn't expect people to care much. Unlike Tom Lehrer, I don't perform even locally so that maybe 50 or 100 would want a souvenir album. (That's how he started, before Reprise picked him up). I wasn't expecting much and I didn't get much, since my stuff is a bit oddball, but I didn't think I'd be at the same mediocre level as oddball artists I admired such as Ron Nagle, Genya Ravan, Gunhill Road, or the resurrected rock group Fanny, who all put out new albums and saw the same puny numbers of views/hits om YouTube.
The problem is that things aren't any better for most rappers, C&W Millennials, or up and coming rock bands. More and more of them have to self-press, sell the stuff in clubs, spend a fortune on studio time (people do NOT want to hear ProTools and fake drums), and make rock videos or bootleg their own concerts to put things on YouTube. No, it doesn't work. There's so much FREE on YouTube, nobody can find this stuff. They'd rather watch Taylor Swift...or somebody doing "jackass" stunts or trying on underwear.
The shrug ultimately becomes, "you can't get the genie back in the bottle." No? We're talking about a genie. The genie DOES go back into the bottle. The genie comes out to do the magic, and then goes BACK IN THE BOTTLE.
In this case, it's time for pirates to go back in the bottle instead of smirk and say "I do this for fun" or "copyright is copy wrong," or worse, "Give ME a Paypal donation." It's time for foreign thugs who run torrent sites to get boiled in their own oil, or to see the profits dry up. But that would take interest from assholes like THIS guy, and the big shots at Universal or RIAA, and them fat cats aren't hurting yet.
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