CD freebies -vs- thieving
p2pnet.net News Feature:- Last Friday, down yonder in Australia, JJJ’s drivetime show sprung "a little bit of a surprise" on ARIA boss Stephen Peach.
"They asked him what ARIA staff were doing getting so many promo copies," says rocknerd here.
Peach says the free goods supplied to ARIA staffers aren’t ‘really relevant to the issue we’re talking about here… the theft of music’.
Apparently, ARIA staffers get about 30 free CDs every month.
Australia is, of course, the place where the music industry is telling everyone it’s on its uppers while it simultaneously reports record sales.
Oh yeh. The ARIA is the Australian Recording Industry Association.
Now read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
JJJ vs ARIA
Are promo copies killing the industry?
STEVE CANNANE: The record industry has been going to great lengths lately to demonise file sharers on the net as being thieves – people wanting to get something for nothing. Nearly 2000 Americans have been sued for allegedly making illegal downloads, and here in Australia, the owners of Kazaa fileshare network have been accused of being the biggest copyright infringers in the world. Basically, record companies say artists should be paid if someone listens to their music, whether that’s as an individual on their CD player at home or a radio station paying out royalties for playing a song on air.
But as Ronan Sharkey has been finding out, the record industry might not be squeaky clean about rewarding artists for their work.
RONAN SHARKEY: Would it be hypocritical for staff at the Australian Record Industry Association to get free CDs from record companies while at the same time, ARIA goes to court to crack down on companies who, it claims, help people download songs for free on the net? That’s a question Hack posed today to the CEO of ARIA, Stephen Peach, after a Triple J listener gave us a tip.
Listener Tony sent Hack an email after yesterday’s show when he heard us saying we’d be talking to Stephen Peach today. Tony suggested we take a look at a web article from last year which had a list of questions for Stephen Peach about who pays for promotional CDs sent out by record companies. So we put some of the questions to the ARIA boss.
Do you personally get free CDs from record companies who are members of ARIA?
STEPHEN PEACH: Yes, I do.
RONAN SHARKEY: How many would you have got, say, in the last three months this year?
STEPHEN PEACH: Oh, the last three months? A few. Ten maybe.
RONAN SHARKEY: Is that hypocritical for you to be accepting free CDs from record companies while at the same time chasing people who you’re accusing of downloading songs for free?
STEPHEN PEACH: No, I don’t think it is at all. I mean, the industry has the idea of promotional CDs. These are all promotional CDs or they’re CDs in respect of which, as far as I’m aware, royalties are paid to artists.
RONAN SHARKEY: What about your staff here? Do they accept free CDs?
STEPHEN PEACH: They do indeed. They get – there is a staff scheme whereby they get one every now and then.
RONAN SHARKEY: How often is that?
STEPHEN PEACH: That’s once a month, I think.
RONAN SHARKEY: And so how many CDs would be involved, say, in the staff you’ve got in this office here?
STEPHEN PEACH: Oh, 30.
RONAN SHARKEY: Do you think that it would be a good leadership role in ARIA’s pursuit of illegal downloaders to at the same time stop this practice of accepting free CDs from member companies?
STEPHEN PEACH: I don’t think it’s really relevant at all to the issue we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the theft of music. This is – the CDs that get distributed both here and to radio networks, to newspapers, all around the industry, are for an entirely different purpose and they’re accounted for in accordance with all the contractual agreements.
RONAN SHARKEY: People downloading music would probably argue that this is a good way for them to experience new music and they’ll go out one day and buy some stuff, and promo CDs, presumably, are given away for the same reason, that ultimately one day you’re going to buy the CD or go and see the band. What’s the difference?
STEPHEN PEACH: Well, the difference is that the research shows that that’s actually not what’s happening, that we see that those who are downloading are reporting that they’re actually going and buying less and that this is an effective substitute for purchasing.
RONAN SHARKEY: Can you see there’s a perception problem here, that the bedroom downloader might thing that you’re being hypocritical for taking all these free CDs from record companies?
STEPHEN PEACH: No, not at all. I don’t think that there’s any – I can see people will try and make something out of that, but I think that they’re really two entirely different things.
RONAN SHARKEY: So that’s ARIA boss, Stephen Peach’s response to the questions, which appeared in a column written by Phil Tripp on the site themusic.com.au. And where to next for Hack?
Okay, Phil Tripp, you’re a music industry analyst. It was some of your questions that a Triple J listener pointed us to on your web page article. What did you think of his answers there? He’s saying that he thinks that getting free promo CDs from record companies is totally different to taking free music on the net.
PHIL TRIPP: I’m amazed that Triple J ambushed him so well. These are the questions he never wanted to answer and never did. He gets an immense number of CDs from record companies. He doesn’t pay for them. He is not media, he’s not newspaper, radio or TV. He is a ligger, not a leader. A ligger in the music industry is somebody who always wants free tickets, free CDs, free this and that.
Stephen as a leader should have long ago when he started, saying, "I’m not going to take any free CDs because the artist pays for it in the end."
RONAN SHARKEY: The royalties there he spoke about, he said that artists get royalties on promo CDs. Is that the case?
PHIL TRIPP: That is not the case, never has been the case. Free CDs, promo CDs in all the contracts with the artist are taken out of the artist’s share. They are not accounted for other than to tell the artist that they’re not getting any. And if Stephen is a leader, he should be able to have the record companies, especially the majors, show you documents that prove that the artists are given their royalties.
However, songwriters are given their royalties from it because there’s the mechanical copyright that means that every time a disc is printed, every time a disc is made, that they have to paid that copyright. But the artists that record it, dream about it.
RONAN SHARKEY: So presumably there are lots of these promo CDs floating around. Is it a big kind of currency within the record industry?
PHIL TRIPP: You hit the word right on the head – the CD currency. It’s a black market. People in record companies generally don’t go to record stores to buy CDs. If anything, they go to Ashwood’s and other stores to sell their promo copies. That’s why you find so many that say "promo copy only", where they have a hole drilled in them.
In many cases, I’ve seen CDs actually hit those stores before they even hit the market. Record company personnel between one and another, internally and externally with other companies, trade this stuff back and forth. Many times spare copies of CDs are given to retailers as favours or other people as favours. They don’t control the distribution, they just call it "free goods." I call it a form of theft which compares with downloading, when you don’t have that control and you use them for your own personal use, with the artist, as always, paying in the end.
RONAN SHARKEY: The record industry very often talks about the millions of dollars that downloading costs them. Do you think that artists are losing millions and millions of dollars in promo CDs that are floating around that they never get royalties for?
PHIL TRIPP: Absolutely, and I’m not saying they don’t lose money from downloading on the internet. What the record companies don’t want to say is that the internet actually is a sampling device for some people who want to buy music. But of course it’s abused by people who will never pay for music. But I think in our industry if we’re pursuing one goal as a standard of payment for music, we should be the first people doing it, not the last.
RONAN SHARKEY: Do you get free CDs, Phil?
PHIL TRIPP: No, and as a matter of fact, my staff don’t either. We have a rule with all the record companies that we’re not to be sent any CDs for promotional use or anything else, and it’s a personal thing. But I have been an artist manager, I’ve owned a record company, I see this abuse and I can’t be a part of it.
I’m no paragon of virtue. I can afford to buy my own music. But these people can too. Certainly Stephen Peach is not short of a buck to add to his record collection.
RONAN SHARKEY: So now that you’ve heard Stephen Peach’s answer to some of your questions that you posted on the net, what’s your message for him now?
PHIL TRIPP: Hey, Steve, all you got to do is stop taking free CDs and prove your claims that artists are paid for all those free CDs that you’ve already taken, that your staff takes.
STEVE CANNANE: Ronan Sharkey there, speaking with music industry analyst, Phil Tripp. And before him we heard from Stephen Peach, the CEO of ARIA. And we should declare too that plenty of free CDs come into Triple J. Record companies do send in promotional copies of CDs to music programmers here and presenters as well.
October 27th, 2006 at 5:37 am
I’ve worked in the underground music scene for quite a while, and was one of the founders of Polyvibe Records (www.polyvi.be). I’ve got no problem getting free CDs from friends (the artists themselves, or their respective labels), knowing that it was a gift, and that I will probably talk about it, and help promote it Word-of-Mouth. However, after a while and you get to know people, I’m always being offered to be let into shows for free. Knowing that the same friends, that may have given me a CD that costs them a buck or two to produce, are inside counting on mine and others cover charges to get paid that night, I consider it my moral obligatioin to not only pay, but pay full price. I know the doorman is just trying to hook me up, or my friend just wants me to go so he’ll offer to put my on the list, but I can’t accept these offers knowing that my $10 is helping to put beer in his belly, and gas in his car. The only time I get in free is when its my turn to perform.
-xenlab
http://www.xnlb.com