‘We’re all musicians trying to make a living’
p2pnet news | P2P:- “Raising awareness of the morality of free downloading doesn’t work, nor does litigation.”
Surprisingly, the observation came not from a Music Should Be Free (as in free as a bird, not free beer) believer, but from David Hughes, senior VP of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA technology division.
Speaking at the recent Evolution of Peer-to-Peer Music: From Enemy to Business Partner during Canadian Music Week, he went on to say:
“If you make the hassle factor high enough, people will pay”.
In other words, you can’t trust people to be fair or be reasonable. You have to hammer them into it.
The Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC), “has proposed making it legal to share music on peer-to-peer networks in exchange for a monthly fee of $5 going to royalties for music’s creators,” p2pnet said, quoting the Toronto Star and going on >>>
But Hughes, underscoring what’s increasingly becoming the corporate music industry line —- that ISPs everywhere should become copyright cops acting for, and on behalf of, the Big 4 —- suggests, “It’s the ISPs who have to crack down, and they will, once they realize they can make money from the people who use the most bandwidth.”
‘We’re all musicians trying to make a living’
In Exclaim!, Allison Outhit talks with Andrew Cash, one of the key founders of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition which, when it started up almost exactly two years ago, declared >>>
Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates. Sharing music has been happening for decades.
Other start-up members included Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Barenaked Ladies, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, and Bob Wiseman.
“Andrew Cash is an award-winning singer-songwriter who has released a dozen records over the last 25 years. Co-founder of the seminal Toronto post-punk band L’Etranger, Cash has released four solo records including his latest Murder =, and four with the Cash Brothers (with brother Peter Cash of the Skydiggers),” Outhit writes in her Exclaim! interview, continuing >>>
Cash is a regular contributor to the Toronto weekly NOW. He helped found the Canadian Music Creators Coalition (CMCC, www.musiccreators.ca ) in 2006.
What is the CMCC?
We started out as a very loose coalition of artists who came together to speak publicly with one voice about what we felt was a misrepresentation by the spokespeople of the larger Canadian music industry on the issue of downloading music and file sharing. The spin was that all musicians think this is theft and that anyone who does it is a criminal. But many musicians don’t have a huge problem with P2P file sharing. So step one was to come out and say that suing fans seemed counterproductive and counterintuitive in terms of trying to connect with fans. We also did not like the idea of DRM and didn’t think that was the way to go because it creates a huge amount of hassle for fans. We didn’t really realise or expect that we would get so much attention, in fact so much that we were invite to Ottawa by various members of the House of Commons. We discovered then that the lawmakers had no idea of any alternative other than what they’d heard floated by the mainstream industry, which was to lock content down and to sue fans.
The CMCC has endorsed the SAC proposal. Do you think that blanket licensing is the way forward?
The spin that was put out [when the CMCC first spoke up] was”These guys just want music to be free” and of course that’s preposterous. We’re all musicians trying to make a living. Some have made lots of money, but most of the people in the group haven’t. We talked about many different ways and the one that’s out there now is the one floated by the Songwriters Association of Canada, which is a $5 levy on your ISP bill, to be divided up. It’s not the only way and there are lots of problems with it. But what I like is it’s an idea that’s been well researched; it accepts the idea of P2P and the idea that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, and I like the fact that it engages music fans as citizens rather than just consumers — that music is part of our commonality, our culture.
How are artists going to get a seat at the distribution table? Will the CMCC play a part?
We don’t even have an office or a telephone number! But that touches on an important issue, which is representation of artists in the new age of the music business. Let’s be frank: artists have never been represented to their benefit fully or equally in the music business. The history of the music business is littered with 1001 tales of highway robbery of artists. Someone said the music business is a great place to get rich but a lousy place to make a living. It’s feast or famine. Now there’s an opportunity for a middle class of artists, which is very exciting. How is that going to evolve? It would require a lot of attention by some organisation that has musicians’ interests in mind. But trying to get musicians together is like herding cats. That’s a problem that goes very deep into the psyche of the business. Musicians are, on one hand, supposed to be blissfully ignorant of the business in order to dedicate themselves to the pure artistry of their craft. Yet [other] copyright stakeholders have legions of fulltime lobbyists and lawyers so it’s a real, incredible disadvantage as an artist collective unless you can find a cheap lawyer who’s going to work for you. And most of us are out there trying to make a living, while this could take over your whole life. When are you going to find time to be a musician if you’re out fighting this battle all the time? So I don’t know what’s the answer and I don’t know if the CMCC is the answer.
Stay tuned.
.
.Stumble It!
p2pnet – Suing file sharers doesn’t work: RIAA, March 10, 2008
Toronto Star – File-sharers should get ready to pay, say experts, March 9, 2008
Explain! interview – Meet & Greet, May, 2008
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe
to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.phpNet access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:11 am
“You can’t trust people to be fair or be reasonable. You have to hammer them into it.”
Perhaps, but if anything, this also (especially?) applies to corporations. For far too long have they been unfair and unreasonable with their terms to artists and consumers alike, simply because they can. The internet has turned the tables now and they no longer have us grabbed by the nuts. It is US who will hammer them into it until someday, hopefully, they will get over their million$ withdrawal syndrome and come to terms with their diminished role in the digital age.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
“Raising awareness of the morality of free downloading doesn’t work, nor does litigation.”
Why does Vivendi instigated the sue them all campaign then?
May be because since the 4 majors are now in deep shit as a result they are trying to deny that they did this?
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
“You can’t trust people to be fair or be reasonable. You have to hammer them into it.”
No.
You can’t trust corporations of parasites to be fair or be reasonable. You have to hammer them into death.
This mean that whatever this parasites do, does not matter. We are NOT! going to buy their shit anymore, period!
We will pay the artist directly instead. Actually I am already doing just that. The majors are not needed and not wanted and they should be destroyed like the terrorists they are.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
NEEDED: ALL PUBLIC
This articles says many thruths… how artists and songwriters have been shafted all along.
All blanket licensing schemes to date are fraud. It is because there is no reliable reports for music usage, audience size and whatever data records there are cannot bee seen b the public or the artists. Then the accounting is never honestrly audited. Under such conditions there is no way there is going to be a fair distribution of the money. Then, anyway, the money passes through unscruupolous music publishers who do with the money whatever they want because the musica usage records cannot be seen and there are no audits of the books. There was no way the system could work except o make a few millionaires and many poor artists.
So a new blanket licensing scheme can only lead to the same sstem manipulations and the same results….unless the system is universal (for Internet/radio/concert/bar/etc. music usage) private hands and public. To make it work it must be all public and all records and data open for inspection by any citizen and audited by government accontants. In other words, there is no room for private orgabizations. ALL PUBLIC, nothing private.
RV
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I would pay a monthly royalty fee for legal p2p services, if I could be assured that the actual artists I downloaded would be the ones that got paid by my particular fees, and not a “Corporate Soup”.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
” I would pay a monthly royalty fee for legal p2p services, if I could be assured that the actual artists I downloaded would be the ones that got paid by my particular fees, and not a “Corporate Soup”. ”
You will never get that assurance .. ever.
That’s why they want blanket licensing under THEIR terms.
Besides, let them have it and who’s next ?
The photography industry ?
Software publishers ?
Book publishers ?
The list of those in line for a similar hand out is endless.
How much can YOU pay for internet access ?
May 4th, 2008 at 6:21 am
How much can YOU pay for internet access?
Thoroughout the world people finance eductation, health. security. transporation, museums, etc. through public general taxes. Tax money is used to pay the policeman, the teacher, the soldier, construction workers, doctors, lawyers. etc.
Why not finance the artists such as songwriters, musicians, poets, writers) with tax money. Just put the artists with proven talent in the Arts Department payroll or pay them for their time and/or the works they produce, which would then enter the public domain. The same artists and the rest can still make money by charging for their performances and and products they may sell. This would do away with copyright, copying restrictions and all the racketeering in between. Then the arts will flourish again. Has no one noticed that most all the great works of art and architecture were done when the copyright word and concept and art racketeering did not exist.
RV
May 4th, 2008 at 9:48 am
” Why not finance the artists such as songwriters, musicians, poets, writers) with tax money. Just put the artists with proven talent in the Arts Department payroll or pay them for their time and/or the works they produce, which would then enter the public domain. ”
You’re talking of a system very close to socialism, which is a dirty word to many
people.
In an ideal world, where everyone is honest and be counted on to do the ‘right’
thing, this could work.
However, this is not an ideal world, and you can COUNT on someone abusing such a
system.
I don’t have an answer either, Rafael, but rest assured … no reasonable solution
will ever be accepted by the RIAA members.
May 4th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
If something like this DOES get in, they’re not getting one cent of my money until they pay back all of the money THEY owe ME in subsidies taken for CD-R blanks that I didn’t use for music.
May 4th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
“In an ideal world, where everyone is honest and be counted on to do the ‘right’
thing, this could work.”
If the actual system were a sociialist one and it didn’t work either and someone proposed a more private system, the sane words as quoted above would apply too.
And just because we don’t live in a ideal world should we privatize the courts and the police?
I say that regardless of the human imperfections that affect the private and pblic sectors equally, whatever system is chosen has to be as ideal as possible. My proposals are based on the ideal system as I see it.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:52 am
I believe ideally the Internet should be free to all. As it is now, a large percentage cannot even afford it, and many others have slow service. Already the cartels besides suing everyone, have their grubby fingers in everyone’s pie, wanting their piece. Even from blank disks they get a piece. We also pay tax on them (and everything) We pay tax on bills.
“When ISPs realize there’s money to be made on the biggest users”? They already do that. Why should we pay extra for what we already pay for? You mean YOU want it. “Hassle people enough and they’ll pay” eh? You think so really? We’ll see then won’t we? I refuse to pay you a red cent, and never will. In fact I’ll guarantee it. I’ll make it part of my life’s agenda to resist and ignore you. But spend all your days plugging away if you like. Who knows ..
May 5th, 2008 at 3:58 am
^^ Seconded. I want reimbursement also for the wasted bandwidth from all their illegal interference, fake files, and viruses.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Now that they are losing the legal battles; this is just another spin doctor trying to make them out to be altruistic and lovable entities that are fighting for the rights and profits of musicians around the world!!!
Give me a break.