’17% fewer pro musicians than in 2001′
p2pnet view RIAA:- Along with other whines and whinges in its ramblings on the recent IIPA BS release, the RIAA has this to say >>>
It is estimated that there are currently 17 percent fewer professional musicians in the United States than there were 10 years ago.
While the Internet may offer unparalleled opportunities for musicians to reach global audiences, there are sadly fewer and fewer opportunities for musicians to earn a living from their craft.”
Seventeen percent, eh? Dear oh dear.
BUT —- “Luckily, this is not irreversible or the result of immutable natural laws”, says the RIAA, declaring >>>
We can, and must, create an environment that cherishes creativity, and which provides incentives for investment in the creation of original cultural materials. While there are certainly complicated issues at the margins, the path towards a more accountable online space is straightforward — governments must provide no safe harbors for those who would intentionally profit from the distribution of the creative works of others. There is no place in a responsible cultural ecosystem for companies like Baidu and vKontakte to operate dedicated music services without obtaining licenses from the creators. There is no place for providing services designed to facilitate music theft. And there is certainly no place for allowing enterprises to be built on the back of illegal content, and then to only require them to take down such content when they are notified by the copyright owner. ‘Catch me if you can’ is not a recipe for sustaining American creativity.
Extortion and threats
Reading the quote above, some might come away with the impression the corporate music industry is honest, and run by honest people honestly trying to do their honest best.
However, the truth is somewhat different.
Through the likes of their RIAA which, lest we forget, stands for Recording Industry Association of America, Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but run by a Canadian), have stifled any and all creativity, also suing their own customers, for good measure.
Extortion and threats are just two of the weapons in their arsenals.
In their phony ‘copyright violation’ lawsuits, they went after a dead grandmother, a 10-year-old kid, a woman desperately ill with multiple sclerosis, another woman who didn’t even know how to turn a computer on, etc and so on.
After some 40,000 subpoenas, they ended up with two court cases, both of which were, and are, complete mockeries.
Not for nothing are they and their compadres know as the MAFIAA.
Hoods together with hoods
‘Music icon Tommy James tells all in new book’, was the headline to a My Central Jersey post almost exactly a year ago
But “No, the ‘mob’ in Tommy James’ new autobiography, ‘Me, the Mob and the Music,’ is not a reference to the millions of fans who screamed for his hits, including ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ ‘Mony, Mony’ and ‘Crimson and Clover’,” says the post, adding:
“Rather, it’s the underworld mob … guys inclined to beat people up with baseball bats and take more than their fair share of royalties if you happen to be recording for them … that James speaks of.”
“It’s a kind of Mafia-type run business”, NIN’s Trent Reznor told Inquirer Entertainment a year earlier.
In 1986, “record industry executives from around the country arrived in New York to attend a $1,000-a-plate, black-tie ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel”, said the Los Angeles Times, continuing >>>
They were there to honor the first 10 inductees into the newly established Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. But law enforcement authorities detected some visiting executives doing a few other things, too.
Some were on the phone with top East Coast Mafia figures, or meeting with them. Among their contacts was reputed Gambino family boss John Gotti. Federal, state and local authorities noticed the activity while conducting separate undercover investigations of New York organized crime families.
The contacts with Mafia figures had no apparent connection with the Hall of Fame ceremony itself. But the presence in town of so many record executives who had so much to say to mobsters aroused investigators’ suspicions. And they contributed to growing concern that the Mafia, no stranger to the field, had stepped up its activity in the record industry.
Of course, these days, there’s no such thing as the MAFIA.
And the corporate music industry is squeaky clean.
No need to stay tuned.
ther whines and whinges – The RIAA attacks Canada, February 18, 2011
IIPA BS release – BAAAAD Canada: latest IIPA ‘report’, February 17, 2011
My Central Jersey – Music icon Tommy James tells all in new book, February 24, 2010
Inquirer Entertainment – Trent Reznor, 20 years late, July 13, 2009
Los Angeles Times – Growing Force of Investigators Probes Mob Ties to Record Industry, October 1986.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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February 18th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
This is not a problem because there was AT LEAST 17% too many pro musicians a decade ago.
February 18th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Creativity has dropped by about 60%, so there’s still far more pro musicians out there than needed to perform what’s worth listening to.
(I know, I’m pretty brutal. Sue me!)
February 18th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
When the music industry was run by musicians and not by lawyers and accountants, they used to have a program to groom artists for the long haul. It was a program to teach them how to be sustainable over the long term. When the lawyers and accountants moved in to be the controlling factor, that program left. Today, the music industry doesn’t care if the artist has a long term future. In fact they prefer they don’t because then they will never pay off their debts to the labels, meaning the labels get to keep it all, including the control of the artists themselves.
I strangely don’t see any mention of all the artists that were lopped off and released from the labels in each format change. I think I recall there being an approximate amount bandied around of it being 50% were removed from the artist stable. Funny that omission when counting heads isn’t it?
The loss of the mom and pop record stores across the nation surely didn’t affect how many artists the labels could support either could it? The reason mom and pop stores closed were that they couldn’t keep in business because they couldn’t match the prices of the box chains. Box chains undersold at a cost below what they could buy the music at. This was called loss leader and was to get people in the stores to buy other things. Mom and pop stores couldn’t get those prices as the box chains were using volume as the reason to undercut with cheaper prices to start with. The resulting loss of having product on the shelf, across the nation, cut the amount available for sale by at least 60%. You can’t reduce the amount of product you are going to sell and then expect it to return the same amount of money. Now box chains represent around 95% of all sales of music. They also demanded and got a lowering of the price of an album, further reducing the wholesale rape of the customer through gouging.
Today the made musician doesn’t have a future. They have to have talent to sustain them beyond that first great idea and hit. Most don’t have what it takes. The public sees this even if the majors do not. No longer is it typical that a Top Ten #1 hit will run 6 months on the top of the charts. It is instead measured in weeks. It is a sign that the majors aren’t doing what is required to maintain that interest in their vested artists.
So who is really to blame and who is lying through their teeth again?
February 18th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
I think their definition of “Pro” and the real definition differ significantly.
Another important unmentioned piece of information that should be listed, what’s the total number of musicians back then and now?
If there were 20 000 pro’s of 100 000 musicians in 2001, compared to 40 000 pro’s of 1 000 000 musicians in 2011, well there appears to be a decrease in musicians if you leave out numbers. Include all numbers and the story changes.
So, what are the real numbers RIAA? Put up or STFU!
Of course their website only has “17%” as the only number.
February 18th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
@ Robert:
Tsk tsk. In some parts ‘pro’ is short for ‘prostitute’. Surely you didn’t mean that?
Cheers!
February 18th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
There’s little doubt that the vast majority of “professional” musicians (as well as artists of any kind) are only part-timers and odd-jobbers, making any kind of meaningful head count difficult if not impossible. (Often, they’re paid in cash so even the IRS doesn’t know their night-time “profession”)
The 17% reduction most likely refers to studio musicians and backup singers on the payroll of the major labels. The people who work 9-5 and get a weekly paycheck, paid dental, and Holidays off – a rarity among those who call themselves musicians.
February 18th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Given that the vast majority of label-signed musicians are lucky to make $4,000 in a year (and likely have other primary jobs), I think the concept of what constitutes a “professional artist” is pretty blurry.
February 18th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
How many musicians can actually sing properly though, instead of a pitch correcting computer doing the signing for them?
February 18th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
@Wozzzaaa:
Many can sing, but you would not have heard of them because they would not likely be on the radio or TV or on blogs.
I do hate Auto-Tune. It is used as though it were distortion on the guitar and it’s been overused to the point of creating a feeling of nausea inside me when I hear it.
February 18th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
@ Wozzzaaa:
Um, three?
Cheers!
February 18th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
This is a good laugh “We can, and must, create an environment that cherishes creativity, and which provides incentives for investment in the creation of original cultural materials.”
The lables dont create anything or cherish anything thats not going give them the next U2 to make mass proffits…..as far as original materials go….a lot of artists got wise and wont hand over the rights to someting that was created by the artist….if an artist wont sign away the rights to something then the labels dont want to know about it….which might explain the drop in so called pro musicians.
The labels are not hard done by.
February 19th, 2011 at 10:28 am
” I think their definition of “Pro” and the real definition differ significantly.
Another important unmentioned piece of information that should be listed, what’s the total number of musicians back then and now?
If there were 20 000 pro’s of 100 000 musicians in 2001, compared to 40 000 pro’s of 1 000 000 musicians in 2011, well there appears to be a decrease in musicians if you leave out numbers. Include all numbers and the story changes.
So, what are the real numbers RIAA? Put up or STFU!
Of course their website only has “17%” as the only number. ”
Exactly.
Statistics and percentages can easily be manipulated to ‘prove’ anything.
All depends on what one wants to ‘believe’.
February 19th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Their definition of pro is whoever is working with one of the 7 corporation of parasites.
By now it should be zero but I guess there is a lot of talentless “artists not dead yet who still need these masters of BS craps.
February 19th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
“We can, and must, create an environment that cherishes creativity, and which provides incentives for investment in the creation of original cultural materials.”
These guys do not understand that they are not needed for “investment” anymore if they ever were.
We put our music on the net, we organize the concert ourselves we make the money and we do it again.
February 20th, 2011 at 10:15 am
rinse, lather, get paid, repeat
March 29th, 2011 at 10:33 pm
All these so called “pro” musician all sound the same because they are all a fabrication of the 7 corporations of parasites.
They called “Pro” only those who work for them as slave. . . Heu I mean employee. Those who work by themselves are not “pro” according to the RIAA regardless of how much better they are compared to the “pro”!
17% less RIAA BS drones? It still way to many. Hopefully it will reach 100% soon once the corporatists will have no money to lend to their slaves.