Says touring artists can support illegal file-sharing because they’re still able to earn a living, but notes that composers can’t and therefore suffer disproportionately.
Björn Kristian Ulvaeus, a Swedish musician, composer, and former member of the Swedish musical group ABBA, has found a new voice as a prominent critic of illegal file-sharing.
His main argument is that unlike performing artists who can tour and ostensibly sell other merchandise to shore up flagging album sales, composers and songwriters like himself cannot. A broad coalition of UK music artists recently came out and denounced plans for a “three-strikes” plan to disconnect file-sharers in the UK.
Ulvaues readily admits that he’s an odd spokesperson for “poor songwriters” being that he’s financially secure, but he says their plight is just as important in the P2P debate because they can’t exactly “go on tour and sing for their supper.”
He writes in the Times Online :
it is truly a wonderful thing to know that something one has written is listened to by many people; waking emotions, causing goose bumps, and drawing that irresistible urge to listen again. Maybe a song you wrote could help a poor, depressed person out there to forget his misery for a while.
All this is, of course, reward in itself, but a prerequisite for the existence of these songs is almost always that their author can afford to devote himself entirely to cultivating his talent.
It raises a good point because I’ll be the first to admit that songwriters really have been lost in the shuffle of compensation in the music industry. It’s easy to say screw the record labels and let artists finally reach their fans directly and so too most of the profits.
However, what happens to the people who wrote the songs the band sings? Perhaps its up to them to pay a percentage of their earnings to the very people who gave them the material in the first place.
Ulvause closes by hoping for the “design a modern copyright environment that works with the internet without demanding surveillance that eats away at integrity.”
Unfortunately, this will never happen. What would a “modern copyright environment” look like? Short of DPI there’s no way to monitor data shared amongst individuals.
Also, consider the fact the UK music industry’s own economist concluded revenue was up some 4.7% since 2007! The reason? diversification. Things like more complex business to business revenues (from collective and direct licensing, advertising, sponsorship).
I sympathize with Ulvause, or at least those songwriters not nearly as well off as he, for he’s right. They live on royalties. But, you can’t fight the march towards a digital music world. They’ll need to get creative and look at taking greater shares of licensing revenues currently demanded by the RIAA from every club, bar, cafe, gym, satellite radio, waiting room, office cubicle, and anywhere else where their music makes a so-called “public performance.”
Maybe the problem isn’t so much a file-sharing problem as it is a revenue sharing problem. Have songwriters dared to ask where all those performance royalties are going and if they’re really getting a fair share?
Stay tuned.
When I stop working, I stop getting paid… why are they any different?
Its called savings and pensions. Why should they sit on their arse for the next 30 years.
Wanna get paid? work some more.
Note the ABBA: this isn’t the ’70s anymore! P2P is here to stay. Embrace a new business model or fail.
Both sides are unreasonable. Content providers are too fucking greedy, I can’t stress this enough. At the same time, wanting everything for “free” isn’t exactly fair either. But the industry has brought this on itself.
REASONABLE would be charging $1 for a good song, $10 for a good piece of software. Not $15 for a shit album or $300 for a crap OS that you are almost forced to use. Fair and even bargain prices would almost eliminate “piracy”, just look at Itunes for example. Everything could model after this. If they started out fairly, they wouldn’t be in this mess. I for one look at it as retribution, you ripped off the public for years, now their getting a little bit back, so suck it.
‘All this is, of course, reward in itself, but a prerequisite for the existence of these songs is almost always that their author can afford to devote himself entirely to cultivating his talent.’
Well, what stops us from creating a society where people are free to cultivate their talents, without fear of homelessness or starvation?
Is it shortage of food? Far from it; the world produces more food than it consumes and has been doing so for some time.
Is it shortage of housing? Hardly; there is more than enough of that as well, especially if we take empty warehouses and office blocks into consideration.
Is there a general lack of production capacity? Hardly – on the contrary production is far below maximum capacity in virtually every industry you care to name.
And that’s the problem. We can create a society where people can follow their talents without fear of starvation, homelessness, etc… – but we have economic institutions (such as absentee ownership) which stand in the way because they keep production far below the maximum in order to maximize profit.
And it is those institutions, not file-sharing, that need to be abolished.
Sorry, but I have no sympathy, I know a LOT of songwriters because I live in Nashville. The vast majority of the ones I know are song writers part time, for no other reason than they hope they will get lucky and hit that one money shot so they can just pull in royalties. They don’t do it for the art, or the music, just the cash. Screw that.
I hope they all go broke, and this can only help things. If the business end of the music industry becomes less profitable, then the people who are just in it for the money will go become lawyers or something, and leave music for Musicians.
Poets don’t make much money these days. One third of songwriting is lyrics then there is melody and harmony. It’s not as hard as one might think to write a song. Some suck, some are good and some are great, but often times it’s all up to production to make a good song great—the producer and engineer do that. Songwriting is more like a hobby than a job. Rather than waste time watching tv write a song. But as for spending every waking moment of your life writing songs that’s a waste. Get a job songwriters. This is coming from someone who is just about to finish a bachelor degree in music composition.
What’s hard is finding good music.
now the songwriters. whine whine whine, who gives a fuck
The songwriters. That’s who gives a fuck.
stfu no one here cares what you think, if you wanna talk to someone who does call the riaa
Off Topic:
Is there a problem with the Forums? I haven’t been able to get to anything for two days now. Keep getting “Invalid SQL” errors.
Don’t see anything on the Facebook or Twitter pages, though…
fixed, anytime something’s not working please point it out
I cannot post, nor can I use the contact us section. Posting sends me to a white blank page and contact us just stays in perpetual thinking mode. You really foobared the site this time with your goat porn browsing habits.
The question is, why should we care? Why should we care if a stupid file sharer is in debt for the rest of their lives because they are too greesy to buy a seven dollar record?
I mean greedy. Greasy too.
lol
Nice red hearing, still I can answer your question that has nothing to do with my argument. Its not ethical the actions being taken against individuals. Its not ethical because the consequences are disproportionate, most of society does not support the damages, and the laws were not even designed with private coping in mind. Even more so, there has yet to be independent studies that can prove damages due to file sharing. So to financially bankrupt people because people have a hunch something is affecting their sales is not justified. Now if you would like to refute my previous argument go right ahead.
So you’re saying that morally bankrupt people look to financially bankrupt people that they believe are morally bankrupt, to avoid themselves being financially bankrupt.
Doesn’t that just moreally bankrupt even more people?
Argh, “morally”, not “moreally”.
The question I raise is why should we care? Many business fail as a result of changes in technology, consumption or regulations, why should we care about songwritters? If they can’t survive in a modern musical environment than too bad, tough luck. Those that have skill and foresight can start to shift their funding from royalties to either set fees for use, or performance royalties.