How the Music Industry Learned to Love Piracy
The documentary "How Music Got Free" examines online music piracy's effects on the industry, highlighting the disparity between wealthy artists and struggling musicians, while critiquing streaming's minimal compensation for artists.
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The documentary "How Music Got Free," produced by Eminem and others, explores the impact of online music piracy on the music industry during the late 1990s and early 2000s. It portrays file-sharing innovators as digital Robin Hood figures who disrupted a multibillion-dollar industry characterized by corporate greed. The film highlights the stark contrast between the wealth of top artists and the struggles of average musicians, suggesting that piracy leveled the economic playing field. However, it also acknowledges the industry's initial outrage and litigation against piracy, which ultimately led to a shift towards streaming services. While the documentary presents streaming as a solution that benefits both consumers and artists, it overlooks the significant challenges faced by many musicians in this new economy. Streaming platforms dominate revenue, but artists receive minimal compensation, often leaving them unable to sustain a living from their work. The narrative suggests that the rise of streaming has created a market-driven utopia, yet many musicians feel marginalized and undervalued. The film's triumphalist tone contrasts sharply with the reality of a music landscape where corporate interests prevail, and the cultural richness of music is diminished. The documentary concludes with a critique of the industry's consolidation of wealth and power, drawing parallels to broader economic trends that disadvantage artists. Ultimately, while "How Music Got Free" tells an engaging story, it raises questions about the true cost of the music industry's evolution and the ongoing struggles of musicians in a profit-driven environment.
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- Many commenters express concern about the low compensation artists receive from streaming services, highlighting the disparity between wealthy and struggling musicians.
- Some argue that the shift to streaming has created a more competitive environment, making it harder for new artists to gain recognition amidst a vast amount of available music.
- There is a belief that the traditional music industry model was not necessarily better for artists, as many musicians historically relied on live performances for income.
- Several comments suggest that the music industry has adapted to piracy by embracing subscription models and digital distribution, but questions remain about fairness and transparency in revenue distribution.
- Some commenters advocate for alternative models, such as basic income for artists, to ensure they can sustain their creative work.
20 commentsI'm not sure what's supposed to happen, honestly. With the invention of home recording and all the attendant production tools, the lower barriers to entry, broader exposure due to the internet, etc., there was always going to be a vastly larger amount of music than there was 30 years ago. If the old model had not changed, we'd still be in a world with a glancingly small number of slots on the radio charts for each genre—those are the people the average person knows about, and spends money on—and most other musicians would be broke.
I assume. I could be wrong. But my two points are that it's not like the old model was friendly to artists either, and that it's not actually very easy for me to imagine a coherent model for music that would work be equitable for all artists in the world today, given the other changes that've taken place.
I don't think it's just to pretend that if there are 4-5x more people releasing music today, we would all would be spending 4-5x more on records and concerts than we did in 1996. And I am not saying that's what the author is saying, I'm just trying to work through the consequences of what I inferred from this article, the economics of which were a little hand-wavey.
I'm convinced (in particular by years of reading Bob Lefsetz's punditry [0], as well as working alongside multiple successful musicians, DJs, and industry agencies for many years) that Spotify single-handedly saved the aging and out-of-touch record business, that their payments to artists are fair, and that it's more accessible now than ever before by an order of magnitude to build a real, sustainable career as a musician.
You have to simply put in the work, and it is brutal, long, thankless, isolating work, on top of the Herculean task of creating something people legitimately want and connect with. And you should be attractive (not beautiful persay, but charismatic and authentic). And provide the illusion of access to you. And be kind to your fans. And maximize all of your potential channels (digital and IRL, from socials to tours to brand partnerships to merch/apparel to unpredictable, serendipitous syncs in film and tv (ex. Kate Bush "Running Up That Hill")), all the while cultivating fans like plants in a garden.
You have to travel and perform, and be present, and be the soundtrack to their lives, always meeting your fans where they are, however they congregate, and and and and and! For years and years. It takes a long time to enjoy a tree you've just planted.
People do not have the bandwidth, mentally or financially, to support or patronize more than a few artists that mean something significant to them. Just because the amount of people making and publishing music has exploded doesn't mean that listeners have available slots to add you into their mental playlist, until you keep doing what you're doing long enough that you appear, almost seamlessly, into a moment in their life that awes and delights and converts them into a believer.
There is no "right place at the right time" -- you have to be in the right place ALL the time, and eventually your random times become other peoples' "right time".
If you never give up, if you're always there, you'll also eventually be a staple on the scene -- you'll be, literally by default, "old guard" that people look up to. You'll have earned your respect, you'll have put in your dues, and the money / fame / power will come as an after-effect.
Any other situation where it's overnight success, those acts are created as nothing more than products to be sold. Both can make a lot of money, but money isn't the goal. Craft, legacy, driving culture, these are what artistry is supposed to be about. Money is secondary, and always comes if you take the time to learn the business and take your fan stewardship seriously.
The amount of shallow takes on Twitter, Threads, or god forbid LinkedIn about poor musicians who "deserve a living wage", who are "gamed by Big Tech", who are "slaves to the algorithm", who aren't living the dreams they weirdly feel entitled to, they don't deserve anything if their music and persona are nothing anybody wants, if they haven't put in the work, haven't shown up and met people continuously, haven't failed over and over, haven't paid for it with blood, sweat and tears, haven't stuck to their guns until they eventually get lucky -- not because the universe chose them, but because they made sure they were already all of what I wrote above when opportunity came knocking.
Like, sorry, the world has become hyper-connected, super decentralized, insular, tribal -- MTV can't break you anymore. None of us are paying attention to the same things as anybody else. It's harder than ever to get attention, and what you're selling had better be damn good -- but if you succeed, the rewards are richer than they've ever been.
Most plants get choked out on the jungle floor by the canopy, or end up adapting to quietly survive in their environment. Some defy all odds and break through the top. Chances are you're not going to the top, but you don't have to get choked out either.
Anyways.
fees were around (per media) :
CD media : $0.35
DVD media : $0.56
Memory card : $0.80
They then managed to pass a new law in 2022 that expanded the original law to also apply to phones, tablets, computers, basically anything that can store data.
Hard drive < 128GB (SSD or magnetic, internal or external) : $0.59
Hard drive > 128GB : $2.34
Tablet / Phone / Computer : $6.59
No wonder the music industry loves piracy. For every tablet/phone/computer sold, they’re literally pocketing $6.59 without ever lifting a finger or even delivering any content (not even a bad U2 album).
For every hard drive, memory card, or SSD sold, they’re pocketing from $0.59 to $2.34, again, those are not preloaded with music content either.
Of course, having paid the fee does not entitle you to any form of piracy.
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The problem isn’t just the ever-decreasing viability of even established, popular artists keeping food on the table. There is also a cultural poverty that attends the streaming economy. There is the ruthless profit maximization and the constant steering of listeners toward the same music. There is the lock-step social engineering and manufactured consensus. There is the escalating — and demeaning — sense of music being treated as a utility that need not be meaningfully engaged with.
"""
I think it's a bit early to start claiming victory in a paradigm shift to streaming that makes pirating obsolete. The price of video and music streaming has quickly been increasing, and in many cases, we've come full circle to being forced to deal with ads again. It's entirely possible for the music business to price their customers out of the market again to the point that an on-demand pirate streaming service completely overtakes legal streaming. I think we're already approaching that for video streaming.
Anyway it seems that the industry is pleased with where it ended up, the link between then and now is a bit tenuous. However it's also on us that we willingly handed over control to streaming companies for the convenience. Think about the number of times we've justified something by it being the cost of a few coffees a month. TV, music, Adobe.
Streaming music services are not perfect but at least for the most part I can move service and not lose access to the bands I enjoy listening to, whereas for video media the content is unique to the service. With the massive differences between music & video content financing & production costs, I wonder if there will ever be a consolidation to common video streaming services. E.g. you watch on Netflix or Paramount and the production company gets paid regardless.
A random example: Dan Fogelberg achieved some success 40 - 50 years ago, his style of soft singer songwriter has very little relevance today and yet he is getting 1.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
It's really hard for contemporary artists to get to 1 million Spotify listeners even if they are critically-lauded. For example, here are some artists from the top of the Album Of The Year aggregate list of lists of the best albums of 2023 [0], together with their monthly listeners on Spotify. In other words these artists' albums were widely viewed by critics as among the best albums of 2023.
Lankum - 93k Anohni - 452k Wednesday - 173k Young Fathers - 461k
Sure, critical acclaim does not equal commercial success, but these numbers highlight how hard it can be to break through even if you are really good.
And with the already massive catalog of recorded music swelling further and further every year the outlook for new artists is scary.
The massive choice and availability of music on streaming platforms is absolutely fantastic for music lovers but the competitive environment for contemporary artists is one where they are trying to find and grow an audience in a massive glut of content. It's hard, and very different from the old music biz.
I came across a new artist yesterday, NIKK has just 112 monthly Spotify listeners at this time, and their debut album is really great! Described as "ambient glitchpop soundscapes" give it a listen!
https://nikk.bandcamp.com/album/you-see-me-through-your-eyes
https://open.spotify.com/album/7uPhwANGy9w6oJryJESh0f?si=vDx...
I mean, if you look back before radio, the amount of money artists made from recordings was $0 (Okay, maybe some money off of sheet music or player piano sheets).
So in the grand scheme of human history, the primary income of musicians has been from their performances. That was true before recordings, and that is true again now. For a weird blip there was a cartel propping up the value of their recordings (of which the industry profited more than musicians). But this isn't a collapse of anything more than it's a regression to the mean - the marginal value of a copy of something approaches to 0 over time.
When you hear about artists complaining about royalties from streaming, it was a very, very, very elite group of musicians who ever made money just from dropping albums. You are only hearing from the winners of the Label system. Most bands ended up "owing" money to their record labels.
(The way record deals worked, you got paid an advance for songs/albums. But you only kept ~10% of album sales. From which you had to pay back your advance + recording expenses + marketing costs.)
Another point is while the revolution in the distribution model happened, another one happened which is that the gate-keeping essentially disappeared. In any case, the industry has embraced that through for example DistroKid being targeted at making a small revenue from any aspiring musician without any musical barrier. Note that Spotify has shares in Distrokid, even though they have pinky-sweared this special relationship does not give either to Spotify nor Distrokid any advantage regarding access to data from other involved third parties (other marketplaces, labels, etc).
To round it up, even if the parameters of the financial equations are partly released, the creative industry is known for its "creative accounting" (also known as Hollywood accounting). The creative accounting lets the industry take advantage of the tax breaks that are offered to the music industry in basically all countries on some conditions, and stretch these conditions to situations that the spirit of the law normally excludes.
There is another incentive to lie about the numbers. It gives the possibility to undercut any viable competition to consolidate a monopoly (the Amazon method).
I believe that the only thing that can really improve the situation is way more transparency than we have. The complaints from musicians are often unrealistic, but it is not their fault as they cannot have a realistic view of what things really cost. So all they have is to try to strengthen their side in the tug of war. Ideally we would move away from that process towards a cooperative model, but this is possible only through trust, which cannot be obtained by obscurity.
I don't think there is very much commercial software nowadays that doesn't include a subscription model. A direct result of rampant piracy
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemploymen...
tl;dr: Just give artists with body of work a basic wage and ask for nothing in return. See what they produce.
We will see at the end of 2025/2026 some report that suggests either this is feasible or not to continue.
This author manages to say nothing about this well-known phenomenon. Maybe the NYT also just writes brainless LLM articles now?
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