- November 13, 2009 8:10 pm
Copyrights and other law topics aren’t really covered here a whole lot. It’s for good reason though. This is a tech blog aimed more at gadgets. But being the nerd that I am, I follow many more areas than just gadgets. Music copyrights and the whole music label tango that so many deal with on a daily basis interest me. We see daily how the digital world in which we love constantly gets lambasted by labels and content owners as the cause for declining music sales, the reason for sinking profits, and overall the start of the end of the world. Those facts have been disproven many times over but that doesn’t stop them from repeating the same sentences over and over. They claim that because of the digital age, copyrights need to be protected to a higher degree and more of them filed.
Thankfully for us the end user as well as artists, the end (or at least significant decline) of label control of the music scene is one that desperately needs to come. It seems like an implausible, almost laughable dream — that labels will lose their copyright with the artists getting back what is rightfully theirs. But it isn’t that far of a stretch. Thanks to a law passed in 1976 called the “U.S. Copyright Act of 1976″, artists will very soon be able to reclaim their property giving them the ability to succeed where the labels have failed time and time again — to properly manage, distribute, and market musical content in the digital age…
- November 13, 2009 8:55 am
Image Property of Times Labs UK
For all that crap and BS propaganda we hear concerning the declining music industry, I could literally have a kazillion dollars if I were paid a nickel everytime such stories were shoved upon the world. Those in charge of big labels decry again and again how the digital age is killing music, that we’re all thieves, and that they don’t make enough money. To cap off their trifecta + 1, they constantly put the stranglehold on new and emerging technologies and services by way of frivolous and stupid lawsuits. So it’s with great glee and jubilation that I share with you some fairly reliable statistics that show while the music labels are in fact declining in relevance and revenue, the music industry and more importantly artists are actually making more at an increasing rate.
The study was conducted by The Times Labs blog which pours over mountains of data concerning music sales and live performances and finds that artists are making more money because people are going to more live concerts. If you didn’t know, artists get a bigger cut of live performance revenues. I have no doubt in my mind that many people who go to these shows and live concerts did so because of a CD they pirated — their I said it straight out — and were interested in hearing them live. A person whom had never heard of a particular band that they never would have paid for a CD up front is now paying to go to their concert and probably will pay for more band merchandise as time goes on.
In the end, the only person being “hurt” by file sharing (legal and illegal) are the labels. Because of this, and the fact that they love take other peoples’ money, I wouldn’t be surprised if they started ratcheting up their piece of the live concert pie. In a world were the few greedy people run the lives of the majority, I can only say that this is the sweetest news yet. The sooner we eliminate the middleman the better off we’ll all be.
The full report is extremely intriguing and certainly one the labels wouldn’t want you to see (and I’m sure they’ll smear it when they get around to it). So do yourself as well as all of us a favor and read the report.
Boing Boing > Times Online
