F*** the Music Recording Industry

["loop.pool" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

This is an old speech but I reread it tonight and it
just made my blood boil.

It's really long and I warn you,   quite depressing,  but I think it's the 
truth
no matter what you think of it's author.

new paradigm, time!

*********************************************

This is an unedited transcript of a <sic> speech to the Digital
Hollywood online entertainment conference, given in New York on May 16.


"Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the
act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. 
I'm
not talking about Napster-type software. I'm talking about major label 
recording contracts.
I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do 
some recording-contract math:

This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20
percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band 
ever
got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on
some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's
better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram,
which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with
$500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. 
They
pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in
taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band
sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but
it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about
cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a
joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the
Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos 
cost
a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are
recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have
to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent
promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can
pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- 
are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes
$2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or
record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 
percent
royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses
equals ... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1
million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio
promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but
marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times 
Square
and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn
T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and
cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a
7-Eleven.

Of course, they had fun. Hearing yourself on the radio, selling records,
getting new fans and being on TV is great, but now the band doesn't have
enough money to pay the rent and nobody has any credit.
Worst of all, after all this, the band owns none of its work ... they can
pay the mortgage forever but they'll never own the house. Like I said: 
Sharecropping.
Our media says, "Boo hoo, poor pop stars, they had a nice ride. Fuck them
for speaking up"; but I say this dialogue is imperative. And cynical media
people, who are more fascinated with celebrity than most celebrities, need
to reacquaint themselves with their value systems.
When you look at the legal line on a CD, it says copyright 1976 Atlantic
Records or copyright 1996 RCA Records. When you look at a book, though,
it'll say something like copyright 1999 Susan Faludi, or David Foster
Wallace. Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the
contract runs out, writers gets their books back. But record companies own
our copyrights forever.
The system's set up so almost nobody gets paid.

* The RIAA *

Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support 
of
the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded
music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.
He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time
artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its 
way
to the White House for the president's signature.
That subtle change in copyright law will add billions of dollars to record
company bank accounts over the next few years -- billions of dollars that
rightfully should have been paid to artists. A "work for hire" is now owned
in perpetuity by the record company.
Under the 1978 Copyright Act, artists could reclaim the copyrights on their
work after 35 years. If you wrote and recorded "Everybody Hurts," you at
least got it back to as a family legacy after 35 years. But now, because of
this corrupt little pisher, "Everybody Hurts" never gets returned to your
family, and can now be sold to the highest bidder.
Over the years record companies have tried to put "work for hire" 
provisions
in their contracts, and Mr. Glazier claims that the "work for hire" only
"codified" a standard industry practice. But copyright laws didn't identify
sound recordings as being eligible to be called "works for hire," so those
contracts didn't mean anything. Until now.
Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing as writing an 
English
textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one language
to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in the
"work for hire" act. And writing a standardized test is a work for hire. 
Not
making a record.
So an assistant substantially altered a major law when he only had the
authority to make spelling corrections. That's not what I learned about how
government works in my high school civics class.
Three months later, the RIAA hired Mr. Glazier to become its top lobbyist 
at
a salary that was obviously much greater than the one he had as the 
spelling
corrector guy.
The RIAA tries to argue that this change was necessary because of a
provision in the bill that musicians supported. That provision prevents
anyone from registering a famous person's name as a Web address without 
that
person's permission. That's great. I own my name, and should be able to do
what I want with my name.
But the bill also created an exception that allows a company to take a
person's name for a Web address if they create a work for hire. Which means
a record company would be allowed to own your Web site when you record your
"work for hire" album. Like I said: Sharecropping.
Although I've never met any one at a record company who "believed in the
Internet," they've all been trying to cover their asses by securing
everyone's digital rights. Not that they know what to do with them. Go to a
major label-owned band site. Give me a dollar for every time you see an
annoying "under construction" sign. I used to pester Geffen (when it was a
label) to do a better job. I was totally ignored for two years, until I got
my band name back. The Goo Goo Dolls are struggling to gain control of 
their
domain name from Warner Bros., who claim they own the name because they set
up a shitty promotional Web site for the band.
Orrin Hatch, songwriter and Republican senator from Utah, seems to be the
only person in Washington with a progressive view of copyright law. One
lobbyist says that there's no one in the House with a similar view and that
"this would have never happened if Sonny Bono was still alive."
By the way, which bill do you think the recording industry used for this
amendment?
The Record Company Redefinition Act? No. The Music Copyright Act? No. The
Work for Hire Authorship Act? No.
How about the Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999?
Stealing our copyright reversions in the dead of night while no one was
looking, and with no hearings held, is piracy.
It's piracy when the RIAA lobbies to change the bankruptcy law to make it
more difficult for musicians to declare bankruptcy. Some musicians have
declared bankruptcy to free themselves from truly evil contracts. TLC
declared bankruptcy after they received less than 2 percent of the $175
million earned by their CD sales. That was about 40 times less than the
profit that was divided among their management, production and record
companies.
Toni Braxton also declared bankruptcy in 1998. She sold $188 million worth
of CDs, but she was broke because of a terrible recording contract that 
paid
her less than 35 cents per album. Bankruptcy can be an artist's only 
defense
against a truly horrible deal and the RIAA wants to take it away.
Artists want to believe that we can make lots of money if we're successful.
But there are hundreds of stories about artists in their 60s and 70s who 
are
broke because they never made a dime from their hit records. And real
success is still a long shot for a new artist today. Of the 32,000 new
releases each year, only 250 sell more than 10,000 copies. And less than 30
go platinum.
The four major record corporations fund the RIAA. These companies are rich
and obviously well-represented. Recording artists and musicians don't 
really
have the money to compete. The 273,000 working musicians in America make
about $30,000 a year. Only 15 percent of American Federation of Musicians
members work steadily in music.
But the music industry is a $40 billion-a-year business. One-third of that
revenue comes from the United States. The annual sales of cassettes, CDs 
and
video are larger than the gross national product of 80 countries. Americans
have more CD players, radios and VCRs than we have bathtubs.
Story after story gets told about artists -- some of them in their 60s and
70s, some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all enjoy, use
and sing -- living in total poverty, never having been paid anything. Not
even having access to a union or to basic health care. Artists who have
generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke and un-cared for.
And they're not actors or participators. They're the rightful owners,
originators and performers of original compositions.
This is piracy.

* Technology is not piracy  *

This opinion is one I really haven't formed yet, so as I speak about 
Napster
now, please understand that I'm not totally informed. I will be the first 
in
line to file a class action suit to protect my copyrights if Napster or 
even
the far more advanced Gnutella doesn't work with us to protect us. I'm on
[Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich's side, in other words, and I feel really
badly for him that he doesn't know how to condense his case down to a
sound-bite that sounds more reasonable than the one I saw today.
I also think Metallica is being given too much grief. It's anti-artist, for
one thing. An artist speaks up and the artist gets squashed: Sharecropping.
Don't get above your station, kid. It's not piracy when kids swap music 
over
the Internet using Napster or Gnutella or Freenet or iMesh or beaming their
CDs into a My.MP3.com or MyPlay.com music locker. It's piracy when those
guys that run those companies make side deals with the cartel lawyers and
label heads so that they can be "the labels' friend," and not the artists'.
Recording artists have essentially been giving their music away for free
under the old system, so new technology that exposes our music to a larger
audience can only be a good thing. Why aren't these companies working with
us to create some peace?
There were a billion music downloads last year, but music sales are up.
Where's the evidence that downloads hurt business? Downloads are creating
more demand.
Why aren't record companies embracing this great opportunity? Why aren't
they trying to talk to the kids passing compilations around to learn what
they like? Why is the RIAA suing the companies that are stimulating this 
new
demand? What's the point of going after people swapping cruddy-sounding
MP3s? Cash! Cash they have no intention of passing onto us, the writers of
their profits.
At this point the "record collector" geniuses who use Napster don't have 
the
coolest most arcane selection anyway, unless you're into techno. Hardly any
pre-1982 REM fans, no '60s punk, even the Alan Parsons Project was
underrepresented when I tried to find some Napster buddies. For the most
part, it was college boy rawk without a lot of imagination. Maybe that's 
the
demographic that cares -- and in that case, My Bloody Valentine and Bert
Jansch aren't going to get screwed just yet. There's still time to
negotiate.

* Destroying traditional access *

Somewhere along the way, record companies figured out that it's a lot more
profitable to control the distribution system than it is to nurture 
artists.
And since the companies didn't have any real competition, artists had no
other place to go. Record companies controlled the promotion and marketing;
only they had the ability to get lots of radio play, and get records into
all the big chain store. That power put them above both the artists and the
audience. They own the plantation.
Being the gatekeeper was the most profitable place to be, but now we're in 
a
world half without gates. The Internet allows artists to communicate
directly with their audiences; we don't have to depend solely on an
inefficient system where the record company promotes our records to radio,
press or retail and then sits back and hopes fans find out about our music.
Record companies don't understand the intimacy between artists and their
fans. They put records on the radio and buy some advertising and hope for
the best. Digital distribution gives everyone worldwide, instant access to
music.
And filters are replacing gatekeepers. In a world where we can get anything
we want, whenever we want it, how does a company create value? By 
filtering.
In a world without friction, the only friction people value is editing. A
filter is valuable when it understands the needs of both artists and the
public. New companies should be conduits between musicians and their fans.
Right now the only way you can get music is by shelling out $17. In a world
where music costs a nickel, an artist can "sell" 100 million copies instead
of just a million.
The present system keeps artists from finding an audience because it has 
too
many artificial scarcities: limited radio promotion, limited bin space in
stores and a limited number of spots on the record company roster.
The digital world has no scarcities. There are countless ways to reach an
audience. Radio is no longer the only place to hear a new song. And tiny
mall record stores aren't the only place to buy a new CD.

* I'm leaving *

Now artists have options. We don't have to work with major labels anymore,
because the digital economy is creating new ways to distribute and market
music. And the free ones amongst us aren't going to. That means the slave
class, which I represent, has to find ways to get out ofg enough to know
that any alliance where I'm an owned service is going to be doomed.
When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live show, I
couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up every single thing
imaginable. The venue was empty but sold out. There were thousands of 
people
outside who wanted to be there, trying to get tickets. And there were the
empty seats the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to market
because they were clueless about music.
It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial a number. You
had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do all this crap that nobody
wanted to do. Why not just bring a can to the door?
On top of all this, I felt embarrassed to be an advertising agent for a
product that I'd never let my daughter use. Plus they were a condescending
bunch of little guys. They treated me like I was an ungrateful little bitch
who should be groveling for the experience to play for their damn soda.
I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six-pack of the rival
cola onstage. Also lots of unwholesome cursing and nudity occurred. This 
way
I knew that no matter how tempting the cash was, they'd never do business
with me again.
If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then fine. But I
think most musicians don't want to be responsible for your clean-cut,
wholesome, all-American, sugar corrosive cancer-causing, all white people,
no women allowed sodapop images.
Nor, on the converse, do we want to be responsible for your vice-inducing,
liver-rotting, child-labor-law-violating, all white people, 
no-women-allowed
booze images.
So as a defiant moody artist worth my salt, I've got to think of something
else. Tampax, maybe.

* Money *

As a user, I love Napster. It carries some risk. I hear idealistic business
people talk about how people that are musicians would be musicians no 
matter
what and that we're already doing it for free, so what about copyright?
Please. It's incredibly easy not to be a musician. It's always a struggle
and a dangerous career choice. We are motivated by passion and by money.
That's not a dirty little secret. It's a fact. Take away the incentive for
major or minor financial reward and you dilute the pool of musicians. I am
not saying that only pure artists will survive. Like a few of the more
utopian people who discuss this, I don't want just pure artists to survive.
Where would we all be without the trash? We need the trash to cover up our
national depression. The utopians also say that because in their minds
"pure" artists are all Ani DiFranco and don't demand a lot of money. Why 
are
the utopians all entertainment lawyers and major label workers anyway? I
demand a lot of money if I do a big huge worthwhile job and millions of
people like it, don't kid yourself. In economic terms, you've got an
industry that's loathsome and outmoded, but when it works it creates some
incentive and some efficiency even though absolutely no one gets paid.
We suffer as a society and a culture when we don't pay the true value of
goods and services delivered. We create a lack of production. Less good
music is recorded if we remove the incentive to create it.
Music is intellectual property with full cash and opportunity costs 
required
to create, polish and record a finished product. If I invest money and time
into my business, I should be reasonably protected from the theft of my
goods and services. When the judgment came against MP3.com, the RIAA sought
damages of $150,000 for each major-label-"owned" musical track in MP3's
database. Multiply by 80,000 CDs, and MP3.com could owe the gatekeepers 
$120
billion.
But what about the Plimsouls? Why can't MP3.com pay each artist a fixed
amount based on the number of their downloads? Why on earth should MP3.com
pay $120 billion to four distribution companies, who in most cases won't
have to pay a nickel to the artists whose copyrights they've stolen through
their system of organized theft?
It's a ridiculous judgment. I believe if evidence had been entered that
ultimately it's just shuffling big cash around two or three corporations, I
can only pray that the judge in the MP3.com case would have seen the RIAA's
case for the joke that it was.
I'd rather work out a deal with MP3.com myself, and force them to be
artist-friendly, instead of being laughed at and having my money hidden by 
a
major label as they sell my records out the back door, behind everyone's
back.
How dare they behave in such a horrified manner in regards to copyright law
when their entire industry is based on piracy? When Mister Label Head Guy,
whom my lawyer yelled at me not to name, got caught last year selling
millions of "cleans" out the back door. "Cleans" being the records that
aren't for marketing but are to be sold. Who the fuck is this guy? He wants
to save a little cash so he fucks the artist and goes home? Do they fire
him? Does Chuck Phillips of the LA Times say anything? No way! This guy's a
source! He throws awesome dinner parties! Why fuck with the status quo?
Let's pick on Lars Ulrich instead because he brought up an interesting
point!

* Conclusion *

I'm looking for people to help connect me to more fans, because I believe
fans will leave a tip based on the enjoyment and service I provide. I'm not
scared of them getting a preview. It really is going to be a global village
where a billion people have access to one artist and a billion people can
leave a tip if they want to.
It's a radical democratization. Every artist has access to every fan and
every fan has access to every artist, and the people who direct fans to
those artists. People that give advice and technical value are the people 
we
need. People crowding the distribution pipe and trying to ignore fans and
artists have no value. This is a perfect system.
If you're going to start a company that deals with musicians, please do it
because you like music. Offer some control and equity to the artists and 
try
to give us some creative guidance. If music and art and passion are
important to you, there are hundreds of artists who are ready to rewrite 
the
rules.
In the last few years, business pulled our culture away from the idea that
music is important and emotional and sacred. But new technology has brought
a real opportunity for change; we can break down the old system and give
musicians real freedom and choice.
A great writer named Neal Stephenson said that America does four things
better than any other country in the world: rock music, movies, software 
and
high-speed pizza delivery. All of these are sacred American art forms. 
Let's
return to our purity and our idealism while we have this shot.
Warren Beatty once said: "The greatest gift God gives us is to enjoy the
sound of our own voice. And the second greatest gift is to get somebody to
listen to it."
And for that, I humbly thank you.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - Courtney Love