Three More Views on the Music Biz

It seems like an appropriate time to be looking at the music business, with the annual attention-grabbing Grammy awards. I haven’t watched the whole show (but my ReplayTV did), so I don’t know yet if the new NARAS president made comments similar to those made last year. There’s no question in my mind that the music industry will have to come up with new models.

Maybe China is one place to look for new music industry models. Though it’s sad to think of corporate sponsorship as being the way to get quality music made, apparently there are ways to make it work. Robbie Williams’ new contract is cited as an example of the new style contracts making it to the West. Moby has famously made a small cottage industry out of marketing his songs for use in commercial areas.

The record companies incessantly talk about trying to protect the artists’ interests. There are certainly artists who have benefitted greatly from the work of the record companies (notice how many Grammy winners thanked their record labels). But, there are heaps of musicians who have not gained much for their labels,… consider the NY Daily News’ hypothetical 500,000 copy selling band that ends up making just $40,000 per member. Sure, they would get a bit of fame and fun. But, if their release was one of the top 128 out of 30,000 releases and all they make is $160,000 total for the four members, that’s a pretty sorry state. The label, of course, lands more than $1M.

Finally for this little round-up, Reason has an article about the economics of intellectual property. The article discusses the controversy surrounding a recent paper by a couple of economists (Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine) which states that providing monopolies in the form of copyrights and patents is not economically the best model. Many people take things like copyright for granted, but copyright exists in this country specifically for the good of society. The Constitution does not have a clause protecting the rights of “media conglomerates”, so the only thing holding the IP system up is decades of tradition and law.

I’m torn when it comes to IP law. I don’ t think that the public is well-served at all by the current systems, but I know that the things I am most into (software, music, writing) are all intangible products that need to have a way to generate income for me. Thus far, my income comes from services I provide and that income is in no danger from changing IP law. But, I think everyone who works in these types of businesses dream of hitting the pot of gold and having a smash success that pays for their financial freedom. The whole notion of that pot of gold depends on IP law (particularly for things like software, which don’t really have a “performance” component like music does).

I haven’t read through the Reason article yet, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s always interesting to read things that take conventional wisdeom and turn it on its head.