An Indie Musician's Guide to World Domination

Who really gets the money when you buy a cd in a store, or at a show, or online?

First off – I’m not really going to answer that question, and here’s why:

When you buy an album, or a t-shirt, or a concert ticket, you are making a purchase from a business. A musician has structured his or her business in a way they feel is appropriate, and has entered into binding contracts with people they hopefully trust. Those people are providing services which help the artist to further their career in ways that (again, hopefully) are worthwhile to the artist and worth whichever pieces of the pie they’ve made a decision to surrender in exchange for said services. Why should it be up to YOU to decide which employees of the business get paid? You don’t get to walk into McDonalds’, order a Big Mac and then say “..but I want THIS GIRL to get all the money from my purchase, because this sandwich is the work of HER hands and is going to be delicious.”

Besides, if you DID believe that, you’d be delusional to begin with and therefore incapable of making sound fiscal decisions. Big Macs are gross.

BUT.

But, but, BUT.

I know WHY people always ask me “where should I buy your album so that YOU get more money?” I absolutely understand the good intention and reasoning behind the query. You’re asking because you want to support ME, the artist writing and performing the music you enjoy, and not a faceless corporate entity who scrapes every penny they can from my art and giggles over champagne glasses full of truffles and caviar all the way to the bank in their super-stretch Lamborghini limo.

This is exactly the problem. This is why good people, who would never steal a fifteen dollar t-shirt from a store, don’t blink at stealing an album. They think they AREN’T really stealing from the artists they care so much about – or at least they think they aren’t stealing MUCH. And you know what? In a lot of cases, that’s totally accurate.

We’ve all heard enough stories about artists getting screwed by record companies. We all know that major label artists can sell millions of albums and walk away empty handed. We also know that the majority of music put out by majors is terrible, so if “stealing” an album means depriving an artist we like of the $0.12 they would have eventually had to sue the label to get, with the ADDED benefit of not supporting a label who puts out more bad music than good, who’s the victim? Especially if you make a pledge to see your chosen artist whenever they come to town, buy the t-shirts, etc. (Incidentally, don’t fool yourself. Tons of artists today sign what are known as “360 deals” – which means the label gets their cut of EVERYTHING, including shirts and ticket sales. What you’re actually doing is justifying your theft of an artist’s music by loftily “deciding” not to risk arrest by ripping off a t-shirt you want from a merch table, where there’s a lot more danger of being apprehended. You’re making the decision in your own head, independently of the artist, to get a t-shirt and cd, or concert ticket and cd, without paying for the cd).

Or, in some cases, you decide not to pay for an album because the artist has a private jet and “has enough money”. Problem is, ETHICALLY, this isn’t your call to make. If they’ve created a product that you want, and they’ve put the price where the market will bear it, your only ethical decision is whether to pay the set price for the service they’re providing for you. Why should someone be penalized because they’ve been successful? Why is it less wrong to steal $15 from a millionaire than it is to steal it from the jar of a homeless man? $15 is $15. Money isn’t worth more or less based on whose account it’s in, it holds an intrinsic value independent of its location or owner. That’s what money IS. If you start making these calls based on your assessment of how much one person “needs” the money vs. another, you’re essentially saying that the productivity and efforts of a successful person are INHERENTLY worth less than those of a less successful person. If you’re a collectivist, if you truly believe in the ideal of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, then you’re acting in line with your beliefs and we can’t really have this conversation. Or at least, it’s a very different conversation we can have elsewhere.

Back to the matter at hand.

Buying records at stores has a lot of benefits to artists. EVEN IF they never see a penny from your sale, other things happen: the record store makes a small profit, and can keep their doors open a little longer. They report the sale to the artist’s distributor, who decides that the artist is a worthwhile risk and agrees to put more money and effort into getting better placement and visibility for future albums. Numbers get reported to label execs who (as businesspeople) decide to bankroll another album for their artist, enabling that artist to keep doing what they love for a living. This USED to be the way the music industry worked, before people found out they didn’t have to pay anymore.

DON’T GET ME WRONG. The system is and was irrefutably broken. Many, if not most artists were getting screwed. Don’t believe me? Read this article, which has been around forever but eloquently illustrates the problem:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

When it comes right down to it, the REASON people are happy to rip off music is that our society has decided that all record labels are corrupt and unforgivably greedy, and that they are unfairly leeching off the artists they claim to champion. In a lot of cases, this isn’t inaccurate. As soon as an indie band gets signed, the fans instantly react as though there’s a vulture circling overhead and that their money will never get to the artist they want to support. Again, an accurate assessment in far too many cases. Some people actually feel like they’re HELPING the music industry by downloading instead of buying music; that they’ll help to reel in the labels and force them to only sign “good” artists who we’ll all want to pay for the privilege of hearing. (That’s not the way it works though – the majors, needing to meet their bottom line, just aim for LOWER common denominators to get bigger sample sizes.)

THE LABELS HAVE LOST WHATEVER CREDIBILITY THEY EVER HAD WITH CONSUMERS. Even the good ones – as soon as you brand yourself a “record label”, you’re the bad guys, and being a “bad guy” is a really hard stigma to shake once it’s on you. Just ask the lawyers.

The thing is: sure, lots of artists are intelligent, business-minded people who with the assistance of amazing free services online (like the ones I’ve written about on this site) can build themselves a viable career and keep it running. Artists are volatile by nature, however. Not every messed-up, self-absorbed prima donna of a trainwreck whose music you enjoy has the means or ability to build a successful business and get their music to you. Does that mean Lou Reed’s music, or Amy Winehouse’s music, or KURT COBAIN’s music is less valuable to you?

A better example: classical music. Without someone using their capital to hire an orchestra, pay for rehearsals, rent a concert hall and produce a recording, you would NEVER hear a new recording of Vaughn Williams’ “Lark Ascending”. The start-up costs for an orchestral recording are staggering, and very few soloists have the money kicking around to bankroll such a recording on their own.

OK. Rambling. No one ever said my writing was structured.

Here’s the thing: record labels need to understand that they’ve lost the mandate of heaven here. A major label is evil come to earth, and people don’t care to hear otherwise. They haven’t reached this conclusion by themselves; they’ve seen evidence to support their grudge time and time again. Thinking about this while making coffee, I had a bit of a cathartic moment (I’m serious, clouds opened, choirs choired, harps harped, the whole shebang).

People really DO want to pay artists for their music! They just don’t want to pay the evil labels!

Here’s my challenge: I want to see a major take the first step, and issue a press release saying “We understand that we’ve become the bad guys, and we’re sick of seeing our artists suffer and have their music stolen by their fans because of OUR sins. We hereby pledge to give our artists 100% of the money made from the sale of their music, after pressing and shipping charges. We’ll make our money from the tours we support, the t-shirts we design and print, the posters we sell and the cameo appearances in Judd Apatow films we negotiate on the artist’s behalf. Thank you, music fans, for keeping music alive.”

What have they got to lose? If everyone’s stealing the albums to begin with (which they keep claiming is the case) they aren’t really losing much money by doing something like this, right? It allows them to put their support firmly behind the artists they represent, wash their hands of the years of dirt accumulated by (as far as fans are concerned) “leeching” off of the creative efforts of their artists, and allows fans to make a decision to directly support artists they love. Considering the frequency with which I’m asked who exactly is getting the money from a cd sold, I have to conclude that a lot of people WANT to pay artists for their music, but are ok with downloading if they think the artist isn’t getting the money. So… GIVE THE ARTISTS THE MONEY. Put the ball back in the listener’s court and ask them: Is that REALLY why you’re ok with downloading? Or do you just not like paying for your music no matter who gets your money? HMMMM?

I’m not suggesting I see this happening, but I’m really curious what would happen to download numbers if, all of a sudden, people had to come to terms with the fact that they were now “stealing” directly from the artists. I think there are a lot of artists out there who DO have a close connection to their fans who would see an immediate increase in their sales numbers across the board. Fans would be motivated to go to a record store and buy an artist’s album if they knew that most of that money was going directly to the artist they’re supporting, with the added benefit of helping the industry know it’s worth continuing to develop that artist’s career. People keep saying that the internet can help artists succeed because it removes all the middle-men: so stop being middle-men! Stop getting between the music and the music fan, stop suing college kids for downloading singles, stop screwing artists, stop being the BAD GUY. There are still indie labels out there who can sell albums to fans of the LABEL, like Sub-Pop used to and Victory and yes, UFO. If fans see the label as a partner of the artist and not an oppressor, I really believe they’ll make the decision to vote with their wallets.

End of rant. For now.