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February 17, 2005

Have Fun Storming The Castle!

Photos and a longer recap of last night’s show are coming, as soon as I can get a Flickr Pro account.

So, this week ASCAP (one of the big performing rights organizations that collects, among other things, radio and TV royalties for songwriters) rolled out a licensing plan that includes podcasting. The plan is already getting bashed. Stanford law student Joe Gratz points out that ASCAP might be exceeding its authority, because it only handles fees for “performances” of songs. Streaming audio is a performance. Podcasts are downloads, which are physical copies. Joe’s point is ASCAP’s license doesn’t mean squat.

But here’s the part that really worries me as a musician. Matt May, who runs the increasingly popular and influential Stacatto podcast, tries to puzzle out all the crazy licenses needed to run his podcast legally in the wake of the ASCAP announcement. His conclusion: you can muddle your way through all the fees, or go with an alternative licensing system like Creative Commons.

Why does this worry me? Because the majority of songwriters I’ve talked with are still more concerned about “having my song ripped off” or “people stealing my music” than anything else. I keep telling people: stop worrying about piracy and start worrying about obscurity. My biggest fear is not that someone might be stealing my songs, but that no one knows I have songs worthy of their attention, let alone worth stealing.

It’s very likely that most podcasters, MP3 blogs and niche internet radio will simply give the finger to the whole PRO system entirely and go with Creative Commons-licensed content or something similar. And if they do, those musicians who still cling to the old model will be doubly boned, because not only will they be closing themselves off from a new, fast-growing alternative media form — they still won’t be getting radio play.

It’s just stupid. Commercial radio typically has zero interest in unproven artists. Now comes along a lively alternative channel, with lots and lots of potential listeners, one that actually prides itself on its DIY and indie ethic and championing new and unheard music and — what, you’re upset because they don’t want to play by commercial radio rules? Hey, good luck storming the castle!

The part that really sends me into shivering fits is that a some of these same musicians really do believe the internet is going to save us all, magically granting us careers as pop stars — so long as no one can ever make a free copy of a song, ever. Arrgh.

UPDATE: I think I just found my new tagline! “Scott Andrew: Worth Stealing.”

12 Comments

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And Matt did speak thusly:

You have a flickr pro account now.

Get to uploadin’!
And victor did speak thusly:

Scott gets angry! Man, this is the perfect post. Thanks for putting so plainly.
And Howlin' Hobbit did speak thusly:

Hiyas Scott!

I just gave you another shout out in my blog at:

http://www.howlinhobbit.com/blog/2005/02/what-indie-musicians-need-to-worry.html

Hey! I’ll stop doing this as soon as you stop writing quotable stuff.

ciao for now…

HH
And c.layne did speak thusly:

why would any indie artist in their right mind want to go the mainstream route? i’ve never heard anything but horror stories about the big record companies/battles over ‘intellectual property.’ i understand how making a profit is alluring, but you have to get people to hear the shit first!! and how better to do that then to let them legally download it.. for free.. and enjoy it. you instantly have a bond with that person, and another potential album buyer. i’ve yet to see anything i don’t like about the CC license.
And lisa db did speak thusly:

(were you quoting from “the princess bride?”)

i think about 90% of my sales have been due to word-of-mouth (word of blog?) by people who have “stolen” my songs.
And victor did speak thusly:

(your career is *mostly* dead)
And Steven Acevedo did speak thusly:

Nicely written, Scott. I wish other artists even the ones with the major labels had the balls to stand up for the music cosumer’s rights instead of being misled by the shit and promises mantra of the music industry.
And Rusty Hodge did speak thusly:

Why are we differentiating between an “on demand performance” that is “streamed” and a program that is downloaded?

Most of the time when you stream content - especially static, pre-produced content - your software downloads it onto a cache on your machine.

Podcasting just downloads a similar cached file to your iPod for on demand playback.

Saying that streaming is a performance because there is no physical copy made and Podcasting isn’t because there is a physical copy made even though the usage is the same doesn’t make sense. Because you can Streamrip streams and turn them into a physical copy with almost no effort at all.
And scottandrew did speak thusly:

Rusty: good question, and I think that’s part of the reason why the rules are so confusing with regard to internet “transmissions.” One difference is that a stream, while caching data in a similar method to a download, also contains an audible component. The purpose of streaming media is to allow a media file to begin playing before all of the data is delivered to the client end. So I think the argument that streams and downloads are no different because they both cache data.

Of course, there’s a lot more confusion ahead. If I put up an MP3 file on my site for you to download, and you happen to have a Quicktime plugin that causes it to stream, am I then responsible for a “performance?”

ASCAP might want to classify all “internet transmissions” as “performances” but (IMO and IANAL) they don’t have the authority to make such a rule. The law (I guess it would be Title 17?) defines what constitutes a “performance” but was also written long before the internet and streaming media came along.
And spinhead did speak thusly:

Imagine the horror of having your very own song spreading like wildfire all over the internet. Scott, you must be crazy to want such a thing. Much better to have a digitally protected physical copy of your CD sitting at the bottom of the pile in the mailroom at Atlantic Records, right?

Please, please, please, may I write and record something worth stealing and spreading like wildfire all over the internet . . .
And Berns did speak thusly:

Well said man. Internet is all about exposure. I like to be optimistic an think that this is still a very chaotic and confusing time when it comes to the legal formalities of online media, and that in a few years everything will have settled down and balanced. http://bernsonline.com/
And Stephanie did speak thusly:

Rock on spinhead!!