Online music piracy 'destroys local music'(oh noze! government help needed combat "cultural desert")

...The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) says that global government legislation is essential to the sector's survival.

It cited Spain as an example of a country which does not have laws in place to prevent illegal downloads.

Federation chairman John Kennedy said the situation in Spain is now "almost irreversible".

"Spain runs the risk of turning into a cultural desert," commented Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, at Universal Music Group.... "Drastic action needs to be taken in order to save the Spanish music industry."

In a market that is "rigged by piracy" it is non-English language music which suffers the most when the music industry tightens its belt added Mr Kennedy.

This is because global stars such as Lady Gaga, who topped the digital download chart of 2009 with 9.8m downloads for her single Poker Face, are regarded as more secure investments.

"...If there is a risk of kids losing their internet connection, they will stop," said Mr Kennedy.

He described the loss of the recent court case against BitTorrent website Oink as "a terrible disappointment" and an indication that current laws in the UK are "out of touch with where life is".

He expressed support for the bill's controversial clause 17, which would give the Secretary of State power to make changes to copyright laws.

"I hope they won't throw clause 17 overboard," he said. "We want this to be futureproof..."

A garage band or a local touring band can create a CD pretty cheaply and there are places like CD Baby which will sell it and digital downloads even if you can't get onto iTunes for some reason. So producing and distributing a song doesn't take much investment.

I went on Amazon and bought a CD from a "one hit wonder" singer from the 1970s. It was a new set of songs he had written.

The CD arrived and was a Lightscribe disc so I complained to the seller. When I got his reply I found that the "seller" was the actual 70s singer and he burned his own discs and distributed them mainly through Amazon to keep overhead down and make a little money.

He sent me another package with a new jewel case cover with his signature on it.

A few obvious axioms. The first is that people want music they have heard and liked. They don’t buy music of artists they’ve never heard of, and music they don’t know at all.

This is why Music Television was hugely successful. People still remember dozens of the artists (and just performers) they were introduced to in the 1980s. But when Music Television died and was replaced with whatever it is that MTV broadcasts today, the public familiarity with new artists dropped off to just two or three a year, if that.

The reason for this was that the music industry just couldn’t bear the idea of somebody, anybody, making money off of “their” product. As far as they were concerned, once a “contract for hire” artist wrote, performed, and paid for everything else up front, then ALL profits should go to the label, with none for anyone else, including royalties to the artist.

They are too greedy to even understand the concept of advertisement. That by advertising “their” product, they will sell more of it. So they demanded sky high royalties from Music Television, which refused to pay. People should pay them for the privilege of advertising “their” music. How stupid is that?

So why not dispatch the labels entirely, and sell music from a web site? A lot of bands do this, but it’s mostly just for their band.

But this is where P2P comes in. A simple search for an idea, not a particular artist, will give any number of suggestions. Then a downloader can pull down a track of music and listen to it. If they like what they hear, often they end up buying that artists album. If they don’t, then they pitch it.

In a single afternoon, they can explore a dozen new artists and even genres, finding what they like, so they have an idea what to try as new music in the future.

They have expanded their knowledge base. When you ask them who their favorite artist is, they no longer blurt out a name, but have to say that they like several.

And these are people who buy a lot of music.

Used to be if you had the tv on in your bar, it didn’t cost anything. Now you have to settle with ASCAP and BMI if you are going to keep the sound on.

it’s all about continually seeking out new revenue streams. And since the artists’ aren’t tracked who are being “infringed” (there is no accounting of what channel the bar owner had on when or what aired), the money is held by the collection agency.

But even when they do know who they collected money on behalf of, they don’t always pay out to the artist.

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