S
suzanne
Guest
I got this via email, which gives a new picture of what Napster is.
>This is an unedited transcript of Courtney Love's
>speech to the Digital Hollywood online
>entertainment conference, given in New York on May 16.
>
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>- - - - - - - - - - - -
>
>
>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. @#!!! 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 @#!!!ty 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 @#!!! is this guy? He wants
>to save a little cash so he @#!!!s 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 @#!!! 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
>
>
>--------
>Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin
>This is an unedited transcript of Courtney Love's
>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. @#!!! 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 @#!!!ty 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 @#!!! is this guy? He wants
>to save a little cash so he @#!!!s 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 @#!!! 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
>
>
>--------
>Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin