File Sharing Will Lead To Better MusicThere’s a cool paper about file sharing that was written by economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf this past summer. The conclusion of the paper is that file sharing benefits society. One of the pieces of evidence for that is that less restrictive copyright laws have encouraged greater numbers of creative people to create. The authors of the study say:
Overall production figures for the creative industries appear to be consistent with this view that file sharing has not discouraged artists and publishers. While album sales have generally fallen since 2000, the number of albums being created has exploded. In 2000, 35,516 albums were released. Seven years later, 79,695 albums (including 25,159 digital albums) were published (Nielsen SoundScan, 2008). Even if file sharing were the reason that sales have fallen, the new technology does not appear to have exacted a toll on the quantity of music produced. Obviously, it would be nice to adjust output for differences in quality, but we are not aware of any research that has tackled this question.
Similar trends can be seen in other creative industries. For example, the worldwide number of feature films produced each year has increased from 3,807 in 2003 to 4,989 in 2007 (Screen Digest, 2004 and 2008). Countries where film piracy is rampant have typically increased production. This is true in South Korea (80 to 124), India (877 to 1164), and China (140 to 402). During this period, U.S. feature film production has increased from 459 feature films in 2003 to 590 in 2007 (MPAA, 2007).
So it’s not just the music industry, but also the film industry where creativity increases when the system is opened up. The reason I’m such a big proponent of file sharing isn’t because I believe that it directly benefits most indie music artists, but that it’s a symptom of a much larger force that encourages creativity from many more people. That’s a good thing.
I don’t think most musicians are sitting around making calculations in their heads about how much ROI they can expect from letting their music flourish on the networks. But they do see file sharing as a cue that the world is a lot more free; that there are fewer barriers to creativity. And that’s encouraging because it means that people will create music because they can express themselves in ways they couldn’t before; and also profit if they so wish.
That’s powerful. One of the consequences of making channels open and free is that you get a lot more people who do creative things because they just love to as opposed to doing it for profit. And one thing we know is that people who do things out of love surpass those who do them for money.
We see this with publishing, for instance. Blogs are a force to be reckoned with. A lot of people thought that blogging would never catch on because most blogs aren’t good. And yes, most blogs aren’t good, but the best blogs are often much better than the best big online publications. The best blogs are written by people who love and know their subject area. Blogs prove that the best creative work is done not when people do it for money but when they do it to express themselves.
We see the same thing in the software world. One of the things that castrated Microsoft is open source. Firefox is a better browser than Explorer because it’s been built up by thousands of hackers who work for free. They do it because they like the challenge. You just can’t pay people to do something better than people who will do it for free. That’s why Microsoft is becoming irrelevant.
One of the reasons I’m so optimistic about the music industry(as opposed to the record industry) is that openness has brought back creativity. As with the software world, everybody now feels like the evil giant has been slain and they are now free to do whatever they want. That’s going to statistically mean that there will be many more people entering the music world who will be in it for the love of creativity.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Well thats some awesome news to my ears
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:16 pm
2010 will be another down year for the music biz overall. This document confirms the oversaturation of the music industry overall will eventually turn it into non-profit organization for everyone. For people who make their living making music I can’t think of a a worse scenario than this. The United States is the only civilized country in the world that does not support cultural integrity to the level other countries support their artists.
While creativity is one thing; professionally produced music is quite another.
Janet Hansen
Scout66.com
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:27 pm
For the working class professional musician in the United States, I cannot think of a worse scenario than this. Professional musicians make their living making music. I’d like to know how Mr. Schiller makes his living.
Janet Hansen
Scout66.com
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Mr. Schiller,
I do enjoy reading your articles still, and you & I both do see ‘eye-to-eye’ from time to time – however, this is not one of those times again
With this article, I’m mainly having a rather difficult time in trying to understand your reasoning for ‘the more artists on the market, the better.’ This just doesn’t make much sense to me at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for creativity & people being able to do whatever it is that they want to do. But you & I have sorta debated this before: “If you’re ‘goal’ in the music industry is to stand-out, make money, & succeed – hopefully then, your competition out there will remain ‘reasonably low’, and not everyone PLUS their next-door neighbor is all of the sudden trying to flood the market by recording songs on their laptops & become ultra-famous, overnight.”
I’m just simply trying to understand where you’re coming from here. The music business has always been extremely difficult to get into & make a living out of it to begin with. But nowadays, every which way you turn – 8000 more bands, singer/songwriters, DJ’s, rappers, etc – come onto the scene each & every day! Thus, making it WAY more difficult for YOU to ‘get noticed’, signed, or whatever it is you’re looking for in ’success’.
Am I saying that all of these ‘newer’ artists or bands should be completely stopped or banned? – of course not – but I just can’t see why in the world you would think it’s such a ‘great thing’ for flooding the market with more & more artists each day, that’s all.
Take ‘American Idol’ for instance.
Back ‘before’ this show was first launched and began to air years ago – the music industry (especially in America) was actually an entirely different scene. Being in a band or being a recording artist of any kind, still took a LOT of hard work, time, dedication, and practice. Bands or independent artists that had been around for many years, and had truly ‘paid their dues’ – all of the sudden (& practically ‘overnight’) just got completely FLOODED & pushed back to the rear, – just to make room for all of these new, overnight ‘American Idol’ sensations! Then after that first hideous season, the country apparently needed even a bigger ‘fix’ and decided, ‘Hey, anybody can do this! I think I’ll give it a go myself!! Maybe even my daughter as well!!”
And so it began.
Since then, it seems like ‘most’ of these ‘new’, so-called ‘artists’ of any type in the music industry, are mostly just fairly untalented people who want to get to the absolute ‘top’ as fast as possible, make their fast-mega-money, and get their picture on the front cover of People magazine every other month.
But what about all of those bands and artists from years earlier?, The ones who really ‘did’ pay their dues & worked their fingers down to the bone for so many years? Again, the music industry was already hard enough on them to begin with, years ago – but now? and with SO many people trying to ‘reach the top’ each & every day, via their laptops & facebooks? – those older artists don’t hardly even stand a chance anymore.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how you could possibly think that the music industry of today is being ‘benefited’ by having colossal amounts of ‘new’ musicians, bands, artists, etc – flood onto the scene, every single day now. It may sound all ‘nice and good’ on paper, but in reality? – it’s a HUGE misfortune.
- BM
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:57 am
I’ve always been for the sharing of music by individuals for the cultural benefit of us all. However, the internet is a constantly changing landscape and new pitfalls appear as time goes by. Just want to alert fellow music artists to a growing number of commercial sites that are sourcing mp3 direct download links from many sources on the net and using them without permission in a way that in my view is little more than a scam. Take a look at the search on my artist name at a site called ‘bomb-mp3.com’ for example:
http://www.bomb-mp3.com/index.php?search=pixieguts&submit=Search
You will see a number of my tracks appearing on that page. These tracks have been sourced from free mp3 download links at sites like Last.fm, Ning and even one of my collaborators’ own website. The tracks are being offered by the site without permission for free download, streaming, viral embeds bearing the sites’ commercial logo and (here’s the main scam part from my point of view) the site is also offering ringtones of each track. If visitors click on the tracks’ ringtones links they are taken to another website that attempts to lure them into entering their mobile phone number. If they do this without reading the ultra fine print, they will have automatically signed up for an ongoing paid ringtone subscription (the one I saw was $10 per week).
I don’t know how other artists feel about this but I am far from happy that my music is being increasingly used in large scale commercial scams without my permission and of course with no share of returns coming to me and my music collaborators either.
If you are an artist you can search on your own band name to see if your music is being used in this way on that site too. Other sites I know of that are doing this include beemp3.com, abmp3.com and mp3raid.com.
It seems these viral sites cannot source music that is not available on a direct free mp3 download link. Sites that are currently safe from these ringtones sites use Java or other safer methods of sharing downloads (such as my favorite, Bandcamp).
Journey well in the internet wilds…
January 23rd, 2010 at 2:51 pm
@pixieguts If I were in your shoes I would probably think it’s kind of cool that people are digging my music enough to want to commercialize it. It means that somebody likes your music enough to pay attention. That’s a big deal because there’s so much music out there. It’s also free marketing. I understand that there is an element of disingenuousness in using an artist’s music for commercial purposes without compensating that artist, but the uncomfortable truth is that that’s what the music industry is becoming. Music in and of itself is just replicable information that carries little value. Nobody’s going to stop people from using other people’s songs for things like this and as long as that’s the way the world works now, take advantage of it. You have to change your worldview. Maybe you could try to contact the people who are using your music(if possible) to see what you can work out.
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:59 pm
“If I were in your shoes I would probably think it’s kind of cool that people are digging my music enough to want to commercialize it.”
There’s absolutely no concious choice involved, these types of sites simply mechanically trawl the internet and grab any free mp3s available.
“is an element of disingenuousness in using an artist’s music for commercial purposes without compensating that artist”
It’s not just an ‘element of disingenuousness’, it’s quite blantant ripping off of both the artist and the users of that site.
I’d rather have a smaller audience, keep my music on a smaller number of sites and not have my artist name associated with scams such as this. I suspect this type of scam site will be around for the forseeable future, but it doesn’t mean anyone has to buy into the idea that their music SHOULD be freely available for anyone to use and exploit in any context. Personally I’m going to take any steps I can to limit this and make my own view very clear wherever I can… At the end of the day this has really become a moral argument rather than one about the technology. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:19 pm
@Northcape I understand your anger, but the best anybody can do is curse the darkness. The whole worldview which says that you can profit by controlling distribution is dead. The labels thought they solved the problem when they dismantled Napster. Then Kazaa and Limewire popped up. Then bittorrent…sorry, but that’s the world today.
January 24th, 2010 at 1:29 am
Again Mr. Schiller, – I completely disagree with your opinions & outlooks on all of this – and I have to concur with Janet Hansen, Northside, & Pixieguts from above on this one.
Some people & artists such as yourself, may ‘agree’ with this whole ‘go with the flow/just take it as a compliment’ attitude – where as other artists such as us, do NOT want to be ‘ripped off’, exploited, or find one of our songs in some shampoo commercial one day without even knowing it. This is just plain LUDICROUS if you ask me.
I don’t see how ‘turning a blind-eye’ to all of this is the answer or solution. Our collective voices may not be heard or seen ‘today’ – but may in fact, pay-off down the road. I also agree with ‘Northside’, that some of us would still like to be able to keep our audiences ’smaller’ for now, put our songs on smaller amounts of websites in general, and especially having a ‘right’ to have our names COMPLETELY removed from all of these ’scam sites’ out there. This is not only ‘disingenuousness’, but it’s complete ‘theft’ & ‘vandalistic’ to what we do and have worked very hard for. WE as musicians & artists, should have FULL choice and control over what we do – NOT the other way around.
It takes mass ‘voices’ and ‘actions’ Mr. Schiller in order to take back what is ours and & reclaim our authority of ‘control’ and ‘integrity’. You should know this.
Sitting back, doing nothing, and allowing just ‘whoever’ to rape, pillage, & plunder as they wish?
I seriously can’t even begin to believe that’s your ‘answer’ to all of this.
And at the same time, you also self-proclaim ‘how great the music industry of today is’ and how ‘there’s no greater time to be an artist or musician than today’….
- are you serious?
I think Ms. Hansen above couldn’t have said it better when she stated:, “For the working class professional musician in the United States, I cannot think of a worse scenario than this.”
Understand, I’m NOT knocking you as a person Mr. Schiller, or your intelligence – but if you’re going to continue successfully publishing articles for the masses like you do – PLEASE, use that voice and intelligence to help us distribute a different message or response to all of this foolishness, and also help us to find a better ‘answer’ or ’solution’ to these problems.
- b. morris
January 26th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Hey Mika,
Thanks as always for your insight.
I agree with the premise of the article above. I have a thought I would like to share.
The ancient Egyptians built some of the greatest structures in human history and had a rich and prosperous culture. Eventually, their pyramid casings were stripped and their language and customs were lost in the sands of time, (until re-discovered and deciphered with the Rosetta stone).
How did such a huge civilization have a mighty presence only to fall into darkness?
The only thought that comes to mind is that knowledge was only part of a select few circles. Most were of a different class. Great knowledge like that can only continue when all people help carry its burden and reap its rewards.
Only an open society can flourish. We must embrace the community of our situation, or we will only continue the disintegration.
At least, that’s my observations.
* to b-morris – oversaturation is not the true roadblock, remember, the cream of the crop always rises to the top. I would suggest focusing that energy to be the very best you can be. It seems to me to be the only efficient method of dealing the oversaturation issue. And that’s the one thing each of us definitely has control over, so we couldn’t have asked for a better hand.
Also I think worth noting that, there are many varying degrees of success and all the competition out there has their own definition. Which means only a portion of the whole will actually be your direct competition.
P.p.s worth noting, One of the beauties of music, to me, is that our version of competition is not like, example, football. On the field you want to rip the oppositions head off. With frequencies, the collective output can push and inspire everyone to make their own next steps even greater.
The other popular theme that keeps popping up in the comments is making money, getting compensated for the use of the music.
Obviously, nowadays more than ever, we have all the tools at our disposal. Back in the day to cut an album, you spent a shit ton of money to put the package together. Studio costs (which were very expensive since you had no other choice in those days), manufacturing costs, distribution costs, everybody needing their cut, ect ect ect. That’s where the idea of compensation really made sense because it was a hell of a lot of work to make it all happen.
>>>Fast forward to the Digital Age, I can produce in a song in my basement in a matter of hours, publish it on the internet minutes after I render the final master, and send links to my friends seconds later. Even if I do technically deserve some kind of compensation from the time and resources it took to do that, then at least personally, even if my friends dig it, then that’s enough right there. If I get something else out of it, (enter any monetary value), that would be a blessing, nothing more, and it would especially not be deserved.
And If you haven’t mastered the, putting shit together like it aint no thang, scenario yet then I would suggest that you start, cause the competition did. Welcome to music business 2.0
January 30th, 2010 at 8:34 am
“Fast forward to the Digital Age, I can produce in a song in my basement in a matter of hours, publish it on the internet minutes after I render the final master, and send links to my friends seconds later.”
I venture to say that most good music takes much more work and cost than this to put together. Definitely in my experience that is the case.
“If I get something else out of it, (enter any monetary value), that would be a blessing, nothing more, and it would especially not be deserved.”
Maybe not, if the above quote is the level of thought and attention that goes into it. But you can’t speak for every other artist on this.
March 25th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
File sharing will lead to better music. IDK about that. I think the term “file sharing” generally refers to people doing it with something that is copyrighted which has absolutely nothing to do with the number of bands out there today.
Technology has made it possible for us to record and master songs in our own houses, thereby bringing bands out of the woodwork. But file sharing is not one of those technologies. File sharing makes it easier for us to share OUR WORK with our friends, it also makes it easier for us to share YOUR WORK with our friends. It makes it impossible to charge for music because we are all giving it to each other.
The reason there are so many more bands in sight today is not because of file sharing but because of cubase, pro-tools, and the fact that we all have computers. This is bringing every creative person to create and distribute (in some sense of the word) music. Many bands does not hurt the music business, it helps it. We are not complaining about the technologies that make it easier to record a song with high quality.
The problem is not with file sharing either. The problem is with capitalsim. Capitalism pitts us all against one another in a competitive way. We are not competitors, we are fellow artists. If a 5 inch piece of plastic worth about 3 cents costs me $20 at the store but nothing online, how do you talk me into not becoming a law breaker? Sue me?
The problem is the greed of the record companies. Now that we can produce recordings cheaply and fairly quickly, why hasn’t the price of a CD dropped? They can’t afford to do that because they are spending so much on lawyers to sue their own customers.
Lets make a distinction here between file sharing and digital recording. File sharing is hurting the big companies (and artists) but helping the consumer. Completely separate from this is recording technology which is helping the artist and does not affect the consumer except for there is more choices out there. But lets be realistic and admit that making good music IS hard and not many of those bands are worth paying for.
The market will make the final decision because we live under a capitalist system, but does that make it fair? No. Is there anything you can do about it? Maybe. Maybe not. I plan on spending my time not worrying so much about where my music ends up but making sure it is the best it can be.
I am a professional musician. In today’s world that means that i am a financial burden to some one else, undernourished and under appreciated. Most people don’t care about that predicament, it isn’t their problem. I work as hard as Elvis worked.