The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Music execs are still dumber than you

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Reality Man — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:50:59 -0000

"So, if anything, record executives have smartened up. The consumer doesn't have to pay to watch those videos on YouTube - YouTube has to pay. And YouTube can make their money selling advertising or on other fees as different content sources are featured on their site."

And guess what, a lot of record companies have deals like that with YouTube. Warner just thinks they're special when they're not. Hell, if someone uploads a video illegally to YouTube, you can't put it on your iPod easily and bring it with you. YouTube isn't an MP3 site. All it does it promote the band's music without your permission. After all, the music video isn't the main product here for the label. The CD is. Having fans do the legwork of promotion for you is good for you. This is like when studios have movie trailers taken off of YouTube. So apparently it's good to have fewer commercials out there for your product placed where potential consumers actually go?

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Peter Kohan — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:09:47 -0000

Also, I caught this from the HITS magzine site...

YOUTUBE II? In the wake of the WMG-YouTube showdown, rumors are flying about a projected ad-supported YouTube site containing exclusive copyrighted content. Negotiations between Google and the Big Four are said to be underway, the aim being the creation of a significant new revenue stream for both sides. (12/22a)

So it doesn't look as if WMG or YouTube is losing here per se.

http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/rumormill.cgi

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Peter Kohan — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:00:32 -0000

So because the record execs and music publishers made a bad deal with MTV back in the 80s where they locked themselves out of a huge revenue chunk when MTV was actually playing videos, now that there are sites where fans can go and stream videos on demand they should just bend over again to the distribution channel?

They've done the same thing with radio since the 30s. Every other western nation pays the master owner as well as the music publisher when a track is aired on the radio, but not in the U.S.

So, if anything, record executives have smartened up. The consumer doesn't have to pay to watch those videos on YouTube - YouTube has to pay. And YouTube can make their money selling advertising or on other fees as different content sources are featured on their site. Warner has their videos up on many other sites where their content can be shared. Why is every industry in America allowed to make a buck on its copyrights except the record industry? Copyrights have value. They don't make money in a vacuum; they have to be actively exploited.

I don't say this is the only model for success, but for the large record companies with thousands upon thousands of masters in their catalogs they have to protect and earn money from - you gotta maximize their monetary value. The consumer is not harmed here, and this spat will surely be settled soon. It's just a contract negotiating ploy, not some war against YouTube in principle.

I agree with some of the other commenters above as well - it shouldn't be as hard to license music for the DVD release of some of those classic shows (especially as the DVD market is declining as content moves onto the Internet), but that's a separate argument from the one being discussed re: YouTube. In those cases there is definite commercial exploitation of the musical content in the DVD medium.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Tony Comstock — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:30:17 -0000

Tony, we get it, stealing's bad. Can you let the grownups talk, now, please?

Right, stealing's bad, 'cept when you hanging out on a bittorrent site stealing downloading someone else's property.

Has anyone on this thread ever collected an ASCAP check? Has anyone on this tread ever collected a SAG residual?

Agreed, a change is coming. A big change. But this "record exec" this and "media company" that forgets (or more likely never knew) that the vast majority of folks who make money off of copyrights aren't fat cats; they're "mom and pops" just like those mix shops on 125th.

One difference, of course. The copyright holders didn't steal what they're selling.

/done. You "grownups" can have your thread back.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Juba — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:25:02 -0000

Mike,

Controversy sells no doubt. But the DJs getting threatened with jail and the music stores that got shut down didnt help those parties turn a buck at all. You're reaching all the way back to 2 Live in the 90s to find a good fit for your theory. No need. I can tell you every mixtape spot I knew of on 125th St. in Harlem got shut down--good mom and pops with walls papered with pics of artists thanking them for helping get their product face time on one of the most important streets in Black America (which of course leads to the cred needed to cross over into the mainstream.) No story, no outcry, no controversy, just the silence of a fallen cottage industry...think empty Baltimore docks, chained up Detroit factories. The end.

"Generally speaking, papering cities with fliers isn't done in a legal manner either. Street promo guys just do it and figure it's cheaper to pay the fines once in awhile than get the permits, same with lots of construction people. Why should upper promo guys be exempt from the hypocrisy?"

The difference here is that the RIAA is not aggressively lobbying major cities to crack down on street promo guys even as the labels benefit from them.

"It's like the old rules for torture: we'll let you do it, but don't get caught or else we'll deny the orders were ever given.

Ambiguity; that's not banality, that's clever."

Ambiguity isnt necessarily clever, its just a hypocrisy that power exempts one from having to account for.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Persia — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:29:01 -0000

I don't know how the media companies are supposed to survive, but trying to interdict the signal is about as likely to work as the Drug War is.

You got it.

I think I should also note, since no one else had, that Warner and YouTube basically had some kind of royalty deal, and that negotiations for the new deal have fallen apart. I think Warner's trying to play chicken with YouTube, a battle which they are clearly going to lose.

Tony, we get it, stealing's bad. Can you let the grownups talk, now, please?

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Tony Comstock — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:23:57 -0000

copyright owners are basically turning a whole generation into criminals.

Yesterday FedEx brought us a box of screener DVDs of our latest film "Bill and Desiree". Retail copies have only been in our warehouse since Friday. This morning the third most popular search term leading to our website is "Bill and Desiree rapidshare" or some variant.

Please explain to me how my owning the copyright to "Bill and Desiree", a copyright that cost me countless hours of time and about $100K cash "turns people into criminals."

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

geo — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:29:28 -0000

i wonder why videos are still produced. rarely are they shown on tv. seems like a waste of money nowadays.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Reality Man — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:28:54 -0000

Sometimes execs are just old, stupid and out of touch, which explains a lot. After all, major studio heads are actually only starting to figure out men think women shaped like Scarlett Johannson are attractive (curves and all) while women shaped like little girls aren't. Studio execs didn't get that there was a market for "Family Guy" until DVD sales because they couldn't take the blame for not helping the show (like keeping it in a timeslot when people knew when it was on), so they blamed the creative people behind the show. The producer who greenlighted the pilot of "Lost" got axed because the pilot was expensive, nevermind that the big numbers the pilot brought in helped make "Lost" a widely popular show. Did anyone get axed for greenlighting "The Mullets," "Baby Bob," etc., which anyone with a brain could see would be bad?

A lot studio/label heads schmooze from the mailroom up to the board on playing office politics, not on actually making good decisions. The fact that Warner isn't making money immediately on YouTube is all that matters to them. It's like how for so long they refused to put marketing dollars into anything that wasn't the newest Backstreet Boys or Britney Spears and pretty much ignored every other market that could have longer, more stable returns on more reliable artists. The idea of long-term investment doesn't compute for them. Also, YouTube allows uploaders to get paid to accept ads over the bottom of videos. I know some labels have opted for this for their music video channels. Did Warner?

Also, Daria is another fun show that hasn't seen the light of DVD day because of music rights.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Catherine — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:37:28 -0000

I'm sure everyone who cares to comment on a post like this has already heard of it, but I highly, highly recommend Larry Lessig's Free Culture (which is available in its entirety for free online under a Creative Commons license! http://www.free-culture.cc/). It might be the most important book written about the Internet age. He's also out with a new book called Remix, which is basically a sequel but expands on his claim that media companies/copyright owners are basically turning a whole generation into criminals. I work in this area and understood this issue on an intellectual level, but reading this book made me angry, which is exactly what we all need to be if any of this is going to change.

Anyway, that's my ad for Free Culture. Not nearly as expensive as a music video but an ad nonetheless.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Mike — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:45:50 -0000

Juba, controversy sells. 2 Live Crew, everyone I knew knew about Outkast first because of their Rosa Parks lawsuit. (I've never been with it, I'll admit)

There's money to be made in a controversy, local papers cover it and that makes a whole bigger angle for the story: "rapper sued by DA to perform tonight" much cooler than "rapper performing at blank arena tonight"

DJ's thrown in jail? Can you say book material? Song lines? Street cred for otherwise upstanding gentlemen and women?

How many record stores really get shut down? I've only heard of the 2 Live Crew record store getting shut down, but I could just be ignorant, but in that case the store reopened with big crowds - not saying that's worth it, just saying it's not the worst thing in the world for a record store. Worse to be cut off from shipments, samples, artist and A+R visits and so on.

Lawyers also let the label bosses protect their property (who doesn't want the overprotective love of a billion dollar law firm at their back, even just to know you can get away with some crazy azz stuff?) while letting the promo guys do their thing.

Generally speaking, papering cities with fliers isn't done in a legal manner either. Street promo guys just do it and figure it's cheaper to pay the fines once in awhile than get the permits, same with lots of construction people. Why should upper promo guys be exempt from the hypocrisy?

The label has to lay down rules, just so in the few cases of a "re-mix" being 99.9 percent original they'd have precedent to fall back on. Most of their cases will lose, but this gives a judge the evidence to say that the label is serious about this and while the other cases may have been frivolous, the 99.9 percent case isn't and that protects artists in the long run.

It's like the old rules for torture: we'll let you do it, but don't get caught or else we'll deny the orders were ever given.

Ambiguity; that's not banality, that's clever.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Bob — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:24:59 -0000

Record label executives have always been unable to deal with changes in how music is distributed to fans. I’m old enough to remember when the Grateful Dead first allowed taping of their concerts – they eventually set up a tapers section directly in front of the sound board. You couldn’t have found a single music industry executive who thought that decision anything but suicide.

It’s not that they’re dumb or evil – they just lack vision. They know for certain what worked in the past, and what worked in the past worked quite well. Thus their fear of change.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

DR — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:24:59 -0000

I don't see a problem with making youtube pay. I know they've done it with other artists.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Juba — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:14:41 -0000

Reminds me of how labels had their promotions department begging mixtape DJs to include their artists' material on their mixtapes, only to have their RIAA buddies threatening to throw those same mixtape DJs in jail and having police shut down stores that sold the mixtapes that they wanted their artists on in the first place.

The banality of (bureaucratic) evil strikes again.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

EdTheRed — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:48:36 -0000

@Destro Villain: heh - I was just watching videos for Jam On It a couple weeks ago, and marveling at the wonder that is the interweb.

The mother of all DVD music-rights issues was Miami Vice...thank god they finally resolved that. Shows released since the explosion of the DVD format are different, but Back In The Day, no one though to license the rights to the music for anything other than first-runs and re-runs on tv. The idea that you could sell millions of copies of a show that people could watch for free just hadn't occurred to anyone involved in drawing up the contracts.

Too bad, because I wasted a chunk of change on the Beavis & Butt-Head DVDs only to find out after I got them that there are no freaking videos. That was a dark day indeed.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Destro Villain — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:21:01 -0000

Methinks this is all a ruse to get everyone over to MTV's website to watch the videos there....supposedly they got 'em all....but when I searched for 'Jam On It' by Newcleus is was conspicuously absent.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

toxic — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:18:34 -0000

Youtube won't pay.

They'll use the safe harbor provision to remove any music videos they want money for.

10 seconds later someone will repost it under a different name.

If they manage to tame Youtube, the illegal clips will move to rutube. One day they'll figure out how to shut down Bittorrent. Someone will invent a new way to share files.

The game continues. I don't know how the media companies are supposed to survive, but trying to interdict the signal is about as likely to work as the Drug War is.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Stacy — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:07:53 -0000

Gotta buy Wonder Years bootleg. Got the entire series a few years ago for about $60. That's a steal, right? Figuratively, and literally.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Tel — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:57:41 -0000

The question on my mind is ... was Rick Astley signed with Warner?

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Abe — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:53:38 -0000

Main point is spot on. Having been involved occasionally in both traditional ads and music videos though I say really expensive is way off, TV ad budgets run almost a whole order of magnitude bigger than music video budgets. Prices are similar at the very high and low ends of the market, but your average TV commercial is going have a much higher budget than your average video.

The ultimate convergence had to have been that Jay Z / Budwiser thing a few years ago where they basically made the commercial and video together at the same time. I could never exactly figure who was paying who as served as giant ad for his album and also massive exposure for the beer.

The key to understanding the futility of the label execs (beyond the obvious huge egos thing) is that they basically gave away the store in the 60's when they got of artist management to focus almost entirely on selling recorded music. There is still tons of money in the music industry as a whole, but the labels used to be the kings in the game and now they are watching their kingdom turn into MP3 smoke while all the money shifts to live shows, merchandising and sponsorship...

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Tony Comstock — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:19:22 -0000

Alright, since you all are such media distribution genius:

Every one of our film is available as a torrent.

During this cold snap we are burning propane at a prodigious rate.

How do I turn those torrents into cash money to pay Mr. Propane Man?

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

shani-o — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:18:14 -0000

I think the music industry is lower than than low, but music videos don't work in the same way that they used to.

They *used* to be really expensive ads to entice people to buy albums, but now that no one is buying albums (or anything else, for that matter) the industry is using videos as a source of revenue, in addition to CDs and concert tickets and merchandise. I don't blame them for it.

But then again, I only buy second-hand CDs.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:47:48 -0000

Zacksback,

Three words: The Wonder Years.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

Persia — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:10:33 -0000

Indeed, zacksback. I've resigned myself to never seeing another episode of WKRP again, unless I hang out on a bittorrent site and get lucky. It's insane.

Re: Music execs are still dumber than you

zacksback — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:03:19 -0000

There's an article over on Television Without Pity about DVDs that we really should be able to get, but can't, of either short-lived shows (Frank's Place) or successful shows that just ran their course (China Beach).

One of the key reasons stopping DVDs of this nature? Music rights. Especially with shows like China Beach or WKRP, where the music of the time was an integral part of the mise-en-scene, the label execs want to charge an arm and a leg to let the shows use the song(s) originally broadcast. (The networks got a one-time use license for the episode's original airing, so they have to go back and renegotiate for DVD licensing).

Again, short-sighted much? Jaysus.