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Record Executive 1: Digital piracy is a real problem!
Record Executive 2: Oh sure. Actually, now that you bring it up, digital piracy has actually been a real problem for awhile now. Like, a ton of years.
Record Executive 1: We’ve got to do something to stop digital piracy!
Record Executive 2: Well, obviously, as a fellow record executive, I entirely agree. But it’s proving pretty difficult. The consumer’s belief that content should be free seems pretty pervasive and intractable at this point. In order to deal with this, we’re going to have to change the culture, but changing the culture by design is an overly ambitious and virtually impossible goal to set for one’s self. Moreover, the music industry is in a particularly difficult position, because after years of over-charging consumers for CDs that cost cents to make, long after the investment in CD technology had been paid off 10 times over, which was, of course, the original rationale for the CDs being so expensive, it’s not surprising or even unreasonable for consumers to feel like they’ve been fleeced for years and are finally getting some kind of return on their own investment in the industry. This isn’t fair to artists, of course, who are the ones who suffer first and foremost, but if you think about it, you can at least see some of the thinking. Although even that, of course, is way over-intellectualizing it, because the truth is just that people like and have always liked free things and now they’re getting what they want for free so why would they stop?
Record Executive 1: Too long, didn’t listen.
Record Executive 2: …
Record Executive 1: Let’s make a PSA with Gilbert Gottfried comparing digital piracy to Burger King.
Record Executive 2: Wait what?
Record Executive 2: This is definitely going to work. Goodnight, digital piracy!
Record Executive 1: Thanks. Pass the discount cocaine.
Record Executive 2: I was being sarcastic.
Record Executive 1: I wasn’t. Pass that cocaine over here.
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What’s eating Gilbert Godfried?
That’s a pretty good a strategy, exposing viewers to so much Gilbert Godfried that their ears cease to function.
you sound like you’re italian, “that’s a pretty a good a strategy, ah whats tha matter with ah you ah?”
Eh, issa Mario!
Io parlo umpo Italiano, brohams.
mi amici, bon giorno
Gilbert Godfried makes a good case for the controlled, sanctioned distribution of music. In fact, Gilbert Godfried makes a good case for the controlled, sanctioned distribution of ALL SOUND
he should copy right the letter U and the number 2
I thought Prince already did that.
I thought Apple solved digital piracy already by making the iPod trendy, thus tricking people into paying for music again?
Glibert should sell an Iagopod
I imagine the Iagopod would look something like a handkerchief.
Othello joke anyone?
I bet Legolas from Lord of the Rings has one and it’s oddly and uncomfortably pretty
That’s your music. That’s your label.
also, tony victory is your boyfriend.
Record Executive 1: Too long, didn’t listen.
He looks like he’s pantomiming a blowjob.
What is happening with his pants? They look like they’re made out of radial tires.
you win.
Christine O’Donnell stole their slogan
Thank god someone posted this. Tony Victory is a scumbag, and his label is the worst for what it does to bands.
Please, do tell us.
His business plan is to basically lure young bands into a promising contract, then lock them in his label forever. Bands like Streetlight Manifesto (a pretty prolific third-wave ska/punk band) have put up their own albums on mediafire and such just to make sure Tony Victory gets jack shit from their output.
the parrot from Aladdin has a point: We should all stop illegally downloading music because The Aristocrats.
“Go fuck yourselves.”
- The Recording Industry Association of America, to its customers
Good strategy, guys.
“I rip Grizzly Bear tracks henceforth.” –Hipster “Willow Smith” Young Person
why anyone would want to steal, much less pay for, anything from victory records is a mystery to me.
’90s kids who were into shitty hardcore still had the perspicacity to shit on Victory Records back then.
Seriously, you guys. I don’t think you are appreciating the amount of historical research they did for this. Pirates really did wear Emo hoodies and masks from old Ben Cooper costumes.
This guy is inclined to say yes to pirating:
I’m inclined to say yes to pirating too. No one works eyeliner and a swagger like Jack Sparrow.
Hawt, right? Let’s go get some rum and watch the first movie over and over again.
And then shake our heads in silent frustration when the fourth one comes out.
WAIT so there are 2 cameras and one is in black and white and he is facing the other one? Where is my nearest Best Buy??
Iago’s logic is impeccable. Although his language has gone a bit salty since hanging with Jafar.
Great. I already had a headache from this morning. Thanks!
Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign stamped out drug use in America. Perhaps they should try that one.
I’m thankful at least for Record Executive 2, too bad he won’t make it on the boat in 2012.
As an inspirational award-winning musician, I can see Gilbert’s frustrations.
Calm yourself, Iago
Sorry Gottfried, I only listen to topical joke-writer Bruce Vilanch.
This hits pretty close to home since I just finished downloading the Aladdin soundtrack.
I love that this is for Victory Records, one of the worst labels ever and owned by a real fucking douchebag.
An example of Tony Brummel in action:
http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/08/12/a-homeless-guys-editorial-tony-victorys-idea-of-karma/
There was a great tell-all written by a former employee that REALLY emphasizes how much of an asshole Tony Brummel is. He’s a fucking psycopath.
And their music sucks.
I got a promo package from Victory Records today (I own a record store, which I don’t like to constantly be like “I own a record store” but I spend 60 hours a week here and it consumes most of the thoughts in my mind grapes so it kind of comes up a lot) and I was reallly hoping it would be something related to this Gilbert Gottfried campaign but instead it was just a bunch of dumb posters for a dumb Day To Remember band. Color me disappointedgum.
Actually Gilbert has MAD street cred on this issue because he hosted the first-ever VMAs. This makes him the actor Douglas Fairbanks and director William C. deMille of rock and roll! (Because they hosted the first Oscars, according to Wikipedia). Very impressive. Gilbert is art’s elder statesman.
yeah, MTV celebrates “Art”
The term “Art” is not inherently approbative. Plenty of execrable Art exists. MTV celebrating crap does not = MTV does not celebrate Art. Jeff Koons crap is Art, for example, and I can’t stand that shit, bro.
But…
…she’s pretty?
No. It’s very very bad Art.
the smartest thing ever said on this issue was said by mindy kaling:
anti-piracy ad: you wouldn’t steal a car, would you?
mindy kaling: actually, I would steal a car, if it were as easy as touching the car, and then I owned it. and if the person that I was stealing the car from got to keep the car too. and if nobody I knew had ever bought a car before.
An somewhere, the person who made the car originally went unpaid, forced to sadly watch as everyone drove their shit for free.
no those analogies dont work at all because recording artists make all their money off of performances and merchandise, the revenue from the cds went 90-99% to the recording companies, so the artists arent the ones who are losing
1. I don’t think it matters if the artist is making 1% or 90% of the money from CD sales, they are still losing money.
2. It doesn’t matter that a record label is overcharging for a product or making billions of dollars. It is still taking something that you didn’t pay for. Generally, if there is a product and I find it over-priced, or a rip-off, or I find the company selling it who will make the money odious, I don’t buy the product. I don’t still have a right to it.
3. I am sure this percentage breakdown applies less to indie labels and bands who put out their own records. Yet people down load the latest Superchunk or Destroyer records without paying for them too. All of those people who are in those bands and work at those labels and work for the distribution companies and marketing companies that supply us with the underground music we like are regular nice folks who deserve to be able to make a living.
4. Yes, the major label record industry is rapacious and backward, but it doesn’t mean I have a right to free music. If you think CDs are overpriced, buy used CDs. If you don’t want to give labels money, buy directly from artists at shows.
Just because a business is bad, it does not mean that stealing from them is automatically good.
you’re wrong mans. I hate to defer to courtney love or whatever ghost writer she hired to write it but she had this rad little essay a while back about this. google it and read it, put that in your pocket and check your self before you wreck yourself. that’s all I’m going to say on the matter
PS online promotion gets you a huger audience than youd otherwise have. as an artist if your exposure goes viral and explodes your audience to the millions you have a better opportunity than if you were charging for said exposure and reaching only a smaller number of people. so the pittance you save by not going viral online is way way less than the fortune you could potentially make with a free online distribution method.
thats all she wrote and you lose this round
plus, it’s not stealing when you watch tv shows or listen to the radio. in the 80s I would tape tv shows and radio songs on to tape cassettes. Was that “stealing”!?? OH NO THE WORLD’S GOING TO END BECAUSE I SNAGGED SOME FREE MATERIALS
For the Winwood
Mindy Kaling’s point was that the car (or any physical object) analogy isn’t all that good. Mans, you’re the lawyer here – obviously intellectual property CAN be shared differently by customers differently than physical objects can. anyone trying to survive off any sharable product better acknowledge that and work with it. napster didn’t start people sharing shit.
of course I don’t like the idea of people working and going broke. either good artists who run a small label like Merge, or people that work in factories making cars.
but since you kept the bad car analogy going. cheaper, better cars from japan. are you for anti-free-trade protections for US car companies when they make pieces of shit?
and if you’ve got no problem with people buying used cds – what about borrowing them from a library? what if I borrow a book from someone? am i stealing from jonathan franzen if i read Freedom and never pay for it? what if i dub an audio tape from my older sister like I did for every tape back in the day?
There are several good points here and I am going to try and address them all because of my arrogance:
1. Steve, I am not going to read an essay that Courtney Love wrote.
2. Steve, as for online promotion: I agree. Having your music online does increase your exposure and is good for bands. That doesn’t change the fact that if a band does not want you to take their music without paying for it, you shouldn’t. It doesn’t make it better to say, “This is better for you.”
I think this is where labels are causing a problem. Rather than fight music being online, they need to rethink the business and determine how to capitalize on this. But, that is a side issue: if someone says “no,” you can’t do it.
3. Steve, no it is not stealing when you listen to the radio or watch television. This is a stupid point. Television and radio have permission to broadcast music and television. You do not have permission to download an album.
4. Steve, no the world is not going to end because you tape a show in the 80s (Max Headroom: The Series, I assume). However, lots of local record stores across the country have closed because of the sudden decrease in sales. The record store in my town closed. I have no record store anymore. I doubt the drop in sales is fully attributable to people legally purchasing albums on iTunes, though that is part of it too.
5. Backwaxer, you make very good points. Obviously the car/IP analogy is flawed because of the very different nature of the items in question.
However, the essential issue is really unchanged: some things you have permission to do, some you don’t. You have permission to check books and records out from a library. You have permission to borrow and listen to a record. You don’t have permission to dub it. It is really that easy.
Listen, you and Steve seem to think that I think music online is a bad idea. I don’t. I think it is great. There is lots of evidence that people who download music also buy more music. I don’t know if it is true, but I read it somewhere once, so it must be true. The point, though, is that if someone says, “Please do not make a copy of this without paying for it” and you do it, that is wrong. Just because it maybe to their benefit for you to do so doesn’t mean you get to.
Yes, people who work with sharable/IP-type products SHOULD understand the different nature of this product should find a way to work with it, because that is good business, but if they don’t, they don’t. That is not the issue.
A lot of much misinformation here. No, most artists don’t make all their money from touring and merchandise. Firstly, for mid-level artists, touring actually loses money – that’s why labels have historically always paid artists ‘tour support’ money. They did that in the knowledge that the tour would increase exposure and thus sell more records. If no one buys the records, clearly that model doesn’t work. In terms of merchandise, sure, some make a load of money. Back in the 90s, PWEI sold more t-shirts than records. They were a band with a strong logo, a strong brand image. But only a comparatively small percentage of bands wants or is capable of being a ‘T-shirt band’ – and only a comparatively small percentage of people who listen to music want to wear band T-shirts.
As for recording monies, here in the UK the typical cut for the artist was always 10%. Sounds a bit low, and it was. But two points here: 1). The label would provide an advance for the band, which was paid back out of record sales. If there weren’t enough sales, the band still got to keep the advance. 2). 90% of records didn’t recoup their costs. Please let that fact sink in: 90% of records didn’t recoup their costs! So whilst the artists got to record their album and keep the advance, the label lost money. In effect, it was always the big hitters, the other 10%, that allowed the label to ever take chances on new artists. So, on the surface, this may appear to support your claim that the artists aren’t losing out. But, of course, it isn’t that simple, because labels see that they’re not selling records right now, so they pay less in advances and take less chances when signing artists. Which means two things: 1). those artists who do get signed will most definitely be relying on record sales to get paid, and ii). labels will probably not sign original or challenging artists at all. This is just one example of how those who illegally download music are damaging the future of musical innovation for everyone.
While I’m here I’ll also address the point in the original text that says CDs only cost a few cents to make. The cost of a blank CD may be only a few pence, but the cost of the record was never in the physical product; it was in the musicians, the instruments, the tracking engineers, the mix engineers, the mastering engineers, the producers, the studio time, the artwork producers, the marketing and promotion teams, the radio pluggers, the distributors, the administrators, and probably a few more links in the chain I’ve forgotten about. Record labels and artists are trying to cut these costs to the bone right now, but the bottom line is that someone needs to do this work for a record to get made and released. It’s nonsense to expect these people to all work for free. Considering all the work that goes in to making a record, £10 is more than fair. It’s clear that those people who say otherwise have no conception of what goes in to making one, but I also have to question whether they value music at all. I have albums which I’ve owned for over twenty years that I still listen to regularly – they’ve been the soundtrack to so many experiences in my life, the basis of so many memories… I couldn’t put a price on that, but certainly no one is going to tell me that it isn’t worth ten quid.
Here is how all you people are huge hypocrites:
Exhibit A: you would not approve of Gabe distributing videogum on $15 compact discs. You read it for free and you like it. If he demanded that you purchase your daily dose of videogum on a $15 compact disc you would not pay for it and you would never get to enjoy it.
I rest my case.
(THIS guy knows what I’m talking about – guyfrom LALaw with his arms crossed.jpeg)
This is a totally fascinating thread. Huh. Well, my 2 cents is: Are we really paying for the production? Bands can record in garages on PCs these days, right? So it seems what we are paying for is the distribution channels that big corporations use our money to continue to monopolize. If I am a “big star” like Ke$ha on Sony (or whoever she is on) or an amazing new band on SubSubPop called Luscious Cabana and Her Fabulous Towel Boys, it seems we are on a level playing field, because we both are on iTunes for $1, and the better band will win. But the fact is, all your Clear Channel-owned radio stations are playing Ke$ha by the toiletful, because Sony has the access to make her known to them and the Board at Clear Channel trusts Sony, so guess who is granted heavy rotation? The Clear Channel execs want programming that is focus-grouped into appealing to whatever audience will buy the products manufactured by the biggest-spending radio advertisers; especially because radio stations are now owned not by people who love radio but by giant corporations who love huge profits (thanks Telecomm Act of 1996!), so the world of rock becomes pretty amazingly risk-averse and you have to go to college radio, blogs, and Sirius to hear decent stuff, because KROQ is still flogging that damn Sublime album 15 years later instead of playing [insert interesting new band here]. I don’t advocate theft (I mix theft and paying in my own life) but it seems to me that forking over $15 for a CD is sort of supporting this craptastic system; you could pay for everything and in the end radio is not going to get better. How do we fix that? How do we “vote with our wallets” in a way that fixes this?
you can listen to the music for free on the radio and in mp3s and then support the artists you like by paying to see them live and buying merchandise off their geo cities fan pages. seriously I dont pay anything to watch Mad Men but I support them with my viewership. Who cries for Mad Men?
Steve, your logical reasoning skills are almost as bad as a trail attorney’s (I kid, I know you don’t mean any of what you say). For the record, I pay for this blog by looking at the ads that pay for it. I assume the page views are what the ad rates are based on. Again, this is how Gabe and his bosses have set this up. I am doing the right thing. If the site were to require a payment, I would then be able to choose whether or not I wanted to read it. I would not find some backdoor way to read it without paying. Because that is wrong.
Hotspur, I think you have some good points, but I have a couple of observations:
1. I think when you spend your $15 on Kesha and your $15 on Superchunk and your $15 on Salem, you are paying for different things each time. Even though everyone could record on a PC in a bedroom, not everyone does. Recording in a studio cost a lot of money, even a small one. James0001 makes a lot of good points, but I think the real point is that these days every album has a different path from brain to iPod.
2. There are lots of problems with the music industry and there are lots of problems with pop radio, but I don’t think that changes the underlying issue: no matter how bad they are, it is still wrong to illegally download music. If there is music you want to own, you have the choice to buy it or not, but I think that coming up with music industry sins as a reason to justify the download doesn’t work.
Now, I doubt many of us are buying those albums that support the craptastic system. It’s kids and moms and dads or someone–I don’t know. But it all has to change, but remember, money always wins and the fear of business people always wins, so no matter what comes next, it isn’t going to be that different than what we have now.
That said, the internet now give you easy access to the music you do like from the labels you do respect just as easily as it does to Kesha and Katy Perry. When I was in college, finding a Sebadoh or Guided by Voices record took real work. There was no online to order it from, no downloading. I had to drive to another town and look through records. At this point, the music industry is over. You have access too all of the music you want in the world. There for you to buy.
I know you are going to hate this Steve, but I upvoted all of your comments, and everyone else’s too, because this is a fun discussion.
My tardy two pennies worth; James touched on it, but no one has really mentioned the work that goes into creating music (the actual art writing,arrangement etc). Most of the arguments for piracy tend to suggest that because manufacturing and production costs are (or can be) so low, it is acceptable to take it for free. This basically denigrates the whole process of creating art, giving it no value.
Another clunky analogy would be to look at a painting and only value it according to the cost of the canvas and oils; which would be patently ridiculous – however this attitude seems surprisingly prevalent in music. To my mind if society puts no value in art, it will end up with art of no value.
Yes upon review of this thread I think it is safe to say that I am victorious.
“Deep inhale: Aaaahhhhh Viiiictory!” – Nute Gunray from Phantom Menace
When I went to McDonald’s and asked for a free hamburger, the guy behind the counter told me to wait five minutes until the boss left and then he would hook me up.