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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 4, 2020 17:11:42 GMT -6
Lots of good discussion here, but I think the thing that keeps crossing my mind in regards to streaming, and royalties associated with streaming, is a theory that I have held my entire music career - that the more quality output I create, the more potential for Royalties and income. Thinking about the actual current streaming royalty rates can be very depressing, but I still believe that the best course of action individually is to keep turning out quality music. Creating a library and content that will survive over time, will provide the best potential for income, whatever the royalty rates are at. Of course, we as musicians should continue to fight for royalty rates that are more fair, especially current streaming standards. But the best thing we can do individually to ensure provision for our careers is to continue to make great music. The grind never stops… First - I respect your opinion...but I don’t agree with it. I’m genuinely glad that’s working for you - and maybe it’s because I’m not an artist. But I feel so incredibly helpless and hopeless about the industry right now (from a songwriter’s position.) First - quality is subjective - but in the arena I’m in right now, the bar doesn’t seem to be measured by quality, it’s measured by whether you’ve found a way to make money or can make money. (Shocker: it’s about money) I’d like to think that I’ve striven for quality in every song I’ve written...but no one cares or pays. I promise I’ll just bitch about this once and get it over with - but I literally might as well be selling cancer right now. And I can’t figure it out. I’d like to think I’m very self aware - whether I’m writing dated stuff or whatever - and I don’t think so...but alas. SO - when the stuff that I actually did make money on becomes virtually worthless, it’s tough to stomach. That being said - it IS getting better...but for me, it’s not a living wage by any stretch.
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Post by drbill on Feb 4, 2020 17:27:19 GMT -6
Hang in there John. If this lasts long enough, I believe there will be a turnaround. With the "Your Music, Your Future" blitz against Discovery Channel, I almost passed out when Discovery backed down. I would have bet my entire savings against that happening, and yet, public pressure got a multi-BILLION dollar company who could give a rats *** about composers well-being to back down - and continue to pay performance royalties in the future. Funny how things work out sometimes. Hang in there man!!!
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Post by drsax on Feb 4, 2020 17:37:05 GMT -6
Lots of good discussion here, but I think the thing that keeps crossing my mind in regards to streaming, and royalties associated with streaming, is a theory that I have held my entire music career - that the more quality output I create, the more potential for Royalties and income. Thinking about the actual current streaming royalty rates can be very depressing, but I still believe that the best course of action individually is to keep turning out quality music. Creating a library and content that will survive over time, will provide the best potential for income, whatever the royalty rates are at. Of course, we as musicians should continue to fight for royalty rates that are more fair, especially current streaming standards. But the best thing we can do individually to ensure provision for our careers is to continue to make great music. The grind never stops… First - I respect your opinion...but I don’t agree with it. I’m genuinely glad that’s working for you - and maybe it’s because I’m not an artist. But I feel so incredibly helpless and hopeless about the industry right now (from a songwriter’s position.) First - quality is subjective - but in the arena I’m in right now, the bar doesn’t seem to be measured by quality, it’s measured by whether you’ve found a way to make money or can make money. (Shocker: it’s about money) I’d like to think that I’ve striven for quality in every song I’ve written...but no one cares or pays. I promise I’ll just bitch about this once and get it over with - but I literally might as well be selling cancer right now. And I can’t figure it out. I’d like to think I’m very self aware - whether I’m writing dated stuff or whatever - and I don’t think so...but alas. SO - when the stuff that I actually did make money on becomes virtually worthless, it’s tough to stomach. That being said - it IS getting better...but for me, it’s not a living wage by any stretch. Johnkenn - man, I share so many of the feelings you’ve expressed here. I’m not saying it’s all ok, I just think that content creation is our biggest insurance for the future. It’s not right and not fair what’s going on with royalties. It can be slim here at times and a huge portion of my royalties come from writing for others. I hope the industry rebounds too. Writers deserve SO much more.
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Post by Tbone81 on Feb 4, 2020 17:42:18 GMT -6
Great discussion here everyone, I've been following it with a lot of interest. I'm wondering how the CASE act might come to play in this regard. Specifically for circumstances like DrBill's where it appears some of his music is being appropriated illegally. Not sure exactly how that equates to copyright law but it may be a small glimmer of hope that things might get (at least) incrementally better.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 4, 2020 17:53:12 GMT -6
Things can change on a dime. And I’ve always said “you’re an idiot until you’re a genius...” but it’s a small miracle to place a popular song - That’s hard enough. Then to feel like you don’t get paid for it...it’s enraging. Anyway - I’ll say this - radio still pays. It’s the only way to make good money at least in my experience.
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Post by drsax on Feb 4, 2020 17:57:29 GMT -6
P.S. You are insanely talented Johnkenn - and what a voice you have. I sure wish I could sing like that. Keep hangin in there man. Our industry needs you
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 4, 2020 18:02:47 GMT -6
P.S. You are insanely talented Johnkenn - and what a voice you have. I sure wish I could sing like that. Keep hangin in there man. Our industry needs you Well, thank you man...I swear I wasn’t fishing for a compliment...This ties in to the mental health aspect of it all. Not that I’m about to go drink bleach, but we are all sensitive people. When you have multiple years of people telling you “no” - at least you’re in the game...when they stop responding altogether it gets a tad frustrating lol. I’m blessed to be able to survive with mixing and indie projects - but it’s not my heart’s desire. Pulling it back to this subject, though...so what if it did all go right? We are just asking to be paid fairly.
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Post by drsax on Feb 4, 2020 18:34:15 GMT -6
P.S. You are insanely talented Johnkenn - and what a voice you have. I sure wish I could sing like that. Keep hangin in there man. Our industry needs you Well, thank you man...I swear I wasn’t fishing for a compliment...This ties in to the mental health aspect of it all. Not that I’m about to go drink bleach, but we are all sensitive people. When you have multiple years of people telling you “no” - at least you’re in the game...when they stop responding altogether it gets a tad frustrating lol. I’m blessed to be able to survive with mixing and indie projects - but it’s not my heart’s desire. Pulling it back to this subject, though...so what if it did all go right? We are just asking to be paid fairly. if it all went right, the pressure would be on the consumer. Remember when consumers paid for music? That’s how it should be. Music wasn’t rented, people actually bought albums. IMO, It also helped keep the quality of music, mixes, and production to a higher standard. I still buy albums... but most pay a small subscription and stream unlimited or pay nothing and listen to adds intermixed with the music.
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Post by chessparov on Feb 4, 2020 19:27:38 GMT -6
P.S. You are insanely talented Johnkenn - and what a voice you have. I sure wish I could sing like that. Keep hangin in there man. Our industry needs you ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is both a microcosm and litmus, of today's situation. A first rate songwriter, with an incredible Tenor voice! Your modesty is admirable. Now we just want this Industry, to better re$pect you/Dr. Bill/Donr/et al... Chris P.S. I think this is the most educational thread, I've ever followed. Thanks everyone.
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Post by drbill on Feb 4, 2020 21:52:43 GMT -6
Publishers are generally living in the past from my observations. I think the writers are more down in the dirt, and in touch with reality. I was talking with one of my publishers today and told him that I had 18 MILLION performances on Amazon that only paid $105. He was flabbergasted and didn't even know what to say. Speechless. And yet, that's his future too.
His thoughts were that the government was going to fix this pretty quick. I laughed. I did mention that Silicon Valley is the largest contributor to political campaigns though. On both sides.
But yeah, when guys like John & drSax don't get what they rightfully deserve - not to mention all the rest of us too - it makes me angry. Angry for music's sake. The tech industry and general public are robbing and pushing the quality of music into the gutter. Sad times.
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Post by drbill on Feb 4, 2020 22:44:50 GMT -6
OK. Here's a little fun bit of streaming trivia......
Turns out I have 200+ albums out on Spotify. LOL Right?? (Spotify was just the first place I checked, although I'm quite sure they are on all the other digital streamers as well...due to the digital aggregators) Most of them are compilation CD's of "various artists", and I'm listed as one of the artists. The songs have my title (thank God), and myself attached as the artist (thank God again!) I suppose I should be grateful, because without them being up, no doubt my $517.28 for internet audio (not visual) streaming performances would be considerably smaller. LOL But SOME are listed with me as the sole artist - and I'm getting nothing from the company that put them up. Crazy.
I guess digital streaming really is the wild west....
I have NO CONTRACT with any of the companies who have done this. I do not recognize any of the names of the companies that have done this. I"M QUITE sure that somewhere, in some contract, sometime, with one of the non-exclusive companies that have my music for placing with audio-visual productions, they must have found some kind of loophole that they feel "OK" about using my music without consent or permission on CD's destined for public streaming.
This is just insane.
And on a similar note, I just saw the SavingCountryMusic Song Theft thread below. LOL I'm surprised it took the scammers and the Country Music community this long to get skin in the game. That exact scenario has been going on for me since 2015. I just write it off as cost of doing business. Otherwise it's like whack-a-mole. They pop back up faster than you can take them down. And honestly, the streaming companies themselves are stealing exponentially more than the eastern European crooksters that are rampantly pulling this BS.
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 4, 2020 23:32:02 GMT -6
So to me, it looks like that people that are hoping to get paid as writers/producers are...well you aren't getting paid. Likely due to your license/contract setup with whoever the song was written for??
And then theirs the problems Bill is having with false reporting or mis use of content. Which really the only option is to go after whoever put it up and is claiming the money, which is expensive(lawyers) and tiring. But could be worth it if those tracks are putting in big numbers.
Either way, this really seems to be boiling down not necessarily streaming being the problem, but a contract problem with who you are licensing your content to and how they are using it.
I have nothing to add to how to solve that or anything, just an observation from the last few pages.
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Post by drbill on Feb 4, 2020 23:50:57 GMT -6
Either way, this really seems to be boiling down not necessarily streaming being the problem, but a contract problem with who you are licensing your content to and how they are using it. If it were that simple.... It's a myriad of problems, all wrapped up into a neat little streaming ball. this is merely the tip of the iceberg.
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Post by christopher on Feb 5, 2020 0:47:07 GMT -6
Hey Dr Bill what you are saying reminds me of something I learned. When Eric Valentine did the QOTSA video people wondered why it got pulled. He did an explanation. It was something to the effect that he’s able to show all the stuff that he doesn’t have the copyright to because of the way YouTube works. My understanding of what he explained is that when someone uploads content to YouTube, it scans for copyright protected content, recognizes it, and somehow notifies the owner of the copyright. The copyright owner then can choose to pull the content.. OR YouTube offers them the right monetize the content. I think they can choose to put ads, or just collect the streaming etc.
He says in most cases, the content owner decides to let it go and make money. Im pretty sure he said that he didn’t get permission to load those videos from the copyright holders, and actually many of the artists contacted him after the videos and were excited, having not talked to him in years. Pretty crazy huh? QOTSA didn’t want it up there, it got pulled, so that’s that.
After hearing this, it makes a lot more sense to me why we see dozens of uploads of the same song by different users. Song recognition apps have been around for years, so of course YouTube should have even better tools, for video too. I hope this is the case, because I feel lot better watching stuff on YouTube after that.
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 5, 2020 0:59:33 GMT -6
Hey Dr Bill what you are saying reminds me of something I learned. When Eric Valentine did the QOTSA video people wondered why it got pulled. He did an explanation. It was something to the effect that he’s able to show all the stuff that he doesn’t have the copyright to because of the way YouTube works. My understanding of what he explained is that when someone uploads content to YouTube, it scans for copyright protected content, recognizes it, and somehow notifies the owner of the copyright. The copyright owner then can choose to pull the content.. OR YouTube offers them the right monetize the content. I think they can choose to put ads, or just collect the streaming etc. He says in most cases, the content owner decides to let it go and make money. Im pretty sure he said that he didn’t get permission to load those videos from the copyright holders, and actually many of the artists contacted him after the videos and were excited, having not talked to him in years. Pretty crazy huh? QOTSA didn’t want it up there, it got pulled, so that’s that. After hearing this, it makes a lot more sense to me why we see dozens of uploads of the same song by different users. Song recognition apps have been around for years, so of course YouTube should have even better tools, for video too. I hope this is the case, because I feel lot better watching stuff on YouTube after that. YouTube is pretty good at doing that. But they also suck at it. A lot of work I do gets flagged and then I have to do a dispute, every time. Even though most of it is open domain music and its a live concert recording. Still will get marked for something. But also just as likely that Spotify and other platforms are not very good at that and don't do a good job at monitoring who is who and who owns what.
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Post by Quint on Feb 21, 2020 20:40:26 GMT -6
But hasn't this been what the music world has always been, at least in the last half century? And now it's just become the unfettered demon that was always bound to happen due to the nuclear reactor of unbound and uncontrolled exploitation? In other words, here we are now? Like it or not. And I don't. But then unfettered "free market" capatilism. Yeah,these are the results.... Free market seems to be pretty bad.... No Meant to respond to this a while back. You mentioned the free market price of mics. That's what I was responding to, not the discussion of free market dynamics on streaming. Different discussion.
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Post by Quint on Feb 21, 2020 21:06:13 GMT -6
That being said, vote for your rights. The current administration (and typical supporters of unfettered corporate malfeasance) have different views on how large corporations should be allowed to conduct their business.
If you're getting screwed, well, you know why.
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Post by Tbone81 on Feb 21, 2020 21:20:07 GMT -6
That being said, vote for your rights. The current administration (and typical supporters of unfettered corporate malfeasance) have different views on how large corporations should be allowed to conduct their business. If you're getting screwed, well, you know why. Wait...did other administrations reign in on corporate monopolies? Last time I checked every administration, whether it was out in the open or under the covers, sucked at the corporate tit. And the only time they weren't sucking on the corporate tit is when they were sucking on the banking tit. If you remember, it was Clinton that deregulated the Radio Industry...they're all the same.
But yes...vote for rights etc etc.
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Post by Quint on Feb 21, 2020 21:43:04 GMT -6
That being said, vote for your rights. The current administration (and typical supporters of unfettered corporate malfeasance) have different views on how large corporations should be allowed to conduct their business. If you're getting screwed, well, you know why. Wait...did other administrations reign in on corporate monopolies? Last time I checked every administration, whether it was out in the open or under the covers, sucked at the corporate tit. And the only time they weren't sucking on the corporate tit is when they were sucking on the banking tit. If you remember, it was Clinton that deregulated the Radio Industry...they're all the same.
But yes...vote for rights etc etc.
Nevermind
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Post by Quint on Feb 21, 2020 21:51:31 GMT -6
Nevermind
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Post by yotonic on Feb 22, 2020 0:16:24 GMT -6
Look at the top 10 country music songs right now. Dan&Shay&Justin Beiber. Sam Hunt. Maren Morris.
It's all pop music now. If you aren't an experienced pop writer you are going to have to wait a long, long time for the market to return to you. And you are competing with young people (writers) who live it and breathe it.
What I see now are country artists who decide on an image and style and then have writing teams create them songs to fit that image. Writers are more and more like "stylists". Creating and (knocking off) songs for an artist that will fit his or her brand and live show.
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Post by chessparov on Feb 22, 2020 8:58:39 GMT -6
I miss all them Outlaws!
Wanted:To keep REAL Country Music... Not Dead. But Alive. Chris
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Post by gwlee7 on Feb 22, 2020 9:03:03 GMT -6
I miss all them Outlaws! Wanted:To keep REAL Country Music... Not Dead. But Alive. Chris The Outlaws? What a great country rock band.
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Post by chessparov on Feb 22, 2020 9:12:35 GMT -6
Yes! I also meant them too. Along with Willie/Waylon/Cash/et al... Chris
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Post by gwlee7 on Feb 22, 2020 9:16:15 GMT -6
Yes! I also meant them too. Along with Willie/Waylon/Cash/et al... Chris I knew which “outlaws” you meant. But, speaking of the band the Outlaws, there was a time when no one wanted to play after them live. They were phenomenal in concert.
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