I have an ambivalent attitude to copyright. I'm all in favour of people being given due credit and, in the case of those people who make (or try to make) a living from their work, being paid for what they've produced, just as you'd pay a carpenter for a bookcase or an Accountant for the time they've spent sorting out your submissions to the Inland Revenue.
I work for a company that does digital delivery of music, so copyright and the DRM that comes with most of the music we deliver, is an essential part of the business model we have. Personally, I don't think that most artists or their managers are savvy enough, or assertive enough, or have enough clout, to be able to negotiate a percentage of the takings come to them from the sale of music (whether physical or digital), merchandise or tickets as they probably deserve to get. The only possible exception is U2, who have, so rumour goes, negotiated a percentage that comes to them from revenues well above that garnered by "lesser" musical acts signed to different labels. C'est la vie.
While music labels say that a lot of the cut they take from signed artists is ploughed back into advertising current acts as well as finding and developing new talent, I still think that they make obscene amounts of money and that more should go back to the performing artists and songwriters. Most people in the music business don't make enough money to live off it alone; those who download music without paying for it don't help that situation at all. I make it a point of buying music and merchandise for bands I like if I can do so.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-05-17 03:31 pm (UTC)I have an ambivalent attitude to copyright. I'm all in favour of people being given due credit and, in the case of those people who make (or try to make) a living from their work, being paid for what they've produced, just as you'd pay a carpenter for a bookcase or an Accountant for the time they've spent sorting out your submissions to the Inland Revenue.
I work for a company that does digital delivery of music, so copyright and the DRM that comes with most of the music we deliver, is an essential part of the business model we have. Personally, I don't think that most artists or their managers are savvy enough, or assertive enough, or have enough clout, to be able to negotiate a percentage of the takings come to them from the sale of music (whether physical or digital), merchandise or tickets as they probably deserve to get. The only possible exception is U2, who have, so rumour goes, negotiated a percentage that comes to them from revenues well above that garnered by "lesser" musical acts signed to different labels. C'est la vie.
While music labels say that a lot of the cut they take from signed artists is ploughed back into advertising current acts as well as finding and developing new talent, I still think that they make obscene amounts of money and that more should go back to the performing artists and songwriters. Most people in the music business don't make enough money to live off it alone; those who download music without paying for it don't help that situation at all. I make it a point of buying music and merchandise for bands I like if I can do so.