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Michael Arrington Thinks Musicians Shouldn’t Get Paid for Recorded Music?

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By: Charbarred | in: Music |

In an interview to the New York Times, artist Billy Bragg claims that some of Bebo’s recent earnings should be given to the musicians who posted their songs on the site. I can’t say that I agree with this notion (we’ll get to that in a moment) but I have a bigger issue with TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington’s response to the subject.

TechCrunch

The title of Arrington’s article reads “These Crazy Musicians Still Think They Should Get Paid For Recorded Music”. He further claims that “Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist”. So how about we break it down a bit and see where he’s coming from…

The notion of artists only being able to make money from live shows and merchandise holds true in many cases. I’ve known many musicians whose record deal is so convoluted that gigging becomes their only means of supporting themselves. While some acts are very good live and have a rabid following, others may not be so capable. The same applies to music fans. I’ve seen Radiohead play live numerous times. It’s a good show, but it doesn’t come close to the joy of putting your headphones on, closing your eyes and properly enjoying their recorded material.

How many live shows does the average music fan go to each year? How many t-shirts, lunch boxes and posters does one purchase? Can you honestly tell me that every time you want to listen to music you would put on your favorite band t-shirt and hop on a train to go see a live gig? Jimmy Hendrix and Nirvana don’t gig anymore; does that mean I shouldn’t be listening to them from now on? Maybe there is some worth to recorded music after all?

Which brings us to the subject of art for art’s sake (which Arrington fully supports). Musicians should make art, they should express themselves and should strive to better themselves all the time, I won’t argue with that. Maybe in a perfect world, all artists should be paid a monthly fee by the government and just sit on their asses and create.

Let’s say Michael Arrington opens up free studios all over the world for everyone to use. Each city will hold a TechCrunch supported CD manufacturing plant. Furthermore designers, marketing people, radio pluggers and distribution companies will be freely available for struggling musicians. Artists will be cloned so they could perform live all the time and t-shirts and lunch boxes would replace gold as the main commodity. I don’t know, I think I can find a few problems with this plan, but what do I know, TechCrunch gets way more page views than my blog.

Billy Bragg

As for Billy Bragg, his argument is deeply flawed. He obviously hasn’t thought of the hosting costs, the fact that someone needed to pay programmers to create Bebo and support it further. He missed out on the cost of accountants, marketers, business development, offices and all the rest of the factors that go into building a great start up. He probably didn’t know that for every Bebo that succeeds there are many similar companies that fail every year. Maybe he should check with his record company and see how much they’re paying for marketing. I’m sure it doesn’t compare to the price The Arctic Monkeys paid to get their music across when they first started out.

One may argue that sites like MySpace and Bebo should be charging the artists and labels for their services. In fact many do.

So in the end of the day it’s all about balance. Free publicity goes a long way but at one some stage musicians should be able to earn money. Much like Bebo and TechCrunch, artists should be compensated for their hard work.

I hold great respect for TechCrunch, and I’d like to think that Arrington didn’t mean it that way. It does seem that way though and maybe a better worded approach could have done the trick just the same.


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Posted on March 23, 2008

Comments

2 Responses to “Michael Arrington Thinks Musicians Shouldn’t Get Paid for Recorded Music?”

  1. baron on March 23rd, 2008 7:05 am

    Unfortunately, artists can’t get away with hiring someone else to record their music, putting out 3rd rate material and plastering it with ads like Michael does. Then I suppose music would be freely distributed without artists ranting whatsoever.

    What I don’t think he realizes is that the superstars are few and even they earn a pittance considering the millions they generate for big companies. Most artists would be happy to first get enough money not to worry about paying rent so they can focus on the music.


  2. Dubber on March 23rd, 2008 7:46 am

    You’re absolutely right. It’s more complicated than both Bragg and Arrington make out.

    But the problem is not one of misunderstanding - or not seeing the complexity of the issue (in fact, it’s even more complex than you describe above). It’s actually a problem of worldview.

    They inhabit different worlds and see things entirely differently. That’s what’s at the heart of the problem here. I’ve gone into a bit of detail about what I mean by that on New Music Strategies.


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