30frames

Lots of interest (okay, nerdly on-line levels of interest) about a recent study in the UK that seems to indicate that our economy 3.0 savior, the Long Tail, may not have nearly as much salvation on board as some have hoped.

Read the London Times article and the thoughtful response from Mike at Idolator. Between bouts of overdosing on rum balls and Kiefer-ing my Christmas tree I decided to add in my on two pence.

My understanding of 'the Long Tail' is that all those sales of obscure items (books for Amazon, music for iTunes) will eventually make money for the retailer. That is what makes it a viable economic theory, it works for the company selling the individual bits of rarely desired stuff – not necessarily for the creator of the things being sold.

If the overhead is low enough – cheap rent to store all of Amazon’s books in warehouses in remote Kentucky or Utah, or even cheaper hard-drives full of audio files in Cupertino for iTunes – then selling one of something per year can theoretically be profitable. As long they are also selling one per year of many, many, many other things.

This is where people seemed to get confused – the Long Tail works for the retailer, not the maker of the music or book. The Long Tail, and this new British study seems to back this up, makes no guarantees that this kind of economy of smallish scale will work out for the actual content creator. In fact, it kind of shows that it doesn’t.

For a long time (pre-digital) the record labels hunted for hits believing that the blockbuster (as in movies and most other entertainments) were the things that propped up the company while they searched for the next hit. A small number of really successful artists/albums would allow labels to sign and promote enough new artists to find the next hit-maker (and also the hundreds of duds and failures that actually soak up the majority of the profits from Michael Jackson or the Crue).

My take on this is that this study does not contradict the Long Tail theory at all. This study shows exactly what the Long Tail theory would predict – amongst the handful of things that do sell, there are many things not selling much if at all.

Look at the famous Long Tail chart with that sliver of yellow extending out to the right. That is the ‘Tail,’ the vein of gold that can be mined for unanticipated (and untold?) profits. This study from the Times does not focus on the narrow sliver of sales – this study is about ALL that white space above the yellow. All the digital songs that don’t get sold, or maybe not even searched for. The study doesn’t say there is no gold in the mine, their numbers just reveal there is lots of worthless dirt piled on and around the nuggets of gold. Lots and lots of dirt.

My two main conclusions:

1. The Long Tail might work in the real world. Maybe, maybe not – this study doesn’t seem to prove or disprove the relevancy of the theory. I think the main factor in the workability of Long Tail-style sales is how low the seller can get the friction. How little overhead can they have and how much raw earth can they have on hand to allow customers to sift through to find their own personal gold. Maybe it is not possible in the real world for this to truly work (like perpetual motion) – but these new numbers don’t really shine much light on it.
2. Being the artist creating the records that sell zero copies (or even the ‘winner’ that sells one) in a year must be no fun. But that, too, is not anything new.

Here’s to a fat tail (heh, heh) in 2009. Happy Holidays and a joyful New Year.

Labels: controversy, death, download, insider, media, music video, un-Indian Thriller, YouTube

Wednesday afternoon the kind folks at Idolator linked to a new blog (so new it really had no posts) that is all about leaking the names of people who leak tracks. I’m pretty sure that this guy posting the names of bloggers who post unauthorized tracks on another blog is not gonna “solve” the music piracy situation – but it is a funny situation.

Many commenters on Idolator and the dude’s blog (which as of today had still outed no one) are freaking out claiming that any such name-leaks are violations of this right or that amendment. Funny how people are all concerned with rights and fair-ness when theirs are at issue and far less so when the “rights” belong to a band who’s music they wanna own. I don’t want to go into all this again but it got me thinking about …

A few years back there was a huge album coming out and the label only sent out CDs with watermarks on them. That is standard now, but this techniques was a bit new then. These were NOT the CDs that were-uncopy-able that only play in old school boom-boxes but rather each disc had the name of the director and prod co that it was given to encoded into the 1s and 0s of the digital file.

I heard the song but never got a disc. The director in question did not get the job but in a few weeks word came down that “his” copy of the song had ended up on the internet. The track had been panned by amateur and pro critics all over and the label was feeling stung so they launched a full-fledged investigation.

A week or so after that I am in the office of the same prod co and there is a Pinkerton agent there. Yes, the strike breaking, Lincoln protecting Pinkertons that even scare Al Swearengen on Deadwood. Unfortunately, the music piracy Pinkerton was not wearing a six gun or swinging an ax-handle. He was just an ex-cop looking guy with a clipboard. He asked a lot of people in the office some questions and then left.

Nothing really became of it, but this has to be the ultimate “analog solution to a digital problem.” I guess the Texas Rangers or Musketeers were not available.

Labels: controversy, download, label, music video, prod co

How evil is the RIAA?

Seriously, how baby-eatingly bad is the RIAA? Are they Hitler bad? Slobodan Milosevic evil? Maybe just Dr. Evil semi-evilish?

The RIAA has been under some serious heat from them there intranets of late. By enacting the strategy of suing anyone who doesn’t genuflect fast enough, the record industry is shooting themselves in their be-spatted foot. Yes, the RIAA is doing a whole lot of dumb things. Many, many stupid decisions are made by the Recording Institute Association of America. That being said …

They are not really wrong. The RIAA is actually right about the core issue. Stealing music is wrong. Yes, I know I just came out for tyranny and against sunshine.

I believe illegal downloading is bad. It is stealing. Taking something that is not yours is against the law and it should be. Recent changes in technology have made it very easy to grab up the music (and movies and software) you want online. But easy and right are not the same thing.

People that want free music will shake their fist at the RIAA and offer many excuses as to why it is/should be okay for them to steal music: CDs are too expensive, labels are the man (and the man is ALWAYS bad), the RIAA sucks, I don’t have enough money, the labels rip off the artist anyway, blah, blah ...

The basic thoughts behind the excuses might be true, but the core of it is that those are just excuses. Just listen to yourself.

It is not okay to steal other things that you find too pricey (jewelry, Ferraris, sushi). It is not okay to steal from places run by jerk wads. If you don’t have enough money for something, maybe you ought to readjust your priorities rather than stealing if you don’t wanna get in trouble. These excuses and justifications are all a bunch of noise. It is wrong to take stuff that doesn’t belong to you, and you know it. (Pardon my use of the second person, it just seemed to work better.)

People who steal music say all kinds of dumb stuff. “I download it first and THEN I buy it later if it is good.” Really? With a straight face, you’re gonna tell me that you had to download the entire Roxy Music Greatest Hits Collection to see if you liked it? What are the CDs you bought after downloading the songs first? What percentage of those “involuntary free samples” given out by the musicians and record labels turn into purchases by you?

There are millions of excuses and justifications and they might bring comfort as Limewire does it’s business and fills your hard-drive with music you love/like/sample – but the excuses are all bullshit. All us humans like stuff for free. And we will take that stuff as often as possible, especially if we have someone else to point at (RIAA) who is also behaving poorly so we can feel better about our own actions.

This blog, jefito, is pretty cool, but on this topic I think he is totally missing the point.

“The sad irony here, I think, is that file sharing probably won’t ever die. It’s just too easy, and appeals too deeply to our need to have common experiences.”

Common experiences? So THAT is why people download? Not for free stuff, but to share the communal e-campfire experience and talk story like our long lost ancestors? The bullshit in that statement is just as stinky (and in my opinion far more-so) than anything the RIAA tries to serve up as the truth.

Scott McCloud draws a cool on-line comic and he has a long post/drawing that explains the theory of micro-payments very well. I think micro-payments will drive on-line commerce, if not all commerce, in the future. Check out his piece, I thought it was great until …


He would pay twice the amount if he knew it was going to the band? Really?!? How Smurfy. Again, I call “bullshit” on that. This is simply not human nature. Downloading is rampant because people like free stuff. Period.

If the RIAA and all it’s dastardliness did not exist, would downloading stop? If CDs (or a comparable download) cost three dollars would internet users everywhere agree this was a fair price and simply pay for their music and not illegally download?

Every time someone makes lame excuses like this, it completely undermines any other salient points they might be making. Which destroys credibility faster? The RIAA’s stupidity and heavy-handed-ness or pretending that stealing songs with your computer is some kind of internet Kumbaya? That is just as BS as wanting to smoke pot, but acting like you are only interested in hemp clothing? How about saying your country stands for freedom while torturing people to support your own lies?

Bullshit positions (no matter how convenient or affordable) don’t lead to solutions. The RIAA posturing that the current, artist-screwing label structure is the only way for musicians to survive is BS. So is pretending that you illegally downloaded a song because you love The Beastie Boys just that much.

Even the Gawker empire (and their month long, anti-DRM rant and their copyright/royalty discussion) might be starting to realize that their RIAA jihad is not where the solutions lie.

April addendum: This is an important point that I meant to cover in another post, but I never quite got around to that "other post" so I will add it here. Pirating music (or movies or Halo expansion packs) hurts you. I imagine that anyone who has taken the time to get to this point on this blog somehow works in music/media/entertainment - or at least has visions of doing so. If you want to be the next Spielberg, why would you want to participate in an action that steals from artists you love AND decreases your chances for getting your own shot to direct a feature film (that you don't finance with Grandma's inheritance). Copyrights (or whatever the "intellectual property 2.0" deal will be called) protect me and, since you are reading this, probably you as well. Why shoot myself in the foot?

I have no idea what the future of the music industry will be. It certainly won’t look like what we have now. There will be many changes, and that is as it should be. But I do know that …

Any effective change will be based on reality. The reality is that people like to get stuff/music for free and right now they are getting as much of that free product as they want. So the solution does NOT lie in acting like downloading is caused by “extreme music love” or “angsty defiance” or “justified disaffection with cultural structures.”

Getting people the music they want, as easily as possible and at a fair price is the goal.

The solution will come from people who understand that illegal downloading is driven by the most basic of instincts. Greed.

Acknowledging that, is the first step. This is one area where the RIAA is actually out in front.

Kumbaya, snitches!

Labels: death, download, music video, RIAA, selling

If it’s in the LA/Chicago Times it must be true. Right?

There is a piece in Friday’s edition of the Los Angeles Times explaining how the lack of Grammy nominations in hip-hop means that rapping on records has lost it’s creative steam. Certainly the best judges of what is and is not a creative force in music are the septuagenarians and Steely Dan fans that make up Grammy voters.

Some of the article is Senior Citizen hogwash. Newspapers are aimed at your parents, so the stories tend to reflect their interests (like “Them Intranet Tubes Try to Steal Social Security Checks” and “Why Do They Have to Drive So Fast?”)

But Boucher and Lee do get to some salient points. TI’s album is the only rap-based record in the Top 20 in sales for the year. They also point out that lots of other music in the Year-End Top Ten is not rap-based but is hip-hop influenced (JT, Mary J). Plus many of the "big" rap releases (Jay Z, Game) are at the end of the year so they will sell less copies in calendar 2006. Even Mr. "Hip Hop is Dead" himself, Nas, has record coming out in 2006, but buried on Dec. 15. I guess Nas's boss didn't want the sales competition.

There is also the acknowledgement of the changing business model that is working its way through the music world – by starting in hip-hop:

"Hip-hop and urban music is just as strong as it has been, it's just that now its success is coming in new places and in new ways," said Jay Frank, the chief of programming for Yahoo Music. "There's a lot of digital downloads and ring tones being sold, and in some cases this is music that is being very successful in ways other than selling CDs."

Sixteen-year-old rapper Jibbs is an example. His debut album has sold a humble 126,000 copies since its release in October. But one sing-song track on the CD, "Chain Hang Low," an ode to diamond necklaces, has sold 1.4 million ring tones. Those sound clips, used to personalize cell phones, usually cost about $2 each. (full article here)

I hadn’t realized that Jibbs had sold so few CDs, nor that many ring-tones. Things are changing, but it certainly is not all bad. I guess that the growing youthification of the music scene means consumers who can afford to buy songs one at a time but aren’t committed/wealthy enough to buy the whole disc. Kind of like that shady liquor store that sold cigarettes for a quarter each, knowing the market was all underage kids. Anyone else remember that? Maybe that was just me and all the other kids with the Hessian rat-tail combs.

More on the Grammy Nominations in a bit.

Labels: download, media, music video

This was inspired by another conversation over on antville and shots ring out.

There has been much talk about YouToogle and possible replacements for the titan of web video. No one is happy with the picture quality of Das Tube – other than R Kelly who enjoys the graininess because it allows Kells to claim that ain’t him sexing the underage girls on the home video.

There will someday (and soon) be a new and improved YouTube. Maybe Google will upgrade their new purchase to HD or maybe some other new site will come in and have better tech that pushes out Das Tube. It will happen, but the details don’t matter. Not to me and not to the regular people who have made YouTube the hit it is.

I use a car. Every day. It has a complicated motor inside. I don’t care. Add gas. Change oil occasionally. Do that and the car takes me where I want to go. I care about the destination, not the process. That doesn’t mean the process isn’t important, but if the engineer/designer/builder does their job right, it doesn’t matter to me whether my car has a five speed automatic transmission or a six cylinder engine. If they do their job right, I only have to care about my goal – “get to store for more Mickey’s Wide Mouths and non-fat cottage cheese singles”.

In the early days of cars, like 1911, drivers had to know how to crank the vehicle to start it and have some knowledge of repairing/maintaining the ungainly beasts. These cars never really took off in the market-place. But when the Model T came along with radically better reliability and simplicity – people started ditching horses for Fords.

Das Tube is great at simplicity. I click and the video plays. Every, mutha-farking time. No ifs, ands or buts. That is what matters to me. I get to see the video when I click. It seems pretty simple.

If you find yourself thinking, “Well all you have to do on (name of higher tech video service) is be sure your browser accepts cookies and download the driver that will …” then you are a tech nerd. Tech nerds were the guys out buying those early horseless carriages because they liked the challenge as much as they liked getting from point A to B. Tech nerds are great. They read websites about music videos. Hell, they often direct music videos. But tech nerds are NOT normal people.

Web videos need to be 100% easy or they will get ignored (Hello, MTV Underwhelm). Video links/files are useful if, and only if, I can instantly send it to a co-worker or friend and it will definitely play for them. The last thing you wanna hear when you send a buddy a video of Britney’s pastrami curtains is that the damn thing wouldn’t open. Of course, a better quality picture is better, but only if we can launch the video on your computer or otherwise it won’t matter.

At some point, the new service(s) will be all that, but for now, YouTube is the best option for normal folks. When that change-over happens, the tech guys will have known about the new service for months - but it won't matter until us regular types figure it out and flock there like lemmings.

Labels: antville, download, music video, YouTube

One of the movers and shakers over on the Ville, spit, asked me the following question:

I guess what I'm confused about is the lack of a
connection between music video sales (through itunes
and dvds) and music video budgets. The itunes store
sold over a million music video downloads in little
over two weeks when it first opened, and it seems like
these days every artist on a major label is
practically required to release a dvd with live
performances and music videos. This month, a video
that I directed was slapped on to a special edition
"re-release" of a cd that had already been out for a
year. The only incentive for fans was the additional
music video, and its been selling pretty well. All
this to say that I think the demand for music videos
seems as high now as any other time in the medium's
history, and for the first time ever, record labels
are able to use them as more than just promotional
tools. Even the existence of youtube doesn't seem to
be stopping consumers from spending money to actually
own the content.

My question is, when will this new source of revenue
benefit the people on our side of the fence? It's
probably unrealistic to assume that any of the money
will ever see our pockets, but you'd think that it
might at least encourage bigger budgets. Is most of
the money just seen as a general recoup for the cost
of the video itself, is it being funneled into new
projects, or is it just helping the majors keep the
lights on?

I am not an industry sales or financial analyst, but here’s my semi-educated answer.

Since the sales of music videos on-line began, I have been writing about the issue. Even the Old Grey Lady covered it. Please don’t read my random thoughts and then NYT piece back to back – it’s embarrassing.

An organization of music video directors has also been on the case for a while as well – trying to gather the support so that they can get a piece of the financial pie. This effort by the MVDGA has even gotten some attention of it’s own. But have they received any money?

No directors have been paid for their music videos selling well. Unlike feature films or television shows – the director of a music video has no legal claim to any profits. That is what the MVDGA is trying to rectify – create an organization to try and leverage their position. The people at the MVDGA are definitely on the side of angels in my book, but their efforts have been (and will continue to be, IMO) fruitless.

When a video gets shot, a director signs a contract with the label stating that the video is a work for hire. Every bit of film on the set belongs to the label. The label grants the director the right to put the clip on their reel for promotional purposes only, but they could rescind that at their discretion. Even a snapshot of the director posing with the lead singer between takes is technically owned by the label.

Contractually, the director has no standing. A given director could fight to get that changed, but it would definitely be a big struggle to get the label to switch up their boilerplate contract to satisfy a single MV director. And that is IF the label agreed to give up money – which never happens. I can see why a director would want to get paid, but the label is very likely to just say “Pass” and commission the job with a competing director. There are lots of those out there.

Music videos have been getting sold for a long time. Spit asked about DVD and enhanced CDs – both decent-sized sources of revenue for labels. I found some sales charts for DVD content (old school stuff like Stones concerts and Creed compilations which directors are not paid for) – but none for the individual video sales at iTunes or other outlets.

Seriously, I could not find any specifics about which videos were selling well on-line. Other than that “1 million sold” announcement – not much has been written about the sales. The labels and Apple seem to be keeping those details as their little secret.

Look at the “million” announcement again (and again and again) – it is really a press release from Apple. It got tons of hype and coverage – but we all just took Cupertino’s word for it. Did they sell those videos? I’m sure Apple did – but the announcement was made to drive more sales and that is all. Who knows how many they are selling a year later? (If you have any charts or specifics, please pass them along).

I also have to believe that the rise of Das Tube and myspace is also making kids less interested in owning a video. Why buy the “BAWLLIN” Jim Jones clip when you can find it on YouTube at any computer?

Not only does the director/prod co have no legal claim to residuals or royalties, because of the contracts they also have no way to know what they might “deserve” based on sales. Apple (and other on-line retailers) and the labels are keeping a very tight lid on things.

So that answers the part about “will directors ever see money from the sale of MVs.” The other part of spit’s question asked if these sales would ever make it into increased budgets for future videos. My short answer to that would be “not now, but it might in the future.” I am not really known for my short answers …

For labels to spend more on music videos because they see an increased income stream from selling them off later, I believe these things would have to happen:

1. Labels would need to believe that they were really making money off selling individual MVs as downloads. If the sales of the videos (which the labels split with iTunes) requires additional book-keeping and the like – the money may “seem” like less of a plus to them. And how many different videos were sold to make up that million? A single video selling 300k times would attract label attention – a whole bunch of clips each selling 114 times would not.
2. Labels would have to believe that bigger videos mean more on-line sales for them. Without sales charts, I can only guess – but I’m sure the labels have a very accurate sales count. My guess is that some of the top video sellers on iTunes are cheap stuff like “Chicken Noodle Soup” or even “OK-GO” – which means that the specifics of the song or clip, rather than the budget determines it’s sales potential. Labels will spend more IF spending more means they make more. Period. Even if “Hey Ya!” were the top-selling video on iTunes (just guessing, of course) – does that mean it sold well because the budget was over $500k, or because the song was so damn catchy? My guess is the top selling videos on iTunes are the kiddie clips OR videos the catalog album charts – “Thriller”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Welcome to the Jungle.” That probably won’t make the labels want to spend more on videos.

The end of spit’s question is sort of the answer. I will re-cap the question here to save you from scrolling all the way past my own, lengthy answer-like-writing. “Is most of the money just seen as a general recoup for the cost of the video itself, is it being funneled into new projects, or is it just helping the majors keep the lights on?”

There you have it. If the labels are seeing much new money from selling music videos on DVD or on the web – they are using it to offset the fact that Tower Records is closed and once-dependable artists like Janet Jackson (and maybe Beyonce) now absorb millions and millions of promo dollars only to generate barely platinum sales.

There are lots of new opportunities for music videos. Product placement will continue to grow. I can see future videos being combo MVs and ads for particular product where the band/song/clip is paid to bring eye-balls to whatever is being sold. Some people hate product placement, but I think it will continue to evolve and get more insidious and accepted.

Since we can’t wait for Big Daddy Label to come and pay us – where else will the opportunities be?

Labels: download, media, music video, YouTube