I wake up every day thankful that I make a living and support my family with my work as a record producer. Unfortunately, this has become increasingly more difficult thanks to rampant piracy and the unabated and, to many, socially accepted act of file sharing.
Record producers play an integral role in the creation of recordings while wearing many different hats (from song arranger, guitarist, background vocalist, to psychologist, and bartender). Generally speaking, we work with artists in the studio, creatively guiding and managing the complete recording process from start to finish- think George Martin and the Beatles. After recording expenses are recouped, we get paid a portion of the artist’s royalty of every song or album purchased regardless of format. When a song or album is downloaded or shared illegally, the producer, like the artist, doesn’t get paid for their work.
The biggest acts in the world utilize and rely on producers when recording. Up and coming acts need producers even more, as most are inexperienced in the recording process and need guidance in their development as songwriters and performers. Most young acts don’t have large recording budgets. In order to entice a normally expensive producer to work with them, they might offer a larger than normal royalty on sales.
However, according to industry sources, 95% of all music downloaded in 2010 was unlicensed and illegal, so the potential of any significant royalties is tenuous at best. Statistics like this hardly provide incentive for the producer to give his time and efforts to this unproven act since there is little potential for back end payment. This doesn’t bode well for artist development, which ultimately affects the quality of music flowing into the marketplace.
It’s a vicious cycle. And everybody loses.
Initially the culprits were college kids with little money and lots of time, ripping CDs onto computers and trading pirated music files across university networks. Then, a few young bucks got smart and uploaded collections of these files to one-stop dedicated pirate websites. Then came bitTorrent sites (P2P file sharing protocol), a mere buffet of free music and videos delivered over increasingly faster bandwidth. Word spread fast. The big search engines took notice and realized that if they included (and search engine optimized) these sites in their search results, they could get paid every time someone clicked the link to get to these sites.
Essentially, this passive “stamp of approval” also gave these rogue sites a sense of legitimacy to the casual virtual shoplifter, thereby encouraging even more click throughs.
This series of events has brought major media content providers to their knees- most notably record labels. Now I am well aware that the level of sympathy this elicits is, well, akin to oil companies bemoaning the loss of revenue. I’m also well aware that the reaction or lack thereof) of the record labels to illegal file sharing was, and I’ll try to say it in the kindest way possible, strategically flawed. But these labels financed the recording budgets. And with less money being made available for making records (since illegal downloading and file sharing has massively undercut the return on investment), the real casualty is the ecosystem of musicians, songwriters, engineers, artists, producers, and the janitors at the recording studios- the music makers and the people whose jobs support the creative process.
The difficulty of making money as a musician is a well worn adage. And that was before illegal downloading. In the last ten years or so, music piracy has forced legendary producers and artists to find new careers in order to make a living (the reclusive rock star in his mansion and the hip hop star flashing bling is a dying cliché- in the words of Public Enemy, “don’t believe the hype”).
Most of the studios where your favorite records were recorded have closed up shop. Talented young musicians set aside their life’s passion and take the safer road by getting “real jobs”.
There is some hope though. The “new” music business is an exciting and continuously evolving world where music artists can choose from an array of inexpensive online DIY tools to market, promote, and sell their music. And the music fan has almost unlimited options to find new music. But in order for this paradigm shift to truly succeed, these artists need the opportunity to generate revenue for their creations, thereby giving them the ability to reinvest in their artistic development and make a decent living. The first step is to ensure their ability to control the distribution of their music to websites that guarantee they will get paid for their music (e.g. iTunes, and Amazon). If they want to give their music away for free, let that be solely their choice.
Makes a lot of sense, right? Well, in order for this to happen, a fair and equitable market-based solution needs to be developed and enforced to protect the rights of the owner of the master recordings. By safeguarding artists and bands from piracy, we provide incentives for artistry, while protecting and creating jobs. It’s the American way.
Luke Ebbin is an American multi-platinum, Grammy nominated record producer, composer and songwriter. He is credited for executing the comeback and extreme makeover of Bon Jovi with his production of the worldwide smash hit “It’s My Life” (one Grammy nomination) and the 8 million selling album “Crush” (one Grammy nomination). After his work with Bon Jovi, Ebbin produced the critically acclaimed album United By Fate for the emo-core all-star band, Rival Schools, hailed as the “greatest modern rock album since Nirvana’s Nevermind in Kerrang. Recently Ebbin wrote with Tom Higgenson of the Plain White T’s on their hit record “Hey There Delilah,” produced a second Bon Jovi album, Bounce (2 more Grammy nominations), and has produced and/or written with Melissa Etheridge (one Grammy nomination), the All-American Rejects, Will. I.Am, Wakefield, The Dan Band, Dirty Harry, Shannon Noll and Summercamp, among others. He is co-founder of Music180.com.
This post first appeared in the MusicTechPolicy Monthly newsletter.
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