iTunes download service and others only help rip-off musicians
Posted on 17/10/03 15:06 by Seán Byrne                             
iTunes download service and others only help rip-off musicians

WarpedRecord used our news submit to tell us that iTunes and many other legal download services are not any more 'artist friendly' than selling CDs or even using free P2P services.  While we all know that CDs are very expensive and the artist only gets a tiny fraction of the CD cost, the same holds true for legal download services including iTunes.  First, even though Apple does sell full albums below the regular retail price, they are still too expensive.  The Audio is compressed using a lossy compression to simplify distribution and next there are no overhead costs involved in running record shops, hiring shop staff or paying physical transport services either.  With this, what is keeping the song title pricing still close to the shop's retail price? 

Well, here is where your money goes when you make an iTunes song purchase:  Apple gets a 35% cut and the other 65% goes to the music industry.  Of this 65%, they pay the artists between 8 and 14 cents per song depending on their contract.  Finally, artists must also make a large pay out for producer and recording costs.  If the artists' music does not do so well, they could end up owing rather than earning!  In the end, iTunes and many other legal download services just give a 'modern shiny look' to the exploitative system of the music industry over the past 50 years .

WarpedRecord said:  It's time ALL musicians were rewarded for their efforts!

People are paying for songs on the iTunes Music Store because they think it's a good way to support musicians. But by giving musicians just a few cents from each sale, iTunes destroys a huge opportunity. Instead of creating a system that gets virtually all of fans' money directly to artists-- finally possible with the internet-- iTunes takes a big step backwards. Apple calls iTunes "revolutionary" but really they're just letting record companies force the same exploitive and unfair business model onto a new medium.

It's too expensive

Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value for customers. Apple says many users are buying whole "albums" for - each. That's less than the store price, but used CDs at Amazon or ebay cost , and those come with liner notes. If you don't care about liner notes, you can burn the CD from a friend for 25 cents and send the musician a buck. In both cases, you end up with a real CD, and you can always use iTunes to rip it onto your computer or mp3 player. And you don't have to deal with restrictions on how you use it.

Lossy - Lossy means loss

iTunes AAC files don't sound as good as CDs. AAC is a "lossy" compression format: it shrinks the sound file by throwing away subtle nuance and texture that a computer program thinks you won't be able to hear. The thing is, you can hear it. You might not notice listening to your iPod on the subway, but if you get home, lie back on the couch, and listen to your new iTunes album on a real stereo, it won't have the same nuance, punch, and presence that a CD has. A burned copy of a real CD will always sound better than a burned iTunes album.

"But I don't really care about compression"

Then you're in good company: lots of people just want to hear the songs they like and don't mind listening to compressed music. The majority of those people (the sensible ones) choose peer to peer filesharing programs like Kazaa or Acquisition to get their mp3s. Downloads are fast, there's a bigger selection, and peer to peer sharing doesn't prop up the music industry. Plus it's free.

If you build a shiny new house on a landfill it still stinks

Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to artists and record companies." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never Artists Get Ripped Off. even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.

I'd recommend reading the whole story here

It looks like that most legal download services are after all not any much better to the artists than purchasing CDs or just free P2P file sharing.  According to this article, Apple get three times the payment than the artist gets per song sold.  Compare that to the small work Apple have put into their service all the work what the artists put into their work to get ripped off.  It is likely another reason why the music on the radio has got so bad in recent years and another likely reason why CD sales are dropping.  Many artists that are well capable of producing good music may feel that it would be better to sell their music directly to their customers locally rather than get their work seriously ripped by the music industry.

A better approach to support your favourite artists and boycott the music industry would be to download their album or copy it off a friend and send the artist a check for a few quid.  If the music industry were to still pay the artist 10 cent, but only add another 10 cent per song sold for packaging and distribution (easily done on legal download services), this would bring a typical 20-song album down to just $ 4! 

Source: Downhill Battle

Reactions
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By mbg, Friday 17 October 2003 15:14
I\'d be surprised if anyone thought that music downloads would be more friendly to artists. What reason would you have for believing this? It's never been claimed, and the large chunk of the cost has always been on the label side. You are not completely removing physical and B&M costs because, although you remove physical product (which did not cost much, anyway), you are now adding software development and maintenance, network bandwidth, hardware costs, etc... I suppose it\'s better, then, to keep stealing music so that the artist gets absolutely nothing. That\'ll show them record labels. These arguments are so predictable... when you bypass retail and send a check to the artist directly (which I really, really doubt many people would bother to do), you are now ripping off the producers, writers, studios, engineers, cover artists, B&M stores, etc, etc, who normally get paid in the process.
[edited by mbg on 17.10.2003 15:22]
By Rhelic, Friday 17 October 2003 15:22
This whole artictle is slightly biased against Apple and it twists things to make it sound like all Apple's fault. Obviously when Apple developed the whole iTunes system they took their costs, added monthly overhead, made some estimates on sales (although I believe they are selling more music than they planned) and then set the prices. Don't think for a second that Apple can sell music for free. If you want to get mad about artists being ripped off, blame the record companies. PS: I'm not even much of a fan of Apple either. But if you're gonna point the finger, make sure you point it at the right people.
[edited by Rhelic on 17.10.2003 15:24]
By Seán, Friday 17 October 2003 15:30
SeánI tried to base the summary on the source rather than the legal download services in general. I changed the article title so it does not appear to be strictly picking on Apple. The source was trying to say that Apple should have taken a better approach such as to try and sell music from the artists directly rather than going through another middleman, i.e. the music industry
[edited by seanbyrne on 17.10.2003 16:05]
By Crabbyappleton, Friday 17 October 2003 16:34
CrabbyappletonI am a fan of products that allow the artist to distribute their content by themselves even setting the price, I.E. BluFilter which is in beta. Also, there are other vehicles coming along to help the artist get the bigger share such as Magnatune that Savannah told us about. So we can see that the artist can get a better cut of the action if the model is appropriately configured to do so. Time will tell if these are to be profitable businesses for the long term. I don't know. But it would be nice for the content creators. Smilie
By StrongBad, Friday 17 October 2003 21:31
quote: These arguments are so predictable... when you bypass retail and send a check to the artist directly (which I really, really doubt many people would bother to do), you are now ripping off the producers, writers, studios, engineers, cover artists, B&M stores, etc, etc, who normally get paid in the process. mbg: ummm, no, how is this a predictable argument when what you are saying is WRONG? ARTISTS PAY the producers, writers, studios, engineers, etc.... NOT the RIAA, so they are NOT getting "ripped off". And your argument of local stores getting ripped off is invalid, because according to your logic, i am "ripping off" my local stores by buying online for a considerably better price.
By aviationwiz, Friday 17 October 2003 23:03
aviationwizNo one is getting ripped off here by the iTunes Music Store. It just so happens, that the artists, and everyone else is getting less money than when you buy a CD, but, you, the consumer, are also paying less for it, and are getting quality. All 4 of my iTunes purchases so far have downloaded in about 15 seconds due to Apple's fast servers, and the quality is excellent. This article was very biased against Apple.
By joex444, Saturday 18 October 2003 02:57
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/8208 I think if either Apple or Microsoft were violating this copyright, it'd be Apple. They market their downloads as going to an iPod! Talk about a physical medium....
By Jester700, Saturday 18 October 2003 04:54
People need to learn more about the recording industry... The record companies front the $250k or so needed to record & promote an album. THAT's why they get the lion's share of the returns. For every band that makes a big profit for the company, there are a BUNCH that lose a quarter million bucks a pop. That's not to say I agree with the RIAA's legal maneuvers or anything, but the artists on iTunes are still bound by those contracts and that kind of capital investment to pay back. I hope we'll soon see a world where bands record more intelligently, with less overhead to pay back. Some already do, but not the big names. As long as buyers look for the big names, this is the way it'll be. Why are the names big? Money & marketing. If you want artists to get the $$, then find small artists who recorded an album for $10k by themselves in their basement studio, and download from their web site. For every megastar making a million bucks a year, I'd rather see 20 making $50,000 and enjoying it.
By sidearms2, Saturday 18 October 2003 16:08
It's just the start. Let the competition begin. Just yesterday I heard on npr.org that 80% of .99 goes to the record companies and 20% is split between apple and the artist (reported by the NewYorkTimes's columnist David Pogue). Now don't you feel bad for the record companies? I wonder what their tithe is to RIAA? http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1467973
By Cubeman42, Monday 20 October 2003 17:57
Cubeman42I think that most people here are forgetting one thing. Better than 70% of artists dont own the copyrights to their music. The record companies took it when they signed the contract. While some were smart enough to make sure they got it back after so many years some did not and will face legal battles 30 years from now when they want to get that back....
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