I mentioned in a footnote to my post about my Screen-Name Song that there was a downside to all the "success" my music has experienced on Jango.com. And here it is.
I have had the pleasure of being listened to almost 50,000 times. 622 people have actually signed on as fans, and nearly 1,900 more have said they "like" my music.I have emails from people saying they want more. I have emails telling me I deserve to be truly successful. I have emails telling me how much better my songs are than the 'average new artist'.
Wonderful. It turns out that Jango is a great way to get to people who like music.
But, as yet, nothing of this has resulted in a single sale of my CD.
And, of course, this set me thinking and connecting things in my usual way.
In the USA, Jango is free - they just ask that you support their sponsors (advertisers) and occasionally click on one of their banner ads. They never ask that listeners support the artists!
Now, to be fair, Jango makes a big thing about complying with "all restrictions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)". Note they say restrictions, not agreements or opportunities. So I wrote to them and asked for details of what royalty payments I could expect in the future.
Before we go any further, the older ones among you will remember the scandals of payola. When it was discovered that major record labels were paying radio stations to play their favored artists' recordings. Scandal! How could this be? Well, independent artists like me pay Jango to play our songs. But now it's considered a totally acceptable business model.
Jango is paid by its artists. Jango is paid by advertisers. So they are doing quite well.
As for the artist? $100 will get you 4,000 plays (get 50 fans and you also go into general free rotation). And one year from when those plays happen you can expect to get back from your performing rights organization - in my case ASCAP - something close to $1.50. No that's not a typing error. Your return on investment is 1.5%.
So, why do we do it? We've already paid the recording studio where we recorded our songs, if we are solo performers we have paid the musicians who helped us, we have paid a company like Oasis to manufacture our CDs, probably paid a designer to help create the cover artwork, and we sit and watch companies like amazon.com take 55% of anything we actually manage to sell. But we do this because we believe people still like music in their lives...and because we have people like my 622 fans and 1900 'likes' who we think might take the next logical step and actually buy our music.
But they don't. And we have created a culture in which they think that's just fine. They paid for the music - literally, or by appeasing sponsors - but don't realize the artists see no part of that payment. It's not their fault, totally. It's very hard to figure out whose fault it is.
We live in the culture of free, as my friend Jeff called it recently. Music is free. Or almost free. People will pay the Internet radio station but not the artists. Hmmm? Where does that lead I wonder?
Leonard Cohen - of whom I am a great fan and BUY everything he produces - once said:
"I never wanted to work for pay but wanted to be paid for my work."
At the time he said it, it was more about a lifestyle choice. He had little idea that by 2009 his words would capture the entire struggle of artists in a world that has devalued creativity and ideas.
And I believe that when a culture does not value and sponsor its creative minds it soon loses the foundation of culture itself.
It is not just happening in music. A new advertising agency called Victors & Spoils recently made headlines with a concept they did not create but have championed called Crowd-Sourcing. To me, this is another name for "ideas for free" and I left a comment to that effect on their web site.
The agency finds clients, it hopes, to go along with this scheme. They then let the world know what the client needs in terms of creative ideas. Anyone can send their ideas to the agency. The "winner" gets a little money - or the 'chance' to maybe work at the agency. Oh boy, a job lottery!
The agency owns the idea outright - you sign a contract that says so - and they can charge the client whatever they like. So who makes the money? The agency, which in this scenario is the Jango.com of the advertising world. Giving hopefuls a chance at a price, with little real chance of them earning what their ideas are worth. Wannabe advertising people line up just as independent music artists line up for the chance to actually make a living from their creative ideas. Only to see the middle-men, the go-betweens, the guys making the promises to help but with no guarantees, make all the money. They actually make the old-school, big record labels look attractive. At least they made an effort to promote and support their artists. Of course they'd drop you in an instant if you didn't sell enough records. But the chance was real.
Now, believe me, I am not simply another old guy fighting against new ideas. I am all for progress, technology and a better, more informed life for everyone. I simply think that it's important that we not see devaluation of ideas as a valid idea in its own right. If it's an idea at all, it's a really dangerous one.
I will stay on Jango for a while - it's great swapping emails with folks around the world. But eventually I will have to say that the investment is not worth the return. Unless, miraculously, people realize that there will not be more music from Dave Tutin unless more of them pay me for the music that is already out there. Music which they say they really like. If they all said it was crap I'd shut up and blow away like a leaf in Autumn!
Technology has made recording music a lot easier than it used to be - indeed it is this that has created the entire independent artist wave - but we cannot produce it for nothing. Which means we cannot give it away for free.
Sadly the way to make money in music today is to feed off musicians rather than by being one.
