Why buy my CDs here?
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I don't make a PENNY if you buy my CDs from Amazon or ANY OTHER on-line store. I don't make a CENT if you buy my Music from any physical retail store. I make a few "micro-cents" if you download my tunes from iTunes or Rhapsody or over a thousand other on-line download services: I make .0016 cents per song. My most recent check for the entire year was for $167.55. Click here to see my iTunes catalogue. See articles for the truth about copyrights and on-line "sanctioned" theft.
Now, don't feel guilty if you downloaded my music from iTunes or Rhapsody or Spotify or a million other sites... don't feel bummed if you bought my CDs from Amazon or Bestbuy or CD Universe or thousands of other outlets, physical or digital. It's cheap and easy. And lots of people find it hard to believe that a musician could be so ubiquitous and not be compensated. Just understand that this is the Digital Age, and piracy is the rule because no other rules are in place. Yet. And remember - the record company executives that I recorded for DO get paid. They own the copyrights.
IF YOU BUY AT AMAZON: money is stolen from me daily by record producers and executives, CEO's and CFO's. I have NEVER received ONE PENNY. 70 CDs and 45 years of work. Click here to see all of the money that is stolen from me daily. 70 CDs and over 40 years of work.
Although many content creators (artists, musicians, writers, poets, etc) have fought hard against the huge corporate takeover of the on-line download and file-sharing community, we're losing ground. New legislation is in the works, but will take years to implement. CDs as a physical product are "going away" while free and subscription services are replacing them. The creators no longer receive ANY money from sales of their work due to our short-sighted Congress and the huge corporate monopolies that now control ALL of the music business AND our Congress. Many "experts" (yes, even Senators) argue that artists deserve NO COMPENSATION for their work, as we create an unnecessary commodity.
That's one reason I started my own web site, and why I started my own publishing company, and why I started my own CD company. If you buy my Music here, I get paid. And I will SIGN the CDs for you.
And my RED AND BLUE CDs ARE NOT AVAILABLE FROM ANY SITE OTHER THAN JESSICAWILLIAMS.COM
This is my site and I refuse to sell it or clutter it up with ads and cookies and javascript and spyware. There's nothing here but words and Music and videos. I built and maintain this web site by myself.
So, until our Congress makes a newer and stupider law that decrees that I am breaking the law by selling my OWN music on my OWN web site (believe it, it is coming), I'll continue to do this, as an act of will, and an act of Justice.
Musicians Earn What????
New York City : NY : USA | Jan 1, 2012 at 11:56 PM PST, BY Sherrill Fulghum 
It was not too long ago that a music fan could walk into an actual record (or music) store and peruse thousands of record albums, CDs, and singles; but today almost the only place to find an actual CD in the United States is at a live concert or the used book sale at the local library. nCurrently most of the music purchased in the United States comes from digital downloads. The Daily Swarm has released some startling statistics on just what it takes for a musician to make a living in the music business.
When a musician or a band has a deal with a record company, the artist receives seven to 10 percent of each album or CD sold. With digital download services the artist receives about nine cents per song.
In the US there is a national minimum wage for workers of $7.25 per hour (some areas pay more). This translates into $1,160 per month before taxes. For artists to earn the same amount as a minimum wage worker, they would have to sell 1,161 physical CDs, 1,299 digitally downloaded albums, or 12,399 singles.
And when it comes to audio streaming services, it can take anywhere from 849,817 plays to over four million plays to make the same amount of money. What makes this even more difficult is that the various audio streaming and digital download services are not available everywhere.
- Emusic is available in 27 countries
- iTunes is available in 23 countries
- YouTube is available in 21 countries
- Vodafone is available in 17 countries
- 7Digital is available in 16 countries
- Spotify is available in 12 countries
- Last.fm is available in 10 countries
- Amazon is available in six countries
- Deezer is available in four countries
- Pandora and Rhapsody are available in only one country
These numbers do not take into account the number of hours an artist or a band spends practicing each day, the time spent writing songs, and recording those songs. For many musicians the only real source of an income is by touring and some bands spend more time on the road then they do at home trying to survive making music. And just because the concert figures reach into the millions, the artist does not get most of it; that goes to the venue, roadies, technicians, lighting and sound engineers, and any number of “expenses”.
Like the best selling writers, there is a very small percentage of musicians who regularly make millions each year from touring and album sales; while the majority strive to eek out a living,
Making music can be fun but for the professional musician it is also a lot of hard work that often times shows very little in physical return.
Sherrill Fulghum is based in Niagara Falls, New York, United States of America, and is an Anchor for Allvoices.
Digital Parasites
December 15, 2011 - How “Digital Parasites” Have Hurt Songwriters and What Songwriters Can Do To Fight Back
By Erik Philbrook
In his new book, Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back, longtime Rolling Stone contributor Robert Levine tackles head-on the subject of digital piracy and how tech giants such as Apple and Google are booming while the creators of content keep getting hurt. He argues forcefully for stronger copyright protection and offers ways to reach that goal. Levine recently talked to Playback about some of the issues he discusses in his book.
Where did the saying "Information wants to be free" originate and who pushed that idea out into the world?
It's a quote, but it doesn't mean what people think it means. The original meaning is a quote by Stewart Brand, who founded the Whole Earth Catalog. His original quote is actually "Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive…that tension will not go away." What he was talking about is basically the idea that the cost of transmitting information is getting lower and lower every year. But the cost of creating that information doesn't go away.
For example, if I am writing a song, transmitting that song online is essentially free. Transmitting it around gets cheaper every year. What about writing a song? That's not done automatically. That's what Stewart Brand meant, but the quote has been perverted by people who started saying that information should be free as a "motto" but that's just a misunderstanding.
And that idea fed into Chris Anderson's thesis in his book Free: The Future of a Radical Price?
Right. He believes that digital drives the cost of content down to zero, or near its marginal cost? But this idea about pricing things accordingly with marginal cost comes from, like, the auto business. It's not relevant to our business. If you think about it, can you think of anything in media that has been priced in its marginal cost. Back in the 50's, a piece of vinyl anything was never priced in its marginal cost. Media is not a marginal-priced business. Even a book. I think a hardback book is probably the most expensive piece of mass media. It cost $3.50. A piece of celluloid film cost $1,500. But no one ever suggested you should sell that piece of celluloid for $1,500. To say that you price things to hit marginal cost is a total misunderstanding of the media business.
Do you think that this "free culture" ideology has infiltrated the tech giants since so many people in positions of power are younger and have grown up with easy access to music and other intellectual property?
The idea that other people's stuff should be free is not an ideology. Calling it an ideology is giving it a dignity that it doesn't deserve. It's not an ideology, it's an illusion.
What you have is people making money from content, and they want to be able to keep making money from content. People who make money distributing content without paying for it will want to continue making money by not paying for it. They can say they are doing things for the good of the country, or whatever, but they are not doing anything that is not in their own selfish interests. Google is championing free culture because they make a lot of money distributing other people's stuff.
Most people who work in the music industry love and value music. Many who work in book publishing love and value books. What, besides the obvious, do you feel those who work for technology companies value?
A lot of people in the tech industry are driven by a passion for technology. I think if you look at how those organization behave, they tend to behave in a much more rational way.
Fundamentally, Google is about spreading technology and making money. But I think people get confused and they think ASCAP wants to restrict the Internet and Google wants to spread the Internet. That's nonsense. ASCAP wants to make money for your members and Google wants to make money for their shareholders. Now, I'm more sympathetic to your point of view because ASCAP is a more like a union than a corporation. Technically, we're a not-for profit membership organization.
Right. And your members did the damn work. But, even still. You can get up on a stage and say people will do better work if we pay them and we will all have a better market. But some people will look at you like it's the most radical thing you said all day. But isn't that common knowledge? You give me money, I'm going to work harder, write a better book, whatever. That's the basic of economics.
In your book you discuss Google and their ties to other groups who are actively trying to sway public opinion and lobby Congress on their behalf. Tell me a little more about the more prominent organizations and individuals?
As I did research for the book, I was shocked by all the money that Google spends on funding these organizations. They are non-neutral organizations. Two weeks after Google bought YouTube, they made a two million dollar donation to Stanford Law School. Stanford Law School announced that the money would go toward establishing a balance between ownership and the right to access information. Now, there's two issues with that. One, the right to access information is missing from my copy of the Constitution. I like the right to access information but I am not aware that it's a constitutional right.
Access to information is a public good; it's a wonderful thing. It's just not a right. Stanford Law School says that they do not expect donations that are geared toward a specific thing. But then on the other hand, they announced what they were doing with this money. The question is should we take a look at this because it's Google's money? I think yes.
Now, Creative Commons is pushing Google's agenda. The mother-in-law of Sergey Brin [co-founder of Google], who has no background in law and no background in copyright, is Vice of their board. She is there because Sergey Brin gave a lot of money. This is not serving the best interest for artists; this is serving the best interests for Google. People say that Creative Commons is doing important work and what they're trying to do is great, but if you want to have a serious, respected organization it needs to have a serious respected board. What you have now is a joke, so if you want to be taken seriously, put artists on the board.
What are your feelings about the tech companies' opposition to the PROTECT IP Act?
People on the other side don't say, "Hey, we have certain problems with these certain parts of the PROTECT IP Act." They say, "We don't want any legislation at all, things are fine." I think it's time for the other side, if they don't like this act, to come up with another solution to protect our rights.
What's the most important message songwriters should take away from your book?
You have rights. You have the right to get paid for distribution, reproduction and public performances of your work. You have the right to control your work. You might not always want to use them. But that doesn't mean that they are not important and that doesn't mean that you should give them away. Let alone give them away to large corporations.
What can songwriters and composers do on a day-to-day basis that can help protect the value of their work?
Know the value of your work and don't give it away too cheaply. Even if what you do is a hobby to you, it's a business to somebody else, and that business has expenses. Another thing, if you do something for a discount or promotional basis, make sure it's not permanent. If you want to give your songs away, then give your songs away. Don't sign a Creative Commons license, because you can't take it back. A Creative Commons deal is like one of those old record deals. Like when you sign away your rights in exchange for a Cadillac. But with this deal, you don't get a car.
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And more and more...
POSTED ON JANUARY 26, 2012 BY PATRICK MAINES
The Truth Behind Google's Copyright-Bills Hysteria
Though the final chapter in the legislative history of the copyright bills hasn’t yet been written, a couple things are obvious even now: The tech industry has demonstrated great political clout through the mobilization of its users and fan base; and the industry lobby, led by Google, will say and do pretty much anything to advance its commercial interests. This provides the background for what happened within just a few days last week, as Congress was flooded with calls and mail, and petitions were signed by millions, in opposition to bills whose intent was to provide an effective way to combat content infringement on rogue websites abroad. Didn’t matter that most fans of social media, file-sharing, blogs, and the like know next to nothing about communications policymaking, or even the details of the laws they were moved to oppose. They know what they like, and dislike, and when manipulated into seeing the copyright bills as a threat they responded in great numbers.
None of which, of course, is to wonder why people feel more of a kinship with things like the social media than they do with the mainstream media. The one-way and “one-to-the-many” aspects of the old media don’t empower people, or allow for their personal expression, in the manner of blogs or social media like Facebook and YouTube.
But the reason so many people were disposed to dislike the copyright bills, and their knowledge of what was actually in them, are two different things. What moved them to act on their dislike was yet another. For these parts of the story we have to look to the tech industry lobby, and Google most importantly. It was Google that floated the canard that passage of the bills would forever change “the Internet as we’ve known it.”
The irony in Google’s claim was apparently lost on most of the media, tech and mainstream, which may explain why so few reporters pointed out that this alleged threat is word-for-word what the company said, 13 years ago, in opposition to another copyright bill (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act), passage of which has since proven to be a positive boon to Internet companies.
It may also explain why so few reporters pointed out that Google’s claims about the copyright bills – as precursors to the regulation of the Internet – are not just over the top but hypocritical. It was, after all, Google that successfully lobbied, with the active help of a majority of FCC Commissioners, for so-called “network neutrality” regulations, the precedent of which provides not for just speculative but “here and now” regulation of the Internet.
Still, if crass exaggeration and hypocrisy were all that Google displayed in this regard, one might be inclined just to dismiss it as boys being boys. But it didn’t stop there. Google, and other groups that should know better, also gave expression and currency to the bunkum that the copyright bills amounted to an assault on the First Amendment.
That this argument was utterly demolished by the country’s leading First Amendment expert, Floyd Abrams, didn’t give them a moment’s pause, with the upshot being that this nonsense was parroted by all sorts of people as a reason for rejection of the bills. In August of last year, The Media Institute filed a white paper with the Federal Trade Commission titled “Google and the Media: How Google is Leveraging its Position in Search to Dominate the Media Economy.” Among other things, the paper demonstrated the ways in which Google profits from copyright infringement; that indeed the use of other people’s content without their permission has been at the heart of the company’s business plan.
Though the paper didn’t recommend any particular remedy, it asked the FTC to intervene in a way that would prevent the media economy from being dominated by a single entity. Google’s conduct regarding the copyright legislation shows that, far from pulling back, its interest in this kind of domination is growing apace.
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils. This piece was first published in the Dallas Morning News on Jan. 25, 2012.
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Hypocritical pirates destroy value of IP ... By Chris Russell, Thursday, January 26, 2012
Alright, let’s get this straight right off the bat. I opposed SOPA. I opposed PIPA. I think the RIAA and MPAA are vindictive, greedy people. I think it’s ridiculous that little Sally can be fined thousands of dollars for downloading a copy of “Tik Tok” that she can buy on iTunes for a buck. However, I hate piracy. As a CS major, this puts me squarely in the minority of my peers. It’s kind of like an EnvE major saying, “I wish the government would stop investing in green energy.” Piracy apparently just comes with the territory of being in computing.
But really, being anti-piracy makes sense to me, especially professionally. I’m going into a field where me and several dozen (if not several hundred) others will pour months of effort into designing, coding and testing a product. If someone pirates a copy of that, they’re robbing my company (and, through my stock’s value and my paycheck, me) of a sale on something that we bled for.
Of course, this is usually the point in the conversation where piracy advocates break out all the old arguments. Pirates wouldn’t have bought it anyway, if it’s actually worth something, people will pay for it, open source is the way of the future, etc. etc. etc. I don’t put much stock in these arguments, and here’s why. At the end of the day, piracy boils down to the pirate getting something that inherently has value without giving anything in return. Whether the pirate and the producer agree on how much value is irrelevant; if I as the producer of a piece of IP say, “I think this is worth X,” then it is entirely within my rights to want people to either pay X for it or not use it.
The problem is that we have been conditioned by the Internet to believe that something-for-nothing is the norm and we get angry with companies that have the audacity to expect to get paid for their work.
Really, though, people who pirate things don’t bother me. Let’s be honest here: If I really had a problem with pirates, I wouldn’t have many friends here at Tech, would I?
The people who really annoy me are the pirates that try to act like they’re taking the high road by pirating. The ones who talk about how they’re supporting indie filmmakers by pirating mainstream Hollywood movies. The ones think that paying $20 for things like the “Humble Indie Bundle” justifies stealing $400 worth of top-10 games. And, my particular favorites, the ones who act like anything that interferes with their pirating abilities is a mortal threat to our freedoms. Some, like SOPA and PIPA, really are. Others — not so much.
One case in particular makes me laugh. Recently, the Internet has been all a-twitter (or, more accurately, all a-reddit) over the takedown of filesharing site Megaupload. People have been screaming about how this shows that the evils of SOPA are already upon us, that the government is in the pockets of the MPAA and that this case puts other sites—like Dropbox, and other storage services—at risk of a similar shutdown.
Frankly, I think this is ridiculous. The difference between sites like Megavideo and sites like Dropbox is night and day. The indictment against Megaupload even goes so far as to lay out why the services aren’t the same. There’s a big difference between a service primarily used to shuffle documents between coworkers and a service almost exclusively used to illegally watch copyrighted movies and TV shows.
In a nutshell, I opposed SOPA because I saw it as a unnecessary piece of legislation that threatened the openness of the Internet without offering much in the way of shutting down piracy. I support the shutdown of Megaupload because I see it as an effective application of existing law, to shut down and obvious and repeated infringer of IP rights.
Listen, I’m all for encouraging businesses to look at new models that allow for more open exchange of IP. I’m against suing the pants off of people for downloading a song. I think IP laws should encourage creativity.
But I think it’s hypocritical to expect people to pay for things we make when we won’t pay for movies and music. I think musicians, developers and filmmakers have a right to make a living off of their work. I think studios and record labels have a right to make a profit on the development and advertising they do for their artists. I think these companies have a right to run their businesses how they see fit. And, most importantly, I think they have every right to expect the government to protect these rights, and for consumers to respect them.
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8 Things Spotify Could Do Right Now to Show They Care About Musicians ... January 27, 2012
By Gavin Castleton, a songwriter and producer from Portland, OR
Copyright 2012 Gavin Castleton. Used by permission of the author.
• Promoting “Buy Now” links on album pages and next to individual tracks.
• Allowing artists to edit their own profiles.
• Displaying links to artists’ websites, FB pages, twitter profiles, etc.
• Allowing users to “Like” and “Follow” an artist right from the Artist page.
• Allowing users to sign up for artists’ email list from the Artist page.
• Serving ads in a way that did not encourage users to interrupt their listening mid-album/playlist in order to listen to or do something else.
• Paying independent artists the same rates as major label artists (One could argue that major labels should be paid lower rates than independents, since their overall revenue from Spotify is offset by an 18% share of the company).
• Paying artists a flat rate for their streams, instead of tying their royalty rate to advertising revenue over which the artist has no control. Artists should not be taking on risk along with Spotify unless they’re also given stock options in the company. The current Spotify model treats artists like investors but without any [equity-type] long-term benefits.
Some links (there are thousands more to google...)
- To sign a Bill of Rights endorsing the payment of a musician for his or her work, click here
- Too good to miss: why the Executives really deserve MY money
- Read an article by Chris Castle
- Read an AltPress article here
- See a great cartoon about this subject by the great Tom Tomorrow
- Apple is all set to pay me 0.0007 microcents!!!
Click below for "Starving the Artist by William Aiche, and google "How much do musicians make on-line"
Q&A with "Starving the Artist" Author William Aicher
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 by Patrick Ross
Recently I read a very compelling book titled "Starving the Artist." (I enjoyed the Kindle version and now have a hard copy given to me by a colleague of the author I met recently at the Music Publishers Association meeting in New York). The thesis of the book — that technology has advanced in ways that could be of real benefit to artists and creators, but the harms that they are suffering are not sufficiently understood or appreciated — resonated well with me, and I suspect would with readers of this blog as well.
Below is the first of a two-part Q&A I conducted with the author, William Aicher, by email. Here we discuss his motivation to write the book, his own work with rightsholders, and motivations to create. Tomorrow he'll share why he insists free isn't "bad," how true artists have a gift, the semantic debate over "stealing" vs. "infringement," and his thoughts on the Web 2.0 world.
Q: What motivated you to write the book "Starving the Artist"?
Starving the Artist came about from a combination of ideas I'd had for some articles exploring the value of intellectual property, the free culture movement, piracy, etc. I had considered writing for my official web site. Since I've been working for in the music publishing industry online for ten years now, I've seen a lot of changes happen in the way people value the creative work of others – and frankly, it's both depressing and frightening.
At Musicnotes.com (where I work), one of our core values is to respect the work of songwriters and compensate them fairly for the work they do. But besides my professional career, I'm also a bit of a media junkie – I love music, movies, video games and books – and am grateful for the hard work others put in to create these things. As the perceived value of these works is reduced, motivation risks being damaged, and the creation of future quality works is at risk.
As to why it ended up as a book, after much thought it became clear the different aspects of the topic were too intertwined to work effectively in the shorter form of a blog, and I decided to combine them into the longer-form book format.
Q: You work for an online company that licenses copyrighted works. Can you talk a bit about what it's like to compete against sites that do the same thing through infringement?
It's obviously difficult to compete when you have the extra burden of following the rules. If you're an infringer, offering content is as simple as getting a hold of it in some way and putting a link up for people to download it. A lot of people do respect copyright and artists' rights, and are happy to pay for sheet music. Others just want their stuff for free. There's no way we're going to be able to compete against free for those who only are concerned with price. For those who fall in-between, however, we try our best to offer a high-quality product for a reasonable price, through a satisfying web experience.
Of course, I am not directly involved in any of the licensing agreements at Musicnotes.com, so I am only speaking from a marketing and web design perspective.
Q: In "Starving the Artist," you write that we must accept three assumptions: 1) That any created work involves some cost to produce and distribute. 2) There must be a motivation to create. 3) Any desired creative work must have some inherent value. Those seeking copyright dilution would argue that 1) the price of a creative work should be equal to the marginal cost of distribution and reproduction, i.e., zero; 2) artists are motivated to create out of love for their art; and 3) consumers determine the monetary value of creative works, and they have determined it is zero. What do you say to those arguments?
Even if the cost of distribution is zero, there is still the cost of creation – and as I discuss in the book those costs are more than just time and raw materials. There's the cost of the portion of one's self that is embedded into a work, as well as the cost of losing that portion of one's self by not keeping it internalized.
As for time, there's much more time involved in creating a work than the hours spent actually typing the words or strumming the chords. There's the life experience behind that as well, which is valuable in itself due to the rarity of it only existing in a single instance, specific to the creator.
First off, not all artists are motivated to create out of love for their art. Some do it just to make money. But even if all artists only created out of love for their art it doesn't mean their art isn't worth anything – it just means they aren't doing it to be paid.
In Starving the Artist my argument really isn't that everyone needs monetary compensation for their work, but rather that they deserve some sort of payment or trade for it – even if that trade is as simple as receiving the respect from someone else of not taking your work without permission. People are completely free to offer their works void of monetary payment, but for the rest of us to just take something because we don't want to pay for it just shows a complete lack of respect.
I do not agree that consumers determine the monetary value of creative works. They just determine whether or not it will sell for the asking price. An artist can charge as much as they want for their work, and if someone decides that it is worth it to them to pay that amount, then it is worth it. There's a big issue right now of an overflow of content, and the way the fight is being fought by a lot of people is by lowering their price to free. But when everything is available for free, then you've lost that competitive advantage as well. The more free stuff is out there, the less perceived value other items have – but price really is only perception. If creative works were not available for free, they wouldn't be expected to be free.
reprinted with permission of the author
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