3 ms·

They've done a good job of amplifying the injustice narrative here. However, it screams that they've come away from the negotiating table with their tail betwe

by kulor 3y ago

They've done a good job of amplifying the injustice narrative here. However, it screams that they've come away from the negotiating table with their tail between their legs and are trying to save face by blaming the other party as the bad guy. Will artists stick with UMG if they have a big enough "independent" distribution through TikTok, YouTube etc. That's got to be Universal's biggest concern.

londons_explore 3y ago
Note that there are some small music distributors (eg. RouteNote) who give a much larger share to artists. (85% to the artist, 15% to the distributor) Note however that very few successful musicians started on those small distributors. That suggests the marketing done by the bigger distributors is still very important for a musicians success.
- seec 3y ago
  I think you have it backward. All successful musicians are in majors because they were the ones who could propose the best deal at the start of their career. It doesn't take a genius to recognize when a musician is much better than average, and sure marketing will help a bunch but you can't market something that sucks, it will fail regardless. So, the way it works is the reverse of what you think: good musicians get to be in majors because they are much better than average, and they will get a lot of advantage from the infrastructure/logistique/network from the big players early on, even if it means they will need to take a cut in the future. That and the fact that if you are a musician starting out, you are very likely to be poor or in an uninteresting odd job, a major who can just buy you out with enough cash to cover expenses for years is exactly what you are looking for.... And in the end, I don't think the marketing matters much. A good track is a good track, which is why some get to be reused endlessly. The reason they do marketing is because they can afford it, from all the cash the artist is making for them ever directly or indirectly. All this to say that these are the reasons most people strongly dislike the major rightsholder companies; while they have their usefulness in some way, it feels quite bad seeing them make so much profit while plenty of artists barely get by. And the artists they "defend" are mostly the extremely successful ones that are so wealthy those license conversations seem very greedy and out there. Sure, TikTok makes money but it is not strongly related to music and the artists who would get payouts are the ones already making big bucks.

by kulor 3y ago

londons_explore 3y ago

Note that there are some small music distributors (eg. RouteNote) who give a much larger share to artists. (85% to the artist, 15% to the distributor) Note however that very few successful musicians started on those small distributors. That suggests the marketing done by the bigger distributors is still very important for a musicians success.

seec 3y ago
I think you have it backward. All successful musicians are in majors because they were the ones who could propose the best deal at the start of their career. It doesn't take a genius to recognize when a musician is much better than average, and sure marketing will help a bunch but you can't market something that sucks, it will fail regardless. So, the way it works is the reverse of what you think: good musicians get to be in majors because they are much better than average, and they will get a lot of advantage from the infrastructure/logistique/network from the big players early on, even if it means they will need to take a cut in the future. That and the fact that if you are a musician starting out, you are very likely to be poor or in an uninteresting odd job, a major who can just buy you out with enough cash to cover expenses for years is exactly what you are looking for.... And in the end, I don't think the marketing matters much. A good track is a good track, which is why some get to be reused endlessly. The reason they do marketing is because they can afford it, from all the cash the artist is making for them ever directly or indirectly. All this to say that these are the reasons most people strongly dislike the major rightsholder companies; while they have their usefulness in some way, it feels quite bad seeing them make so much profit while plenty of artists barely get by. And the artists they "defend" are mostly the extremely successful ones that are so wealthy those license conversations seem very greedy and out there. Sure, TikTok makes money but it is not strongly related to music and the artists who would get payouts are the ones already making big bucks.