Controversy in the Music Industry

Pirating Music

The piracy of digital music has had a major effect on the music industry. The RIAA (Recording Arts industry of America) says the term piracy is “benign” and that it does not proper describe the effect music theft has on all of the people working behind the scene to help create and produce that music. These key people that get wronged by piracy include audio engineers, producers, publishers, audio engineers, recording artists, songwriters, etc.

The RIAA reminds us even though illegally downloading one song does not feel wrong or seem like it would have much of an impact; however, the millions of people illegally downloading, without the appropriate people getting their cut, is absolutely devastating to the industry.

Many bands right now are giving free streaming through their websites, Soundcloud, Internet radio and other forms of music networking. Although piracy is becoming less and less of a problem, it still continues to have an impact on the industry.

Sources:

http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_details_online

Sampling

Sampling may seem like a fun and unique art form. However, this bends that line between creative licensing and copyright laws and could become problematic. Part of the problem with Sampling is that sometimes the artist that is sampled does not see any kind of royalties, for example: Kanye West & Justice. When sampling becomes a copyright issue, the common defense is that the sample was not used substantially and is unrecognizable to the standard consumer.

Sources:

http://musicindustryreport.org/?p=7551

http://mjlawfirm.com/entertainment-law/sampling-and-copyright-infringement/

Copyright Infringement

            On January 15, 1971, George Harrison released “My Sweet Lord”. It was in the number one stop for five weeks and again in 2002 for one week. Unfortunately, things began to go sour when the song “He’s so Fine” by the Chiffons (1962) was moved to the Bright Tunes Music Corporation in ‘71. On February 10, 1971, Bright Tunes decided to sue George Harrison. They managed to reach of settlement of $148,000 but it never reached execution. The case continued. The attorneys of Bright Tunes wanted 75% of royalties and the copyrights to “My Sweet Lord”. The judge did not believe that Harrison purposefully plagiarized the song (they were essentially the same with minor differences). He was found guilty of “subconscious plagiarism” and he had to pay $587,000, which was paid in 1981.

Sources:

http://www.fairwagelawyers.com/most-famous-music-copyright-infringment.html

LSD for Sale!

I would like to discuss a very important songwriter. His name is one we all know and could never forget. He had been making music from 1957 until he was murdered in 1980. He was best known as one of the primary songwriters for the legendary and revolutionary band best known as The Beatles. His name was John Lennon.

It was recently released that John Lennon’s original handwritten lyrics for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” would be put up for auction. On Wednesday, April 13^th, it was expected that the lyric sheet would sell for over $200,000 next month at a sale in Beverly Hills.

The contents of the lyric sheet are:

1. The opening lyrics of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.

2. A sketch of four people in a room with curtains draped over the window.

This song is very memorable to me. I’ve heard it millions of time since I was a child. The opening notes always bring a calm over me. Sometimes I like to think of it as a lullaby for adults.

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was released in 1967 on the classic album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Everyone, including the media and listeners, believed the song was a transparent metaphor for LSD [better known as acid]. Part of this belief was derived from the song’s title “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”; however, on many occasions, John Lennon claimed that they notion was false, though he and The Beatles were known to experiment with psychedelic drugs recreationally. He claimed that he initially did not notice the sequence of the letters when the song was written/released. However, this is still in debate. Many continue to believe the song is about LSD due to it’s mesmerizing melody and wildly creative lyrics.

According to Lennon and others, the muse for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was John’s son Julian. When we was a child, he drew a picture of one of his classmates. Her name was Lucy. Julian showed his drawing to his father and stated, “That’s Lucy in the Sky with diamonds”.

The classic song was noted as one of the most popular songs in Rolling Stone magazine. It ranked as no. 1 on the list of 500 greatest albums of all time.

In 2007, Lucy Vodden (originally O’Donnell) spoke out and revealed that she was the initial inspiration for the song. Unfortunately, she passed in 2009.

“The draft ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ lyrics will be sold at an auction scheduled for May 14 and 15 at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills.”

Now, if only I can muster up $200,000...

Sources:

http://www.billboard.com/#/news/john-lennon-s-lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds-1005133172.story 

Björk: The Infinity of Innovation

On March 17, 2011, renowned Icelandic singer, Björk Guðmundsdótti, announced her upcoming album entitled Biophilia. This is her first album since 2007’s masterpiece Volta. She will be release the album in an interesting format: as an app.

This is certainly not the first time that Björk has been innovative. She always keeps an open mind and tries new sounds and new formats with her music. She does this on each of her albums. She first went solo in 1992 after The Sugarcubes broke up. She transitioned from her more rock aesthetic to the Dance sound of her debut album, Debut, in 1993. She released her second studio album in 1995 entitled Post. She began moving into a more electronic style. After this she embraced the use of beats and strings, which helped great one of her most memorable albums Homogenic in 1997. Some of the album’s good reviews came from Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke who would eventually become one of her many collaborators.

In her 2001 follow up, Vespertine, she added chamber orchestras, choirs, close-mic vocals, and new themes to her repertoire. In 2004 she created her most innovative album, Medúlla. During the album’s production, Björk decided that the album needed to be completely vocal based. She enlisted the vocal skills of hip-hop beatboxer Rahzel and many other talented artists including throat singer Tagaq. This has been her most innovative album to day. Three years later, she released Volta: her most recent album. She began experimenting with African beats and a new colorful tribal image. The album featured collaborates Antony Hegarty (“The Dull Flame of Desire”) and famous producer Timbaland.

Her seventh studio album, Biophilia, is still incomplete. It has been recorded on the iPad and is planned to be releases as a number of applications. It is going to be the world’s first app based album. Björk has been collaborating with Apple. Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Green Hornet) is the director of this project. Björk has described it as “encompassing music, apps, internet, installations and live shows”. Some of the album’s material will debut at her summer concerts at the Manchester International Festival.

Some of the music of Biophilia has already appeared in an iPad app called “Solar System” (developed by Touch Press, Faber and Faber and written by Marcus Chown). It is an eBook that contains 3D interactive objects, movies, diagrams and animations. It is all based upon real life scientific data. It contains images from NASA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency.

I have always said that it was a matter of time until someone releases an app album. It all has to start with one person making the initiative and Björk (with the help of Apple) has stepped up to the future of music.

References:

http://consequenceofsound.net/2011/03/bjork-readies-ipad-album-biophilia/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/mar/18/bjork-albarn-manchester-international-festival

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bjoerk-to-debut-new-biophilia-songs-at-residency-in-england-20110317

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2011/01/bjork-song-used-in-solar-system-ipad-app.html

Interview: Chris Limbrick

Today we will be discussing something a little different than our usual topics.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Limbrick this week. Chris is a Full Sail alumnus who is currently making a living creating websites for various business owners throughout the East Coast. He has made a number of websites now. He says that he has had some “wonderful clients” including various Orlando nightclubs, print companies out of New Jersey, and other small businesses throughout the East Coast. He even did the website for a Historical Collection Center in Virginia that focuses on archives from the Civil War.

When Chris has a potential client who wants a new website he finds out what they are looking for and what the website needs to focus on. They brainstorm together. Chris always has creative input on the websites and likes to add extras that are useful to the client such as social media icons, audio widgets, sliding banners, etc.

The negotiation comes in at pricing. Some clients are accepting of the starting price and some need it adjusted for their budget. What Chris does to make sure he makes profit is learn what their budget is and negotiate the website from there. Chris does a great job and getting a client to buy as much as possible. He likes to show his clients a mock version of their site without all the extras and explains to his clients why they are important. This way they spend more money on the extras and get a better website at the same time. This is a great example of using objective criteria to your advantage.

Another tactic of Chris’s is the dangerous “free meal”.  He likes to buy the client’s beverage or meal when they go out for a lunch meeting.

Mr. Limbrick’s people skills and negotiation tactics are what help make his business a success.

Changes & Opportunities

There have been some changes in the development of music; however, along with change can come opportunity. Today we’re going to discuss the demise of Activision’s Guitar Hero, new opportunities, and we’ll take a look at a fun interactive video.

Recently, there was a formal statement that Guitar Hero games would no longer be created by Activision. To put it simply, they felt it was getting redundant and often wondered, “What’s next?” More Rockband games may continue to be created and will sell well due to its reputation but it won’t change the fact that the market has gotten repetitive and uncreative as they allow you to buy more and more songs. The only thing to look forward to is motion censor control, which seems inevitable at this point.

Here is an example of what motion censor controlled music could be like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHTi8EBKNAQ

Despite the demise of Guitar Hero, there is an opportunity here to try something new – maybe Activision could begin designing apps for the iPhone or iPad (as they have been leaders in interactive music for the last few years). I believe that a lot of these game/audio/video companies need to explore the world of apps and innovative interactivity.

Now, let’s get interactive…

Though I normally talk about music being interactive, here is an interactive music video by the Arcade Fire (Grammy Winners, Album of the Year).

http://www.beonlineb.com/

In the past we have looked at videos where you can adjust the music but this is a video where you simply adjust the video. Interactive Music Videos can become a whole new market on its own (especially with the help of the iPad/iPhone). It remains surprising why more videos like this are not produced. However, as more interesting entertainment is demanded, more interactive audio/video will be produced. These fun music videos and customizable songs are the beginning of something new.

Sites:

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/sing+blues+over+Guitar+Hero+demise/4276306/story.html

Your Handy Dandy… Music Platform!

As I’ve mentioned over and over again, interactive music is the something that is continuing to grow in interest and will be a huge for of music in the not so distant future (thanks to smart phones, the iPad, etc.).

I recently read a small article where The Echo Nest encourages people to create interactive music application… however, what they creates is on a whole other level that what I usually talk about. In fact, it blew me away.

The Echo Nest creates interactive music applications, amongst other things. They recently created a music platform that has a large number of abilities and is all around the ultimate music tool. To put it simply, it breaks down music piece by piece.

A little bit about their business:

They are funded by Angel investors (three of which are co-founders of MIT Media Lab), Argos Management and Commonwealth Capital Ventures.

The Echo Nest has won the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant four times – a big accomplishment for a small cause.

Here is exactly what this music platform does (automatically):

It constantly analyzed music – everything from audio to blogs, reviews, etc. It wants to know exactly how the world sees every artist, their albums, and their music.

It listens to the music – it breaks down everything about the song: tempo, instrumentation, time signatures, accents, harmony, keys. It learns how to understand all the simple ways that musicians talk about these song attributes.

It learns about all the trends – it analyzes the internet user’s “music behavior”. It learns who is talking about what artists and what songs have been downloaded and streamed. It distinctly knows what fans think.

In completely honesty, this is absolute genius by my opinion. Every musician wants a tool that can break down every song and tell you everything you want to know about it. However, the only downside here is how much gathered information is too much? Echo Nest needs to make sure they are maintaining people’s privacy. That always becomes something of controversy.

…but when all is said and done, this is a major advancement and another step forward into an innovative future.

AES: Audio Engineering Society

We're taking a different turn today and we're going to focus more on the Audio Industry, recent news, and primarily discussing Game Audio.

Today, I will be speaking about the Audio Engineering Society. A couple months ago they had completed their elections for the new 2010-2011 officers, with Jan Abildgaard Pedersen being elected President.

Now, there are a lot of different sections to my industry: different people doing different things. The Music Industry is taking a lot of hits right now, primarily because of illegal downloading. They have been doing more marketing through live music and merchandise, along with the help of iTunes’ bonus tracks and pre-order packages. However, at the same time, the Game Industry is thriving and because of this the Game Audio Industry is thriving.

Quality audio for video games is a must. There was a time when 8-bit, computer generated audio was acceptable but we are in the 21^st century and you can’t play “Call of Duty: Black Ops” or “Halo: Reach” with 8-bit audio (however, some bloggers believe there could still be a use for low-bit audio for phones, Wi-Fi, etc.). Games today have full quality, lossless audio and pay well to those who design it.

After reading a blog about the Game Audio/Music Composition industry, I learned quite a bit about finding work and the two career paths that one can take.

In New York, a couple years ago, the AES’ 127^th convention was held. They discussed the latest achievements in Game Audio and Music Composition through a number of various workshops. Also, there was a lot of attention that focused on interactive music [something that I’ve been known to have interest in].

There are usually two options if you pursue a career in Game Audio. You can either be an Audio Programmer or a Sound Designer. Most of these jobs are found through studio websites, Game Industry forums, and the all-powerful networking. As a Programmer, it is often necessary to have a Bachelors degree but as a Sound Designer, you may not need a degree at all (though it helps). With Sound Design, you start as an intern (like in any studio) and work your way up.