“Until we take care of Artists, until we value art as an intrinsic part of humanity and until we remove the pro-ignoramus politics that have invaded the US in the past 20 years, we have no chance of making a viable ecosystem around the commercialization of the artifacts created.”

Great post…. this is why I like the internet so much. It allowed me, as an artist, to take care of myself, with or without the help of the big media companies [Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter…].

Hope WB is treating you well,

Hugh

I think you are misunderstanding the difference between art and design.

When a musician sits in a room and creates music and does not care what anyone thinks about it, that might be closer to art. These people need help.

When a musician takes that first step of putting the music out there, into society, it becomes design. Suddenly the music is FOR OTHERS and in this case, it’s up to the music to sell itself based on the quality or spark it creates for others.

Musicians have traditionally allowed the middleman like the record labels to take most of the record sales but have made their money from touring.

Now they can give their music away for free, grow a bigger audience as a result of it, and go on bigger tours, making more money for themselves than ever before. When it comes to managing money, taking risks, picking the right acts and conservative spending, most traditional music labels have a bad track record.

“Until we take care of Artists, Musicians, Bloggers, Designers, etc…”

H&M is doing to the fashion industry, what piracy is doing to the music and film industry.

Cheap, throw-away, forgettable, intellectual property with little-to-no intrinsic value.

The consumer dictates the (market) monetary value, and it is clear that the value is very little.

Translation (1000 less words edition) = DRM doesn’t work and Government should bail out the music industry, because…it’s ART.

Or something.

And besides, Canada does it. And they’re awesome.

The delivery of art is changing with digital tool becoming ubiquitous. Artists that welcome this and work it to their advantage will thrive and continue to make a living.

But they’ll probably have a lot fewer managers.

The difference is that art and entertainment is becoming performance. Whether it’s music, film, digital photo, digital drawing, etc. that can be sampled and changed or a traditional live performance. The value in performance is display events where spectators value entry and performers are good enough to be worth paying.

Government imposed policy will mainly retard those societies who implement it from having dynamic art and entertainment.

We don’t live in an age where “artists” are “taken care of.” The era of patronage had its own issues. Artists are independent producers — if they seek monetary compensation for their work, then they must find it in the marketplace. If they seek to enlarge the spiritual conversation, then the expansion of the dialog and the deepening of the question is the reward. Art can’t replace religion and then expect the rewards of the marketplace.

The problem you outline isn’t one of art, but rather one of religion. We live in a time when many can only believe in the soul, but no more. We return to the era of tribes. The tribe of the artist.

The thing annoys me is that people like Michael Arrington from TechCrunch constantly bag the model calling it ‘old’. He pushes for a future where songs should one day be free and artists need to make their money from preforming.

There are many problems with his logic. While I don’t agree with a music tax I don’t believe music should be free. Removing the incentives for making music means no one will make music anymore.

The irony is that he has a little (C) TechCrunch on the bottom of his blog. If he doesn’t believe in protection for music, why does he believe in protection for his content.

so a Picasso painting is as valuable as Britney’s latest song?

In a thousands years if someone came across a britney recording, what would that say about our society? Compare that to a Picasso or Van Goh!

The music industry needs a huge kick up the ass! And i for one volunteer to do it!

@Alex H: “Removing the incentives for making music means no one will make music anymore.”

I suppose by “the incentives” you mean “financial incentives”. That’s wrong.

A huge amount of music is created at a financial loss now. I’m not talking about commercial albums that don’t sell, but music made without any hope of recovering the costs of equipment, time, etc.

@jose fajardo

You’d be surprised how many “artists” that are canon today were the Britney Spears of their time.

and for the record, I’m not just talking music in this post, but art in general (see…I was an artist, or tried to be, before I went corporate)

Very interesting post, but why must art be monetized? Why “must” someone be able to make a living from it. Doesn’t that inherently affect the art itself - corrupt it from pure intention and creative exploration? I have looked at this issue throughout my life, and continually found that others, and myself, seem to make decisions that change art, once money is involved. If you HAD to sell a work of art in order to feed your family - how does that affect the creative process? It’s a fascinating question, and of course, one singular answer.

In terms of music as art - I think that so many of these discussions are framed by the system formerly known as the “music industry.” We are trying to do things differently with the same set of expectations of process, profitability, roles, power and consumption. If the same amount of money is not being made - somehow this is considered a failure for art.

I see interesting things in sites like Etsy.com - the idea of empowering someone to share their creation no matter where they live. The same with music via MySpace (or anywhere on the web.) But without money, many see art as failure. Without exposure to mass audiences, many see art as failure. Why is that? Why can’t art be small? Why can’t writings with a small audience still be valued. Why can’t the experience alone be the goal. Isn’t that art?

Thanks for getting my brain to noodle on this…

I posted my thoughts on this post and the TechCrunch reply at my site. http://simplelifetech.com/news?p=5

Hello, Ethan. Deep post, thanks for defending creators.

I may not wholly agree with your point of view, but any defense of creation is welcome and needed.

I’m a music producer in Mexico, and here’s what I think of this subject:

Right now, music is free until someone deems it good enough to be sold.

In the future, music will be free until someone thinks it is good enough to be bought.

Right now, Humanity as a whole has decided that music should be free. That means there’s a spontaneous movement that wants to keep music free, and a general feeling that a charge through ISP’s will never be fair to consumers or a way to help creative people.

Many people don’t believe that it will save the music industry.

Charging ISP’s or consumers for the transmission of copyrighted works is the best way to create a mafia that will thrive on works not made by them.

It is also an unfair charge that will be passed on to consumers, because an efficient solution is not attainable right now.

The real solution is to transfer responsibility for the misuse of their technology directly to the ISP’s. That responsibility means they should provide a solution to prevent the transmission of copyrighted works.

For instance, let’s imagine that 5 years from now, the web’s efficiency level, in all technical matters, will be 400% better than it is today.

Breath taking speed.

By then things that today may seem laughable, will be not only possible but probably easy, for example, the implementation of (server, ISP) software that can detect a copyrighted work while it is being transmitted. Such a software could automatically interrupt unauthorized transmissions. Period. No fines. No jail. Just no satisfaction.

DRM was not the bad wolf, it just wasn’t a good enough cop.

In the near future, it will be possible and inexpensive to protect everyone that wants to keep their work from being given away. Such protection is necessary, even though today’s efforts by RIAA and other parties may thwart better efforts yet to come.

Another truth is that today’s point of view, so sympathetic towards the devaluation of creative works such as music, pictures, movies or books, is an irresponsible position, which eventually will be blamed for lowering the quality of our culture. Globally.

And that pro-free point of view may also be tagged as myopic. 20 years from now, those same artists that today happily give it all away, may have a chat with their accountants and realize how much money they lost, money gained by other parties. And they’ll want to sue.

Let’s face it: Intellectual property is still property. It should be defended, just like regular, physical property. Defending it will not affect anyone, it will just protect the freedom of anyone who wants to sell his or her work at any given moment. That freedom translates as Rights for those who want a future in which their work is a source of personal wealth.

In the future, people who want to break into any creative industry, should and will still be able to transmit their works for free, attain engagement and then monetize. Or not.

Or go into the Industry as soon as they want to.

But if they want to protect their work, at any given time, the click of a button should suffice.

Anybody and everybody should be able to monetize on their works without the fear of being ripped off by misunderstood freedom or digital anarchy.

artists take care of themselves. they have their art, their expression, the constant effort to go deeper, improve, communicate more accurately. whether other people like it or not is immaterial to whether i keep doing it. if money comes, cool, but no one needs to take care of me.

you have it backwards. typical business mind.

Consumer demand should set the price of a piece of art.

Piracy is like ’shrink’ in a department store. Those signs in the break room in the back of the target to the employees that says shrink costs everyone money are true. No reason a CD should cost 17.99 when it costs 4 bucks or less to manufacture a CD. When physical demand goes down, retailers don’t want to take more than 3 units unless you are Nickleback or the Jonas Brothers and to get into the right programs, co op’s etc it costs the smaller bands that much more to put on their shelve. That does shit for the artist and shit for the label. So I say the value of the art is not in the hands of the artist but the people consuming the product for free.

In college, economics taught me that demand sets the price. So a vendor within restraints of the law should charge as much as the consumer is willing to pay. Consumers are not willing to pay 17.99 a CD. The industry needs to realize this and adopt a new set of practices in distributing music and packaging it into tiered pricing. I think Trent Reznor is having a blast being able to experiment first with Saul Williams, Now with Ghosts, all in preparation for refining the best practices of both releases for a much bigger ‘have it your way’ release.

This ’shrink’ needs be stopped where it starts. It has to start somewhere and usually the first place it goes is out in a 1,000 piece mailing to every pd across the country. Someone along the way is ripping it and making it available. I say no more mailings, music gets shopped to all mediums in digital format with tracking and permissions set on the file that will raise a flag when the tracks are ripped or shared or that tracks movement. Accountability needs to directed at the people ripping the CD’s in the first place and by that making a file that cannot be transferred or played without permissions.

This whole flat tax thing is ridiculous and actually to quote Arrington:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/the-music-industrys-new-extortion-scheme/

“Music industry revenues will be a set size, reg of the quality or type of music they release. Incentive to innovate will evaporate”

I would not be opposed to ISP’s taking some responsibility and blocking internet access for those illegally sharing.

“How do you value art?

How do you ensure that the value of art can translate into the notion of making a living on art?

What role does a government body play in the propagation of the meme of art creation? Support? Education? Distribution?”

It seems to me as if there’s a certain leap between the first two questions and the third.
I mean, it’s okay to ask the third question, but to tie it to the first two seems somewhat manipulative.

(Mirrored)

What’s so controversial about Ethan’s essay? *What* is there to “call BS” on?

I fear the reax, plus Mike’s assertion last year that “the BBC should be dissolved, shut down”, show a fixation with the capitalistic model that ignores the fact some art needs public support.

Look at the theatre business. No longer a mass-appeal artistic product, it is, in many countries, almost entirely state-funded. As are other forms. The state funds the art-makers because the art-makers enrich us and give us a framework in which to think about ourselves and our place in society. Look hard enough and you’ll already find music (and other creative expressions) with state support.

Reject a “tax” if you will but, now that music’s intrinsic business model is following theatre (or freeform dance, or Latvian poetry or French cinema) in to breakdown, it’s entirely proper that we assess all permutations for how we might keep it alive. Not through some blithe adherence to socialist values for their own sake, but because, actually, music’s kinda important.

aannd what about Warner Bros. It is the artist or the “consumer” of art or it is just something needed before but now have to get out from the line between
artist and the public,……….
I guess time change and warner bros. have to change with and find new ways for themself, We record digital by ourself, we play on the stage by ourself, we promote by ourself, we sale by ourself, so what do you think where can be the right place for the warner bros.?

While you are at it, have a brief look also at the advertisement industry. Not only an important buyer of music, but also an industry nowadays based on monetizing creative output.

This post is BS.

Ethan is a hired gun, and is only posting this dribble to insure his pay check from employer continues.

Sorry Ethan, I enjoy your murmur site, but this propaganda makes me sick.

i totally agree with cliff gerish.

sidenote: i had a conversation once with a musician friend in which he said, “where’s your drive to get work into galleries? you only make stuff when it’s time for christmas or birthdays or funny envelopes for friends.”

i told him i could care less about making art for an audience. after school, my production hasn’t slowed, it’s just made when it’s made when i want to make it. it’s freeing to make things for friends and family or posting drawings to my blogs. the thought of putting something together for the masses makes me creatively impotent.

the musician friend said, “don’t you want an audience?” i was so annoyed.

i told him that to me, the philosophy of art and the business of art were two separate things. in my opinion, it’s quite a responsibility to call ones self an artist. although i have an art degree and work in an art museum, i still have a hard time calling myself an artist. it feels silly. but i’m completely embedded in the culture. i read and write and go to openings and draw on napkins and sometimes paint and other time post pictures to flickr and it all feels like the same thing and i love it and would continue to do it with or without an audience. if left alone a desert island without formal tools or people to applaud/purchase/love/hate i would eventually have to build something and create.

my friend was dumbfounded. he said, “but i have something to offer the world an i feel like they are missing out if they don’t experience it.”

for other reasons we are no longer friends, but this was such an irritating thing to hear i should have seen it as foreshaddowing.

art is a religion. it has a tribe. and there are infil-traitors amidst us who would’t think to bang two rocks together without a recording device to collect their sounds or a public to clap and swoon. or monetary kickbacks.

it is what it is. it’s conversation. it’s breathing. it’s calories in calories out. it’s a force and i am bored with the notion of marrying it to some mode of income. it makes it not fun anymore. i make a living teaching people about art. i don’t have to make it making. i’m satisfied creating and if someone likes it or finds it funny, great. but it doesn’t determine my next move.

The actual question I was posing:

“How do we value cultural artifacts when there is little to no value of culture itself in the educational systems, public sector and society at large?”

http://blackrimglasses.com/archives/2008/04/13/another-art-question/

I think it’s comical that so many people see this post as an attempt to protect the profitability of the Big Four.

I agree with you: The executives in the music industry need to worry about their profits, but the rest of us need to step back and figure out where we stand on the large question about the value and role of the arts in our society.

You should listen to Dana Gioia’s 2007 Stanford Commencement Speech, if you haven’t already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTB3UIjEy2c

Thanks Johnnie…

That’s exactly the point I’m trying to get at.

REDUCING back from an argument about taxing, piracy, etc into a discussion about the value and place of art in our society.

Ethan wrote, “Until we take care of Artists, until we value art as an intrinsic part of humanity and until we remove the pro-ignoramus politics that have invaded the US in the past 20 years, we have no chance of making a viable ecosystem around the commercialization of the artifacts created.”

What I’d be more interested to hear from you Ethan, is take that statement, and relate it to WMG, the organization you work for. Some of your bosses took 6 and 7 figure raises last year in a climate of dropping revenue for their artists.

But that’s another discussion

I kinda get that you’re trying start the discussion from how we value art as a society. But, take a look, we DO already value art as a society, we consume and praise it daily.

I know you’re trying to break out of your place in the music industry. But it sounds like you’re confusing how people value art with how the music industry values art. Those are of course two completely different analyses.

And I cannot help but think that this statement:

“How do we as a government, a democratic society support artists to the point where the value of experience is enough to support the act of creation? How do remove the fear-politics and the pro-ignorance in the US society to the point where art gains intrinsic value as a societal force?”

Is support for something like a music tax (aka subsidies for the music corporations)

“You should listen to Dana Gioia’s 2007 Stanford Commencement Speech, if you haven’t already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTB3UIjEy2c”

Gioia asks the question - how many sculptures can you name vs NBA players? That question cannot be answered/discussed without also discussing the role of media companies, who control a majority of distribution and make choices on which art and artists to market.

It’s like saying that since everyone isn’t driving vehicles that get 60 mpg that means you and I don’t value fuel economy. You cannot have a relevant discussion without questioning what value the auto industry places on fuel economy.

@Will - I have no opinion on the “music tax”

Here I’m speaking about patronage, support and reducing all the arguments about the music, movie, newspaper, photography, etc business back into its constituent parts so we can better analyze where there are so many problems ascribing value to the artifacts further down the line.

Hence “reducing back to art” and then figuring it out from there. Kind of how complexity theory works.

This post has nothing to do with my job really, just that I love music more than most other forms of art (music as music, music as culture, music as performance, etc).

For fucks sake, I lectured on Punk music at UCSB and do so every spring still.

I’m pretty sick of seeing so much free press for the music ‘industry’.

a minor correction - Rauschenberg’s name is spelled with sch (and *not* Rauchenberg)

Oh, those pesky blinders. I have better questions:

How can we give artists the technology and tools to separate themselves from media conglomerates so that the cost/distribution of music becomes near-free to consumers?

How long will it be before the MP3 generation’s kids make it impossible for media conglomerates to dictate the fate of how we choose to enjoy music?

I think you’ve missed the distinction between value and price. “Value drives demand — but price is set by the intersection of demand and supply. If supply is abundant, it’s not going to matter how valuable your product is, price will get pushed towards zero.” (from Techdirt)

This is not to say that no one will ever pay for music, but the price is naturally approaching zero in the face of abundance. People still value music, but its monetary value (i.e. price) has changed due to the basic economics at play.

“Removing the incentives for making music means no one will make music anymore.” - that is crap. People who are inclined to make music will make music. Maybe they won’t make as much if they have to work a day job, but they will still pick up a guitar and sing round the camp fire.

On the whole I think I agree with the essay, or at least the main ideas. We do need to re-evaluate the value of culture in our society. But then we also need to re-evaluate what culture is. Is it the significant works that encaptulate our society and let people identify and define themselves, or is it the “disposable” pop pumped out by four massive corperations?

All music is pop music, all pop music is art, but is all pop music cultural?

@flor - if your sick of it stop reading and commenting on it then.