Maybe it should be blamed on the inequity of income.
I know some of you will get annoyed with what I am going to say, but, have you ever thought that maybe making money from records --like these last 30 years-- has been highly overpaid/earned for way too long? A real great artist like Mozart in the 18th century made good money, but he still died in financial ruin. If records had been invented in those days or if sheet music was marketed and sold the way it is today, he would have been set for life. This example should reinforce the notion that all artist should make money from their intellectual properties, correct?
Having said that, some of today's performers seem to make a grossly, high amount of money already, some IMHO, without much virtue, some do it by selling records alone {regardless the latest sale figures on Billboard these days} and maybe this has been going on for way too long.
Those who can fill auditoriums, certainly deserve to make every dollar is coming to them, but this record sales loss of income by piracy whining --by all sides-- is not going to change what appears to be the new millennium's correction in income for all musicians, producers, engineers, record label owners, etc, etc, in the industrial world.
Seeing all these record companies lose their monopolies on distribution maybe too hard to take for many people, but who is to say, maybe they did have it coming?
I know this is a very complex subject and it would be silly of me to make it look simple, but I think it all boils down to two things: money and greed.
Why should a recording artist be paid in a year or even much less, what sometimes it takes a blue collar worker to earn in his/her whole lifetime? These {and their children} are some of the people doing the illegal downloading in the first place. Music should be a gift to the world not to one's pocket, the sooner we can depart from the need to control it, the better we will enjoy it. Be freed from greed.
Why should a singer or an actor make so much money, that some of them even feel so awkward about it and need to give some of that away, or dedicate their time to worthy causes in Africa, Haiti, etc? Needless to say there are thousands that don't give a damn and even flaunt their fortunes. Good for them, maybe they were a low form of life in another lifetime. But, it's completely insane to reward people in the arts to such financial extremes that it only feeds the machinery of artistic inequality and the desire by some people to reach it, but motivated by all the wrong reasons. In the end, most of the people who have nothing to do with the creative process {like agents, managers, executives, etc} are the ones who rip the most benefits. Being a successful artist is not even as hazardous as being a stuntman, which gets paid much less, and certainly not in a physical danger like a football player, who gets paid just as much for risking his neck.
Some of the artists I have done work for are now in their late 60's and they are still performing because record sales are not a sufficient income. They live comfortable, but they are not 'rich'. And some that I also know, who have just as much of an incredible talent and great material, have almost lost their homes and their spouses for pursuing their dream. Why do people with real talent many times -if not usually all the time- fail, while some recording artists that do not deserve it have a millionaire contract? What's the quality of today's pop music world? And what motivates these executives to offer these contracts in the first place? Greed.
I think there is something fundamentally wrong with this industry and starts at its foundation. This is one big tree that is rotten at its root and it's going to come down hard by its own weight.
I am not a communist, but I just think that some artists are already way too overpaid and overexposed and that has given the rest the wrong idea.
Thus, in a future 'new world order'-I think- if I was being paid as a performer only $100K a year, but remain a relevant artist the rest of my life, with a decent amount of people who do appreciate my work, I would be very happy person and I would still have time to pursue other interests, if I wanted to.
As for engineers, you should have no doubts that people are going to need your expertise. No one can ever take that away from you and you will always have something to do because regardless of how the chips fall and get re-arranged, one thing will be constant: the need to record and broadcast music.
Just another angle of looking at things, of course, sorry for a long rant.
Regards,
Edward
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Topic: Fair compensation for artistic endevours (Read 42524 times)