Japanese Musicians Defy Sony by Joining iTunes 320
Homework Help writes "Japanese musicians under contract by Sony are defying their contracts by using Apple's iTunes service to deliver songs. Rock Musician Hotoharu Sano points out: 'It is an individual's freedom where that person chooses to listen to music. I want to deliver my music wherever my listeners are.' Sony Music Entertainment and Apple are still locked in talks and no agreement has been reached so far. Apple's offering of its iTunes service at lower cost in Japan is greatly attributed to their success." From the article: " Before iTunes' arrival, Japan's top music download service, which is backed by Sony and includes Sony recording artists, averaged about 450,000 downloads a month. By offering its service for lower prices, Apple is undercutting such online music services. Japanese are accustomed to paying twice as much as Apple is charging in Japan, which are still higher than the 99 cents charged in the U.S."
Artist's Rights (Score:1, Insightful)
Nice to see Apple being fair (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the freaking internet, all they pay for is bandwidth and the music. Good to see that some companies remember that and are trying to avoid gouging. I just hope apple continues that path.
Wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
But you sold away that right in exchange from a large advance from Sony. You can't have it both ways. You can have your freedom or you can take the corporate dollar.
When you sup with the devil, use a long spoon.
Re:Artist's Rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Respect the Contract (Score:5, Insightful)
People sign things like NDAs, record deals, and professional sports contracts, and then expect us to be sympathetic when they decide not to honor their agreements?
Want your music to be free (speech)? Great! Then don't sign a contract with a major label! It's that simple!
Re:Contract (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Artist's Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be best through legal means, but its still a great sign.
In Search of the Lost Accord (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Artist's Rights (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some basic human rights that you can't just sign away, atleast a sensible court will overturn them, but this right is definitely not one of them.
When you sign that multi-million dollar deal with the recording company for them to push and market your talentless crap, you can't then just turn around and say "I have rights".
Sony should sew this person for gazillions of dollars. Look at the brighter side, may be this will make future wannabe musicians think twice before they sign such deals, and then maybe just maybe the recording industry will give us a break from shitty tasteless crap called (pop/rap/punk/rock) music.
Re:Respect the Contract (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sympathetic at all but I'm all for artists standing up to the oppressive recording conglomorates. If this is the only way that they can get extreme exposure, fair compensation, and more rights then I'm all for it.
The only way the industry will change is with revolution.
Re:Good for them! But... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they signed with Sony so their music could go anywhere and everywhere Sony decides it should go. If they wanted to retain that right, they shouldn't have signed with them. I'm always amazed that so many people can't seem to make this connection.
Re:Contract (Score:4, Insightful)
In the US, this wouldn't fly. Apple would be opening themselves up to a slam-dunk lawsuit for contract interference. Maybe contract law is different in Japan, though.
Did they? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure? That would depend on the details of their contract and the details of Japanese contract law, wouldn't it? Depending on those details they may well have sold away the right to Sony to distribute their work on CD while retaining some sort of right to independently negotiate sales through other entities on new mediums.
We don't have copies of their contracts, so we don't know. But something of this sort is clearly the case with Mr. Motoharu Sano who said the thing you quote; otherwise Apple certainly would not have allowed his music onto their store in the first place, as doing so would have been illegal.
You can't have it both ways. You can have your freedom or you can take the corporate dollar.
This seems to be the case right now, but only in a practical or logistics sense. Aside from purely practical matters, there seems to be no good reason why this is the case, and so there is no good reason to shrug things off and accept the way things are. Not all evils are necessary.
Breaking a monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Still unless musicians stand up to the majors and say no to crap contracts, and unless fans start supporting musicians that go the tougher indy route (by not stealing their music when they should be buying), things will move slowly, if at all.
Re:Respect the Contract (Score:5, Insightful)
In business the breaking of contracts happens all the time. Those who break their bargains know that they're breaking contract, but the value of breaking the contract is higher than the value of keeping one that is too restrictive or favors the other party.
The consequences are usually spelled out in the contract, so contract-breakers are essentially making a cost-benefit assessment and acting accordingly. You can call it a moral issue, but in American law no moral judgement or determination of guilt is made.
Contracts and the breaking of them has been going on for a long time. I think we just hear more about it these days. As for being sympathetic to those who break their contracts, that's another story. When some rich athlete whines about a bad contract, he's certainly not getting my sympathy.
Re:Artist's Rights (Score:4, Insightful)
It's good for Apple as well (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt it adds up to much right now, but I see the day when places like iTunes are the music distribution channels of the very near future.
I kind of have to say (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because this is the system the Good Lord Capitalism has handed down to us doesn't mean that it is a good system. These people didn't sign these contracts by choice, they signed it because cartels are by and large holding the world's music industries hostage and these cartels use their influence to force people to choose between giving up their artistic work to others and not being able to make artistic work at all. Not much of a choice at all, that.
If we lived in an actually free market artists (or artists less rich than David Bowie anyway) would have choices, they'd be able to negotiate terms or obtain a distribution contract acceptable to them, rather than dictated by a record label. We don't. We live in a market dictated by the wielders of monopoly power.
And don't try to claim they could go to independent record labels. I listen to practically nothing but independent music, I've done work in/with self-published music, and I know some independently-signed musicians. Independent music is a ghetto. It is something you do because you love the art and you love what you are doing. It is not really something you can turn into a career.
Let's break it down (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Take money from Company A to create products
3. Sell products through Company B for more money
This is no different than whiny athletes who sign with a sports team and refuse to play until their contract is renegotiated. The amount of gross funds you generate, the fans you gain, and disparity in how profits are distributed are all irrelevant. Everyone was happy when the contract was signed and the only thing that changes are the attitudes of people who incorrectly (and quite arrogantly) see themselves as the sole source of that profit. Take a step back, see who the true money-grubbing whores are, and stop glorifying thieves.
Re:Failure? - Steampowered (Score:4, Insightful)
Choose one or more:
I'm sure that if I had more than 5 minutes to post, I could easily have come up with twice that many items, but it should at least give you an idea.
Notice that other game developers have used internet distribution and overcome these obstacles, but they also realized that digital only content has less intrinsic value and more difficulty for the end user than real content that one can purchase from a brick and mortar store, thus they charged less for their digital only games.
Basically Valve said to their customers: "We would like for you, the customer, to take the burdens of distribution on yourself, have a lower quality gameplay experience, have a lower quality distribution medium, and we would like for you to do it with no tangible benefit for yourself. Ohh btw, thanks for saving us all kinds of cash in distribution, we think u r so h0t!" The customers replied: "Uhh WTF?!" I'm a pathetic lefty liberal hippy that doesn't believe in the crazy Libertarian/Republican propaganda that the "free market" always triumphs, but this is a clear case where the free market kicked Valve's ass, and rightfully so..
How it should be (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is how it should be. Musicians promoting revolution. Clearly the record companies are not looking out for anyone except their own fat bottom lines, and it's about time they take the hit for that. Go for it!
What goes around... (Score:5, Insightful)
The industry cannot compete on the internet effectively, and artists are awakening to the fact that in such a venue, they don't need to become the indentured servants of record companies just to see global distribution. The fact is, if they sell so much as one album on their own, they've made more money than 85 percent of the recording artists signed to major labels alone--who do not sell enough albums to recoup their recording advance.
Using the royalty computation model explained in "All You Need to Know About the Music Business" [amazon.com] by Don Passman, an industry lawyer and professor, the average mid-level artist has to sell a quarter-million albums just to start seeing a dime of royalties.
This luring of artists away from their record companies, into direct distribution, and cutting out about 9 or 10 middle-entities along the way, is basically "phase two" of the emergence of internet distribution as the dominant model.
To make matters more interesting... Think about the implications here... In a world where even an artist selling 500 copies can make a better profit than a Britney Spears should her latest album sell less than enough to cover whatever six or seven figure advance she's been paid, there's going to be a much bigger selection of talented artistry out there... available for mass consumption. One won't have to resort to ridiculous marketing and promotions to make a buck... and that will make it harder for Britney Spears and the like to dominate the scene because they essentially bring nothing to the table
Record companies with their moronic A&R departments so myopically focused on putting every last ounce of energy into pushing only the biggest international artists stand to lose everything... and their employees along with it (especially the overpaid, underimaginative executives).
So, if you're still wondering why RIAA spends so much time, effort and money ice-skating uphill... It's because they have everything to lose, anyway. All they can do now is try to postpone the inevitable... and they're failing to do even that. But if they let down, it means they're going to have to get off their asses and find real jobs.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What goes around...One Flaw in your Arg (Score:4, Insightful)
An obvious flaw in your argument is that Britney keeps the seven figure advance too. You won't make that much profit on 500 Internet sales.
But for those of you who aren't Britney (thank God there aren't more of her running around) and will never see such advances, it's a good deal.
Re:I kind of have to say (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Did they? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Man breaks contract" makes the news.
"Man exerts rights" doesn't.
Re:I kind of have to say (Score:3, Insightful)
Slight correction on my part... (Score:3, Insightful)
My comments should have read:
Because the record label has Right of First Refusal in their contract with the artist, the label has the first opportunity to review and accept or reject the material. Unless and until the material is rejected, the material in question cannot be shopped to other record labels. Furthermore, if it is shopped to other record labels, there may be a clause that requires Label B to pay Label A either a flat fee or a percentage of gross receipts for the distribution rights... and on top of it, the artist still owes Label A the advance unless Label B purchases the loan from Label A, in which case the artist now owes Label B the advance.