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[More advice]

[More advice]

Beautiful post score on this by the way….I wonder if they scored it for free?

This is why never ever again will anyone get any kind of control of my intellectual property. Non-exclusive representation now and forever. It will always be for sale or for license and never free.

[MichaelL]

Great video. Glad I’m not in a band, and trying to be a pop star.

[Art Munson]

Under the heading of “Don’t quit your day job”. Sad. And yes “More advice”, +1000 on maintaining control of our intellectual property!

[Jay]

there seems to be bit of a (real) buzz about this film..I saw the clip and shared it on fb a few days ago and have seen it shared a few more times since then…it makes the point perfectly that if you take out the most important revenue stream an artist has…he or she eventually won’t have any reason to do this except for the sheer love of it of course…and if they DO continue it’ll be a part time thing.I had a bit of an argument after sharing it with a former bandmate….he swore touring would get it done and you could still make it in a van…I honestly don’t see any way for most musicians/artists/whatever to make any decent steady money these days unless you’re able to license your music…sure you could get signed and hope to be the labels priority but…good luck 🙂

If this film makes a statement and people start to think that intellectual property (music) has value again the real problem will be “unlearning” the habits that have been developed…I work with a bunch of people in their 20’s & 30’s and honestly the more into music they are..the more they refuse to pay for music..how do you stop that? how do you change that culture?

the cat’s out of the bag…what to do?

[More Advice]

and Take notice of the woman’s comment where she said “If I tour all the time, I can not have a family.”….This problem can be undone. Big companies…Like apple and Amazon can undo this and perhaps some getting thrown in jail as punishment for running bogus sites that enable free downloading of tunes.

The last thing WE want here is for all those in their 20’s and 30’s learning how one can monetize their catalogs through licensing. Talk about creating competition 40 fold from what it already is.

I met an amazing British singer last night…a “stumble upon” in an empty club ( I was checking out my old band mates band). This dude was BRILLIANT as the English say and he new nothing about music licensing. His voice, guitar playing and songs were amazing. I will help this guy because he deserves it…and oh yeah…he gave me a FREE CD and gave them all away!!

Why?????

It’s Stupid. People have $5 for a CD. When I meet him about recording my song, not only will I pay him to sing it, I will also offer to produce HIS best song full up….for free…LOL

On his FB page, he posted a “thanks to all for coming out” and the stated “It was cool i actually got paid for the gig, unlike in England where we don’t get paid.”

[Desire_Inspires]

Making music for a living is a choice. Musicians just have to choose wisely.

[The Dude]

Making music for a living is a choice. Musicians just have to choose wisely.

Brilliant.

[MichaelL]

And yes “More advice”, +1000 on maintaining control of our intellectual property!

++1,000

You have to wonder if licensing is really a viable option for most musicians. If you have the heart and soul of an indie singer/songwriter who bleeds emotions into every song (think Passenger) are you really going to be happy cranking out mountains of production music? Probably not. Doing so would most likely be like putting bamboo under your finger nails, and death to your spirit.

I don’t think that you can successfully rationalize it by saying “beats digging ditches, at least I’m making music.” If you don’t enjoy writing commercial/production music, you may tire of it quickly, because you aren’t making the music that is your passion. An analogy might be a chef forced to work at McDonald’s.

Writers who actually like composing and producing production music, are prolific, have the chops to keep it interesting for themselves and aren’t worried about having “fans” or selling CDs have a distinct advantage. Dare I say it? Some of us are even passionate about writing production music.

Take notice of the woman’s comment where she said “If I tour all the time, I can not have a family.”

Obviously, we aren’t talking about production msuic here. But there is a general concept that applies, specifically lifestyle and what “earning a living” means. Writers with a modest cost of living, will perhaps have an advantage over writers who “need” more. But, that is no different than any other aspect of life.

The fact is that it takes very hard work, and a lot of sacrifice, to succeed. I think most will eventually tire of both.

Thanks again for posting the video More Advice.

_Michael

[Art Munson]

The fact is that it takes very hard work, and a lot of sacrifice, to succeed. I think most will eventually tire of both.

It helps to have a mate who “gets it” and shares in the creating. Thankfully Robin does both.

[Tbone]

“It’s harder than it’s ever been to make a living as a creative person”

I flat out disagree with that statement. How about 500 years ago? Or just 150 years ago? Or even, just 50 years ago?

50 years ago I would not have been able to record and produce what I have done today. I simply would not have been able to afford a studio.

I would not have been able to distribute my music via websites to audiences in every country of the world, for free.

I do not think I would have been able to make a living as an artist at any time in the past, as easily as I can now.

[Desire_Inspires]

You are correct Tbone. The people that disagree are those that are still stuck on the old model. Being an analog musician in a digital world is frightening and frustrating. But I have only worked in the digital world. I love it.

I am free to create anything I want for very little money. I can share what I have created with the world for free. How great is that?

I think that about 10 years from now the industry will have come to a new equilibrium and then a huge growth curve will follow. Those that choose to participate and disregard the past will be the most successful.

[More Advice]

I don’t know about you guys, but I am no longer telling people where and how I sell or place my music into TV shows to earn royalties or RF income. Because in all honesty, that IS the only way to make money with recorded music. Selling songs on I-Tunes? Why? Everyone can get them free on Spotify? Amazon and I-Tunes need to sell songs for $3 each, not .99 cents. Spotify, Pandora, and the likes need to pay much, much more in royalties.

There are some positives in the music industry. I know many who do well teaching. I personally pay $70 a week to have my daughters take piano and violin lessons. I also know many who still do the live gigging/ performing dance and they can and do pull down $150 to $300 3 to 4 times a week…and then of course, they teach too.

Tbone you are right though…it took time to figure it out, but selling and licensing our music for worldwide usage into TV, business videos, or whatever…is a very cool modern development, a positive opportunity (that I don’t plan on discussing much outside this forum). It’s a pleasure to watch income grow again in this “new model” after watching everything implode in the 2007-2009 era.

Basically, you just have to strive to be the best every day, and every track has to be not just OK, but great, the best, and it must resonate better than the other composers’ stuff.

[Mark_Petrie]

This part of the documentary feels like a dire ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ portion. The ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’ follow up would go into the explosion of micro budget producers who still need legal access to music (royalty free sites), and the growth of cable (creating more opportunities for royalties and licensing).

Trailer music (something I’ve been involved in for a while) sells pretty well on CDBaby and iTunes. Sure, you can find it all for free as low quality mp3s on sketchy looking sites, but there are enough fans out there who value our work and are willing to pay for a high quality file. I don’t have to go on the road to drum up sales, (YouTube, SoundCloud and Facebook help with that) selling t-shirts and playing gigs in small towns. I think we have it pretty good as library composers!

[Art Munson]

I flat out disagree with that statement. How about 500 years ago? Or just 150 years ago? Or even, just 50 years ago?

I agree with you also Tbone. The Internet has made it much easier for me to pull down a decent income as a writer. There are so many more opportunities than 50 years ago. And, I was in the music business in 1963!

[Author]

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