With the news that zero-hours contracts are becoming the norm for a large number of ‘workers’, it
might seem that the doctrine of freeconomics is coming to us all.
How do you ensure your output has value? How do you make
your experience count in coin? What value do your contacts and knowledge have?
We’re all only worth what someone else is prepared to pay
for us or what we can do. There once was a ‘going rate’ for pretty much
everything but the floor has dropped out of most markets.
If we don’t protect or value creativity there will be no
purpose in its existence. Why would you bother to be creative if it doesn’t pay
the bills? When will you get the time if you’re too busy working – or will it
come when you’re on stand-by to work?
It’s not a new idea, I’ve mentioned it before and this Wired piece dates back to 2009,
the only difference in the argument might be that we still don’t really know
how it’s going to be subsidised. Delivering paid-for advertising to the
end-user seems to work for most media formats but not in abundance, it has to
be quantified and specialised and customised to such a degree that the numbers
don’t always add up.
We live in a celebrity culture so vapid that we could be
forgiven for thinking that we hear every whinge and moan from the musicians
concerned, perhaps we’re ignoring it because we’re all in the same situation?
Certainly those reporting it all might have more sympathy given that the
general public tend to consider all content is free. Even for those ‘literally’
on the frontline there is very little regard. This piece
from an Italian war journalist in Syria
If we don’t stand up for the musicians you may wonder who is
next and where the art will come from to illuminate our existence. In digital
it seems that everything is free
and the route to revenue is strewn with hazards and obstacles – not least of
which is the quantity of other artists all trying to earn. The web is full of
commentary from enlightened sources, from doom and gloom
to graphic illustration.
There are no easy solutions, only a glut of debate – often
initiated by those who also aren’t getting paid for their ‘art’. An attempt to
be simplistic about it might lead me to suggest that there are essentially two
routes to sustainable income:
(a)
You’ve got to be so magnificently popular that the
level of your sales is sufficient to overcome the volume of piracy you’ll also
suffer.
(b)
You’ve got to be sufficiently niche that you
practically have a one-to-one relationship with your fans, they value you so
highly that they’ll invest in you always – sometimes in advance. For this model
you could take Amanda Palmer as a prime example but she’s far from being the
only one.
Very few musicians can achieve both of the above but you’d
think the likes of GaGa have done enough to straddle the line and potentially
bullet-proof themselves against the eventual drop-out of their mass appeal. You
can only master a & b once you’ve actually ‘broken through’ and created
some form of recognition and platform for your oeuvre. Until then you are reliant
on hand-outs, part-time (or full time) work and the patronage of others – of
the like that record labels used to provide.
It was probably always difficult for certain bands to make
money. As this post from David Hepworth indicates many acts went ‘unrecouped’ with their labels. The labels funded a lot of
releases that simply didn’t make money. They could afford to do this in that
market because other record sales would help to support the releases that
weren’t breaking even. Thus if EMI lost money on The Gang of Four it didn’t
matter too much as they were always going to make it back via sales for The
Dark Side Of The Moon or whatever.
There may be a bigger argument about the splits in revenue
between acts and labels and whether the ‘costs’ were justified, most acts didn’t
really care – the labels paid their way and the artists went out and did their
‘thing’.
With less revenue ‘sloshing about’ the labels contracted,
consolidated and accordingly took far fewer risks. Consequently if you were
Gang of Four starting out today you’d probably be with an indie, you’d be
funding yourself on numerous tours and hoping that your talent would be
sufficient. You’d probably also be in complete control and have long-lasting
rights to your work – something that may pay off long-term (with luck and
perseverance) as this debate in the New Yorker suggests.
The truism we continually forget is that those of an
artistic bent are probably compelled to create – with or without an audience.
Obviously we’d all like to earn a living from that which we enjoy, precious few
are lucky enough to do so. These are challenging times, you’ve still got to put
the hours in.
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