what happens if SOPA passes?

well, i've heard the opposite (that they do get paid), but yeah I think getting in a game like GTA is so huge regardless b/c you now have millions of people listening to your song over and over again where the more "traditional" exposure methods like radio/MTV are kinda dead to most bands

m@tt works in the videogame industry iirc pretty sure he knows what he's talking about. plus you realize that in the former scenario you describe you imply the band should be grateful for simply getting exposure, whereas in the latter scenario they would have actually gotten paid.

maybe they should be grateful for simple getting exposure when there are 100,000 other bands out there

simply

well, i've heard the opposite (that they do get paid)

sometimes but matts right abt the EA games

it's pretty obvious from the acts that get on FIFA games that it's a plugging exercise

i wish i had that problem

"thanks for all of the exposure, I plan to use it to pay my rent this month"

I'm a video game character and matt's wrong

it's an honor to meet you waluigi

omfg lol

maybe they should be grateful for simple getting exposure when there are 100,000 other bands out there

sure but you can't deny that the goalposts have moved significantly - ie, from "I can make a living at this" to "I need to make a living at something else, but at least some people know about me". that's a huge shift.

the goalposts are shifting for most americans tbh

"you should just be grateful for getting the exposure, we could've given this opportunity to 100,000 other bands" is the eternal mantra of the music industry scumbag who doesn't want to pay a musician for their work fyi

music industry scumbags are gonna have more trouble finding work than musicians in the long-term

sorry i didn't say more broadly "entertainment industry scumbags" since we're talking about why bands might not profit off of video game soundtrack placement as much as they could

they don't profit because there's a lot of music out there and the difference between hearing band x's okay song and band y's okay song is really not that big for most people playing madden

People equate fame with fortune. They think if you're on TV, you're making alot of money, rather than a standard industry rate.

Also, you do not need a ton of funding to have your band live in a house doing drugs together and recording music. People do this with zero label support all the time.

well i don't know if we're talking about the difference between a band getting a FAIR royalty rate or any kind of usage fee and nothing else or getting screwed out of even that, maybe m@tt could clarify. but honestly you're just parroting the mindset of every label and club owner for the past 50+ years that says "why should i pay you? any other band in town would die to be in your shoes, you should be thanking me."

xpost

I'm not parroting their mindset, I'm explaining why there's financial logic to it. that doesn't mean it's 'fair'. I see what's happening here as analogous to other things that are happening in our economy that might look 'not fair' - overall it's harder and harder for people to get paid for 'work they do'. I don't think that's a good thing! but I do think that there are amazing social gains from having total freedom of information and because of that it's worth it for the gov't to just pay people to be artists. not that much money in the big picture. fin.

does the NEA even still dole out grants?

lol pisschrist

The people making music that earn a living wage off record sales is probably close to the number of people earning a living wage off playing professional sports.

btw this is one of those awesomely compelling sounding arguments that is actually 100% wrong. theres lots of people making a living wage off of music, its just not in the cool i am in an indie band way.

"cool"

O RLY

am happy for orchestral musicians to get paid in full

well tbf people who sell yankees caps are 'making a living wage off professional sports' if you want to expand that in the other direction

Roy Blunt has pulled sponsorship.

i guess it depends what 'pro sports' means. i mean there are a LOT of people playing in a LOT of leagues of a LOT of different sports, it adds up. but yeah still probably more gigging musicians.

yeah those orchestra dudes are doing alright (altho not forever in some markets obv) but also yknow sometimes u have to shit your way through some godawful tribute band to have the time and $$ to record stuff you actually care about, and thats ok frankly.

"thanks for all of the exposure, I plan to use it to pay my rent this month"

i think the issue is not so much artists working for free to record music for a video game as it is video game companies using music that was already recorded and for sale in their games

i seriously doubt there was any confusion with anyone about that.

ze german pov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaXR9dsQGn8

xp i know, but that's how a lot of this is reading

i assume they're easier to maintain because they sell a lot of records?

well, one kinda begets the other. i'm not sure what you're suggesting is going to happen here

I've always been under the impression that the musicians that are most likely to earn a living are wedding bands, smooth-jazz-standards-for-'classy'-bars bands, some session dudes, advertising jingle writers etc. Figure it's similar to the way in which most actors who earn a living by it are not film stars, y'know.

but I do think that there are amazing social gains from having total freedom of information and because of that it's worth it for the gov't to just pay people to be artists.

Sorry, no, a government that "just pays people to be artists" also gets to decide who is and isn't one. Do you trust the fucking Republican House of Representatives not to just give all your money to Ray Stevens and that chick from Northern Exposure? I sure don't.

I mean, shit, I play the bass and guitar and have been in bands and have an entry at AllMusic and a bunch of songs with BMI. Where's my check?

i would think it would be based on something like "who's getting the plays on Spotify" rather than anything the government controls

Well, that's kinda cart before the horse territory, isn't it?

lol that sounds like a total racket

xp

Sorry, no, a government that "just pays people to be artists" also gets to decide who is and isn't one. Do you trust the fucking Republican House of Representatives not to just give all your money to Ray Stevens and that chick from Northern Exposure? I sure don't.

yeah I guess the difference is I don't see this as 'govt pays people to be artists vs market pays people to be artists' I see this as 'govt pays people to be artists or nobody pays people to be artists'

I like this conversation, just chiming in with thoughts

lots of parallels with the long history of arguments and dialogues about the sad demise of classical music. which is still around, but as a museum. few people mind; by the early 1920's it was pretty clear most of the good music for that medium had already been written, and the newer works were either populist neo-classical collages of earlier works, or too experimental and esoteric to captivate a large audience

what's dying now is popular music as we know it, funded by major labels, and we're at the neo-classical phase. the largest artists are collagists hopping across the last 50 years of styles, and the experimenters are increasingly fringe. it's winding down and its passing is nothing to mourn.

people worshipping at the altar of classical were not in a position to accept jazz & pop as substitutes in the 1920's, the new music was a base competitor corrupting the children & leading young instrumentalists away from the higher discipline, it took another 4-5 decades before recorded pop proved itself as a 'high' art form, it really might be a while before we get some clarity on this issue, but the music being posted for free on youtube like tap water is already incredibly fascinating and the technology behind video game soundtrack composition, which is mixed in real time by the games and different every time you hear it, is already several paradigm shifts ahead of the way most of us like to think about music

but anyway SOPA can't pass and I'd be seriously surprised if PIPA does

Well, that's kinda cart before the horse territory, isn't it?

all i'm saying is that the system would be in some way based on what people actually listen to. obviously you wouldn't want to pay for bands that nobody likes

and besides that, i'm not sure what would work better.

video game soundtrack composition, which is mixed in real time by the games and different every time you hear it

like 1/2 of it is "procedural" sam's choice hans zimmer but there is some interesting stuff going on

Milton otm

like 1/2 of it is "procedural" sam's choice hans zimmer but there is some interesting stuff going on

nintendo has done some pretty amazing things along these lines, especially in games like "Mario Galaxy"

money-making opportunities created by the sale of recorded media were a small blip relative to the history of human music-making. musicians of all sorts were making a decent living long before the advent of the commercial music industry. suspect that this will continue to be true even when the sale of recordings to consumers ceases to be a big dollar engine for anyone.

when do we see the emergence of a generation of hip young artists who don't record/release anything, and instead make their music available only through their live shows?

plus Milton OTM

that's a pretty interesting take milton tho find this line curious:
by the early 1920's it was pretty clear most of the good music for that medium had already been written,