# Do You Care If The Recording Artist Gets Paid?



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Here's a link to a chart that shows what each company pays the artist. If you're subscribing to Spotify, hardly anything goes to the artist or independent labels.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

All I care about is getting my music as cheaply as possible within legal means. I think the chart would have more relevance if it demonstrated the proportion of Spotify's revenue that is made through hosting the relevant CD.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I care that the recording performers get paid. What I don't like is the assigning of copyright to the recording company. I don't even like the Naxos procedure, which appears to fall into the 'hired musicians' category. I believe that the recording company should possess sole license for the recording for 5-7 years, the performer paid royalties, after which the recording becomes the property of the performer(s) for the remaining 10-12 years that the copyright remains in force. After 17 years total the recording enters public domain.

The odds of this arrangement occurring are, ah, rather long.


----------



## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

I care too. For classical music they are the ones that have spent thousands of ours perfecting their art for our pleasure. Why shouldn't they get paid for this?

Unfortunately this chart does not show what artists earn from DVDs - which is what I mainly purchase.


----------



## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> I care that the recording performers get paid. What I don't like is the assigning of copyright to the recording company. I don't even like the Naxos procedure, which appears to fall into the 'hired musicians' category. I believe that the recording company should possess sole license for the recording for 5-7 years, the performer paid royalties, after which the recording becomes the property of the performer(s) for the remaining 10-12 years that the copyright remains in force. After 17 years total the recording enters public domain.
> 
> The odds of this arrangement occurring are, ah, rather long.


That will probably happen right after governmental reform and peace in the Middle East.

The performers are most certainly deserving of a proper fee for their work which extends well beyond the few hours of the recording session or live performance. Without the artists the recording could not exist. That consideration trumps any ones wish to get their music as cheaply as possible. As the saying goes, "The laborer is worthy of his hire"


----------



## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I have to eat, other people have to eat. That's a difficult balance to strike, especially we're talking about me vs. trained musicians, or to put it another way; someone with no skills that any employer wants vs. people with skills that can easily land them a decent job in an ensemble that will probably make more money playing concerts than making recordings anyway. 

I don't like to say it, but my situation right now does not allow me to be as fair or altruistic as I'd like.


----------



## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

mamascarlatti said:


> I care too. For classical music they are the ones that have spent thousands of ours perfecting their art for our pleasure. Why shouldn't they get paid for this?
> 
> Unfortunately this chart does not show what artists earn from DVDs - which is what I mainly purchase.


You purchase mainly DVDs? The music is meant to be heard, not seen!


----------



## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Do you go to concerts blindfolded?


----------



## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

i thought they did.


----------



## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Sofronitsky said:


> You purchase mainly DVDs? The music is meant to be heard, not seen!


Not opera. Opera is written to be heard and seen. Although I have a fairly disgraceful number of opera CDs too.


----------



## Il_Penseroso (Nov 20, 2010)

Sofronitsky said:


> You purchase mainly DVDs? *The music is meant to be heard, not seen*!


Sofronitsky, I know we're talking about tapes and CDs and I don't say it's a fact completely, but what I mean is the last part of your post. See this quote from *Stravinsky* :

_I have always had a horror of listening to music with my eyes shut, with nothing for them to do. The sight of the gestures and movements of the various parts of the body producing the music is fundamentally necessary if it is to be grasped in all its fullness. All music created or composed demands some exteriorization for the perception of the listener. In other words, it must have an intermediary, an executant. That being an essential condition, without which music cannot wholly reach us, why wish to ignore it, or try to do so-why shut the eyes to this fact which is inherent in the very nature of musical art? Obviously one frequently prefers to turn away one's eyes, or even close them, when the superfluity of the player's gesticulations prevents the concentration of one's faculties of hearing. But if the player's movements are evoked solely by the exigencies of the music, and do not tend to make an impression on the listener by extramural devices, why not follow with the eye such movements as those of the drummer, the violinist or the trombonist, which facilitate one's auditory perceptions? As a matter of fact, those who maintain that they only enjoy music to the full with their eyes shut do not hear better than when they have them open, but the absence of visual distractions enables them to abandon themselves to the reveries induced by the lullaby of its sounds, and that is really what they prefer to the music itself. _

Source


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Reading this, I get the idea that Stravinsky had little understanding of his subject.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Interesting quote, I think it deserves a new thread...


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I would like more money available to contemporary composers, but I'm not sure how best to accomplish that. When I was young, I listened only to pop music. I would listen to the radio to hear new songs and then decide which ones I wanted to buy. One _huge_ problem with contemporary classical is that there is no good equivalent to the radio. I use the Naxos Music Library to listen to most works and then decide which ones to purchase. Unfortunately, Naxos is expensive. The cheaper alternatives are youtube and things like Spotify. I know of no other good places to hear a good selection of contemporary music.


----------



## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

Crudblud said:


> Do you go to concerts blindfolded?


No, but I close my eyes at most live concerts i've been to. I'm surprised a lot of you disagree with me on this! I assume that the music was made with the intention of me being moved by the emotions the composer is conveying, not the gestures the conductor makes. Of course, I open my eyes at some moments but I am usually disappointed. To hear such beautiful music, in fact the most wonderful thing I have ever had the luck of experiencing, and to open my eyes and see all of the struggle that is going into it( and how close to disaster these musicians are) gives me a vague feeling of disappointment.

@Il_Penseroso, I enjoyed that quote by Stravinsky! I agree completely with the part where he says that it is alright to close your eyes when the musician's gesticulation impair your listening abilities. I feel like seeing the efforts of the musicians, while an entertaining spectacle, draws my attention away from the music. When I am in a room with 80+ brilliant musicians all focusing so completely on Beethoven, or Tchaikovsky or some music, I want to close my eyes and focus completely on Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, too. I could quote Sviatoslav Richter on this, the legendary concert pianist who was so adamant about this principle that he gave concerts *in the dark* to force the audience to focus on the music rather than himself.

I feel as though Stravinsky rather viciously attacked people of my sort in the last paragraph of that quote, which I find to be almost childish. I honestly have no idea how this sort of listening could have ushered such a vehement response from this composer. I don't think it is impossible for myself to fully experience and enjoy a concert while focusing my eyes on the musician the entire time, but I seem to enjoy it more when I close my eyes. If I were to enjoy Wagner the most when wearing a silly horned helmet, I would probably wear a silly horned helmet.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

starthrower said:


> Here's a link to a chart that shows what each company pays the artist. If you're subscribing to Spotify, hardly anything goes to the artist or independent labels.
> 
> ...


It's food for thought. This article below tells why Adele and Coldplay have pulled out of Spotify -

http://mashable.com/2011/10/27/coldplay-adele-streaming-services-spotify/

I only buy cd's, I don't download or stream (yet, it will happen sometime!). But I would be naive to think that even that way much gets to the people who made the music on the cd (eg. as Hilltroll was saying about the Naxos system). I am buying more Australian labels now, which probably have a better system.

It's difficult for even rock or pop musicians to earn a living through their music. Doubly or triply difficult for classical musos. & one of the ways many of them earn a crust, if performance of music isn't their day job, is teach. It's really very hard too in this current time of budget restrictions and fluctuating economic conditions...


----------

