Copyright and the Music Industry

Give a Brief Historical View - 
The first recorded appearance of copyright was in 1710. You can use copyright law on: Books, Songs, Brands, etc. You can sue people if they take your name, or words from a song. An example is: Vanilla Ice "Ice Ice Baby" which sounded exactly like Queen w/ David Bowie "Under Pressure". Another example is One Direction's "Best Song Ever" copying a guitar riff from The Who's "Who are You".

Consumers and artists have different opinions over copyright. Artists would be forthcoming about reinforcing their copyright as it gets them money. The consumer would care as much as all they want is cheap music.

What can be Copyrighted?

• CD's
• DVD's
• Company Names
• Books
• Magazines
• Character Names
• Websites
• Ideas
• Comic Books
• Brand Names
• Catchphrases
• Slogans
• Games
• Logo's
• Chocolates
• Tv Programmes
• Songs
• Architectural ideas

Music Industry Defences!

DRM-
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) is when you use technological restrictions that control what you can do with a DVD, CD, etc.What DRM does is it damages the disk;so that it prevents you from ripping it to your library and making it impossible to use on your electronic devices.

Creative Commons-
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organisation based in California, devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. They has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses for free to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

BPI Agreement-
This was when BPI made an agreement with the six major internet providers to caution illegal downloaders. This hoped to ward off illegal downloaders by threatening legal action.

The Digital Economy Bill-
This Bill allows the courts to demand that Internet providers cut off broadband service from alleged downloaders, but you had 3 strikes and then you’re out.This is controversial because you only have to be accused of illegal downloading and not be found guilty in a court of copyright infringement.

Prosecution of Pirate Bay (2009)-

The four founders of the illegal download site, PirateBay, were sentenced to a year in prison and fined £2.4 million pounds. They claimed, in defence, that they weren't guilty as they didn't host any of the music that was “traded” on their own computer but they only acted as a hub for people to find and download music from another persons computers. Since they were convicted, membership of "PB" has actually doubled.

New bundles developed to include music downloads in a subscription to include broadband, TV etc-
Recently, record companies have been talking to media providers about creating new “bundles” or collections of media services packaged together to be sold for a monthly subscription.

Legal free streaming sites like Spotify-
A recent development has been to allow people to legally stream songs for free if the streaming of the track was preceded by an advert. Some of the ad funding is given to the record company. This is used by sites like Spotify.

Early Release-
Record companies used to release new music on the radio up to 6 weeks before the release in a format people could buy. Many companies are now releasing it for purchase the same day they release it to be played on the radio. They hope this will stop people resorting to illegal downloads for early ownership, when they are actually willing to pay for it.

UK Charts

How useful are the UK record sales charts and do you believe they have a future?

A ‘top 12’ was first compiled by the New Musical Express as a marketing gimmick, and having a run down of the top selling music in the country quickly became a sought after aspect of music journalism.This means that the charts are useful for reporting back to record companies on how their artists albums are being received and what type of music genres and bands the public enjoy at that moment. It became a competition to reach NO.1 in the charts as seen when the reality TV show ‘The X-Factor’, had its contestants at NO.1 for christmas for the past 5 years.

They are reported back to companies by putting them up on their website for the companies to review. This is also how the audience can receive the charts as well as on BBC Radio 1 Top 40 chart show on sundays. The companies can use this information to either bolster their  advertising or production rates depending on how the album is received. 

Points of exchange in the music industry have shifted massively in the previous few years. From 2005 Downloads have been included in the charts after the massive leap from CD's to downloads. Reflecting the fact that there had been a huge drop in physical sales of singles. Including downloads makes it easier to track the sales and make more accurate charts. This has allowed record companies to see how their albums do on both charts together. 

The music industry has been trying to tap into the mobile technology market. They provide customers with licensed, quality versions of their favourite band’s tracks for their phones, as a part of a bundle; when they buy the phone.


Overall the charts will still be around in the future but will mainly be used by record companies to charter their artists rise or fall on the charts.

Marketing Strategy in the Music Industry

Pink Floyd have sold 220 million albums.
Led Zeppelin have sold 200 million albums.
Queen have sold 190 million albums.
The music industry is doing well but record companies are in trouble.


All the major record companies - EMI, Warner, Sony, Vivendi-Universal - have failed in the transitions between music formats. They also failed in using their artists at their disposal.


Another mistake they made was that they priced CD's too high at the start and still are. they put CD's on sale at $15-20, with limited sales, instead of selling them for $4-5 with massive sales.
Another mistake was to push for CD's full with 12-15 songs, of which only 3 songs were good songs and the rest was just rubbish to fill the CD.


iTunes eliminates these problems by offering them at reasonable prices.


Music companies also tried to sell their bands albums like mayonnaise, and not like art.

Essay

Question:

To what extent has the credit crunch simply sped up the natural development of the music industry?

The credit crunch has meant that as a whole, we as a country have been spending less on entertainment; in particular music. We have been spending less and less on in store music as we have had less "real" wages due to the vast increase in unemployment and costs. This has caused local and large music stores to go into administration, for example: HMV. Zavvi, Fop, meaning that physical music sales have taken a dramatic plumit. However, at the same time downloads have taken an increase, due to the increase in internet accessibility and our nations increased laziness. 

For example the band 'Muse' have seen an increase in downloads while their physical album sales have seen a dip. However, after the release of their new live album, there would have been a rise in the physical sales, as it was a 2 part release where you could get the Bluray and CD in one package. If you downloaded it you would have to pay more money. This is one way in which the music industry is trying to keep the industry alive.

These influences are having a profound effect on the industry as music shops and CD's are disappearing left, right and centre. As downloads increase the need to leave our house to shop is slowly disappearing along with every pass time in past generation as the internet takes over.

Music Industry - Lesson 2

Marketing the jilts

Media Outlets:

To market the jilts we will use online social media sites like YouTube to create an online fanbase online to promote the band to our target audience. We can create a channel which showcases the bands music, lives and we can create short comic videos to help bring people in as this is what people like, a bit of comedy. They will then also watch are music and join the fanbase.

We can also advertise their album on websites such as Twitter, YouTube, etc. as these are large websites with millions of visitors a day.

Fashion & Advertising Tie-in:

The jilts can have a fashion chain in shirts sold in budget fashion stores, i.e. Primark. We can bring in rising fashion stars to design this range as this will better them in their career whilst providing us with a fashion line. We can also tie this in by advertising the range using some of the low budget fashion stores to help booster them.

Film:

We can also get the jilts a part in the film whilst they get to do the soundtrack also. The type of film we would try to get them into would be a mature, comedy in which they can play a role which would suit them in their target audience. For example: films like Kick Ass or This is the End.

TV Spots:

We can put the jilts onto chat shows like Jonathan Ross as he is someone who could be linked to the band, as he is daring and funny, much like the band. We can also get them some other more music based TV shows to up their standing in the music industry. We could also try to get the onto TV shows like Supernatural or A League of Their Own, to appeal to younger audiences.

Website:

We can have an official website which gives viewers inside news, pictures, videos and we can link in our YouTube site to advertise it. We can also incorporate a forum for fans to talk about upcoming events and the band itself.

Touring:

The jilts can tour to start in britain to build up a fanbase and then progress to world tours when they have built up a large enough fanbase. We can also invite special guests to help bolster the populariy and also support similar, more popular bands.

USP:

The USP of the jilts will be their comic videos that will possibly bolster followers and sales.

Synergy & Convergence

What Is Synergy?
Synergy is the cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a overall result. This makes for a more financially viable product.
For example, in link to the music industry you can get:

• Mugs
• Posters
• CD'S
• Pen's
• T-Shirts
• Hoodies

What is Convergence?

Convergence is when one particular device has many other features than its primary use. This means that you don't need 10 different devices for different.

For example: the iPhone

On the iPhone you can do everything but call.

CD's

Music Industry - Lesson 1

P D M E C R

Please
Dodge
My
Extremely
Concentrated
Ray


P=Production
D=Distribution
M=Marketing
E=Exchange/Exhibition
C=Consumption
R=Reception



Task

Band: The jilts

The Deal:
8 Year Term, with guaranteed 7 Albums.

Royalties:
Starts at 2% for every record sold, in Stores.
1.25% for every album sold on iTunes.
0.2% for every song sold on iTunes.
Bonus 0.05% for every song, written by themselves, if it turns out 10,000 sales.
Bonus 3.5% if a song makes it into the Top 50 and 2.75% if the song makes it to Top 250.
Royalties can be reduced if the band does not turn up to work, without good reason.
Payment does not begin until advance has been met.

Advance:
The band will receive a £25,000 advance, however they will not begin receiving royalties until the advance has been met.

Reserve Against Returns:
Unsold stock can be returned for 66.2%. ANY returned stock will require a 0.1% fee from the band to partially reimburse the company for their loss.