Roger McGuinn on Pandora's paltry compensation policies

Crosby, McGuinn, and Crosby each own 1/3 of the song's copyright. $9.15 each. That's lunch in rural America (not including the tip).

 

Not so much the choice of word, I'm just trying to find out what McGuinn actually said. Did he say more than what was in that tweet?

 

This is the David Lowery argument all over again. He was right, Mcguinn is right, but it doesn't matter because an entire generation of so-called music fans don't want to pay artists a fair price for their work.

 

Not that I know of. I made a quick search. Definitely not questionable.

 

As far as I can see, all he really did was state a fact (I assume his numbers are factual) and put a smiley face at the end of it. Everything else is people running with it.

 

The rest was sent to Jim McGuinn's account

 

True. But, if the previous generations had had the same option to pay or not pay for a portable, unlimited library of almost all music they could desire, would they have paid? Hm. I recall the hippie ethos of free music.

 

"Fair" is something that's difficult to agree, when it comes to money.

Is 18-20 dollars' a "fair" price for a CD? Maybe. Are 200 dollars' tickets for a stadium concert a "fair" price? I think is easier to agree if we describe them as market rates -- a consequence of supply and demand.

Would people pay 100 dollars to see a Rolling Stones concert if somebody gave them a free ticket? Probably not.

The thing with technology is that it has definitely changed the music industry, like it did in the 1920s/30s, when record players appeared creating the whole, previously inexisting recording industry.

So it's not just that music fans don't want to pay artists now or that music fans consciously wanted to reward their favorite artists in the 60s, 70s and 80s. It's just a different era.

 

I hope you are making a joke...I laughed. Not true, though.

 

Thec60s weren't great financiallt for many of the top artists. Contracts were skewed against them. Even the Beatles made little on records until they renegotiated later in the decade. The 70s got more artist friendly contracts. Mcguinn hadchis hits in the 60s for the most part.

 

This is the bigger point to me. I don't feel too bad for McGuinn, he had his time to make decent money. I feel sorry for younger artists who haven't made their money yet. I don't even understand how most acts can even recoup the cost of making a proper album these days. It seems to me to be an unworkable business model in the long run.

 

It's appalling that Roger is still in hock to Columbia/Sony for the flop albums he made in the 70s. I wonder if it was frustration with this situation that made him take up religion?

 

But even the hippies paid for most music and shows

 

Sorry, technology has not changed the music industry, legislation has. There is legislation that makes Internet service providers immune from suit for content uploaded by third parties so long as they take it down when asked to do so by the copyright holder.

If Google faced paying statutory damages (up to $50,000 per infringement and more if a situation is so pervasive it is deemed intentional) every time they infringed someone's copyright, their YouTube subsidiary would host a lot less copyright infringing content. And if Internet services had to negotiate with individual copyright holders for licenses rather than getting them set by government action, rates would be set higher.

Yes this might kill legal streaming.

 

There's a typo in your post. I think you meant to say "data mining" instead of "advertising".

 

Why is that appalling? If it is unfair to anyone it is the record companies that could not recoup their advances because he failed to make hit records. And it shows that Roger negotiated very lucrative advances for himself.

 

True. It just seems a shame that a man who was a high-earner in his twenties should be in debt while staring 80 in the face.

From what I've heard of Roger's solo material (which, admittedly, isn't all that much) he didn't make much of an attempt to be commercial/have hit singles.

 

Record companies do not make artists pay back those debts, they just take them out of royalties from sales.

I really do not believe Roger is in a bad financial position. He can easily sell out 300 seat halls at $40 bucks a pop whenever he wants, and has very low no expenses with no band.

And if he needed to make more money, David and Chris have made clear they would reunite the Byrds and tour that.

Yes they may not be his favorite people to work with. But if I needed money, I wouldn't let personality conflicts with coworkers keep me away from a lucrative job.

 

The law says that music recorded before 1972 is pretty much worthless. Take that Beatles fans.

Byrds Legend Roger McGuinn on the Fight to Close a $60,000,000 Royalty Loophole »

I wish them good luck with their case though.

 

I think you cannot downplay the impact of technology, especially considering that legislation, for better or worse, has been trying to keep up with changes in technology.

I don't think its easy to make Google, Youtube and ISPs liable for all the copyright infringement without effectively killing the Internet.

Telecommunications companies have never been made complicit for the crimes which are committed with the help of cell phones or for the dirty calls, harrassment, etc.

So, at the end of the day, we are talking about an industry whose business was directly affected and completely changed by the changes in technology and the emergence of new media.

 

Not long before his death, Lou Reed made some very similar comments regarding the downsides of streaming and how it's structured. Lou was an example of a major label artist who actually made significant money before the days of streaming and even downloading, so it must've been shocking in comparison to record sales from the days when physical product was dominant.

With streaming revenue becoming less rewarding, Roger is smart to keep a steady tour schedule. Roger is a success story in that his fans are paying sizable prices for tickets to see a rock legend perform an intimate concert which covers the breadth and width of his music career. Not to mention, Roger still sounds great and has aged extremely well.

 

Yes technology is part of it, but it could have been handled better as a legal matter. And if the part of the Internet that was killed was the part that let everyone get copyrighted works on demand for free without compensating the creators, I would not see that as a tragedy. The Internet could still be used for lots of worthwhile things. For example, almost everything we do on this board (but replace the youtube links with links to places you could purchase downloads of the items being discussed).

 

Which is exactly the point Lowery has been banging on all these years

 

I am just wondering why a music artist should make so much more for their recordings than other professionals for their initial works? If an engineer, artist, doctor, accountant works on a project they receive a fee. People enjoy the benefits of that work for years after, each and every day without them receiving royalties. Those professionals are required to pound the pavement looking for more projects to make more money. If every time someone entered a building that an architect/engineer team designed and you had to pay them a $1.00 at the door wouldn't this be equivalent? Does this happen, no, those architects and engineers go out and find another project to design to make their livings. It is however a shame that so many young musicians are taken advantage of with their early contracts but that is a different story for another post.

 

Thanks for linking this. Dated 2014, so I don't know if anything has changed, but this pertains very specifically to Roger McGuinn/Pandora and Sound Exchange. Supposedly what we're talking about. Oh, and Eight Miles High.

If there hasn't been a change in the law (regarding 1972 and earlier), the way I read it is that McGuinn received his $9+ dollars, for the quarter, for songwriting