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Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

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Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#51

Post by daenz »

unreal37 wrote: post #42
gorgoiler wrote: post #12

I think there are two things that weaken Swift’s message here: 1/ There’s no need to call out gender — “be a good little girl and shut up”, referring to “these men”, etc. Not during 2019’s entertainment industry harassment crisis. This is an intellectual property rights issue but it feels like Swift is trying to nudge it in another direction, unfairly. 2/ When your net worth is measured in the hundreds of millions of…

I'm sure Scooter Braun, who's likely got a net worth more than Taylor Swift, is going to be OK. He can take care of himself and doesn't need you to defend him. Nobody is bullying anybody here.

Your argument is essentially "It's ok to use dirty and deceptive tactics against people with more net worth than you." Why is that acceptable to you?

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#52

Post by dehrmann »

xwowsersx wrote: post #6

Can someone explain the background here? I only have a vague idea of how the music industry works. I don't understand what's going on here.

> I only have a vague idea of how the music industry works

It's like startups. Someone pays some 20-somethings to work themselves to death on their passion project. Most fail fast, some are notable, and a few are runaway successes.

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#53

Post by nordsieck »

ggm wrote: post #4

(not a tay tay fan. not actually listening to much music these days, I can't quite get Bach and Beefheart out of my head) Normally I'm a "the contract sets the limits" person but in artist's rights, an given the extent to which artists are both young, and exploited, and wind up in legally dubious relationships which then magify out and up, I think the intent should be "what's the right thing here, no matter what the…

> Normally I'm a "the contract sets the limits" person but in artist's rights, an given the extent to which artists are both young, and exploited, and wind up in legally dubious relationships which then magify out and up, I think the intent should be "what's the right thing here, no matter what the contract says"

If young artists cannot sign away their rights to the songs they create they won't get funded in the first place.

> And I think unless she received heinous amounts of fuck you money, and sold her rights for their current worth, unless she did that, if this is just normal A&R nickel-and-diming, then they should be told to go away, and she should get to perform her songs.

This is absurd reasoning. "You have to pay for IP rights. Also, if the artist is successful, you have to pay them again in 10 years depending on how successful that become." If they want that kind of a deal, it's usually possible to negotiate points for money, especially with unknown talent.

There is this idea that artists have some sort of moral right to control the destiny of their creation. This is garbage thinking.

Quite frankly, becoming a pop star is a huge gamble. Most people who get fronted money by labels don't make it. Those that do pay for all the failures. If you want to call that "exploitation", so be it. But I don't have much sympathy for her predicament.

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#55

Post by cortesoft »

deogeo wrote: post #18
0xfffafaCrash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taylor Swift signed a deal with a record label instead of being an independent artist because it seemed (and possibly was) advantageous at the time and now that she is rich and famous and doesn't need the label, she no longer wants to hold up her side of the deal (giving the label certain rights to her earlier music for a certain period of time) and so now she is playing victim to get her fans to pressure the label i…

It should be noted that music label contracts are notoriously one-sided, and artists often make their labels millions without seeing a dime themselves.

Do record labels make crazy profit for the capital costs? Or are they one of those businesses where for every Taylor Swift getting screwed by not getting a fair percentage of the value of her earnings, are there 50 other artists who got a good size advance and never made any money?

I honestly don't know. I just think we have a tendency to only think about the successful artists when we evaluate the fairness of a contract.

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#56

Post by cyberferret »

cheez wrote: post #2

Wait, so she sold "her" music and it's no longer hers.... What am I missing here?

I think the big factor here is that "she" didn't sell her music herself per se. The record label, which got all rights to her music from the contract she signed, decided to sell the rights to her music to another party. She didn't really have any say on the matter if I recall.

The original owners of the music (the label she signed with) seemed to do right by her and she was comfortable with that arrangement, but the new owners of her music have put different demands on her which is severely restricting her from performing her music to her fans.

It is a crazy situation, but happens quite often. Imagine if the owners of the Queen catalog said that their actual music could not be used for the recent hit movie - then it wouldn't have been anywhere near the hit that it was.

That was the problem with the Jimi Hendrix movie a couple of years back. Jimi's sister, who owns the rights to his music now, said they couldn't use his actual songs in the movie, so what you ended up with was Jimi 'sounding' music and it wasn't the same at all...

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#57

Post by [deleted] »

cyberferret wrote: post #40
xwowsersx wrote: post #6

Can someone explain the background here? I only have a vague idea of how the music industry works. I don't understand what's going on here.

I was surprised to learn recently (my son is just beginning his career in the music industry) that a lot of artists out there don't own the legal rights to their own music once they sign with a label. It is I guess similar to the case where you might get hired as a programmer for XYZ Corp, and while there you use their resources and facilities to create an Uber or AirBnB app which goes on to make billions for the com…

[deleted]

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#58

Post by gorgoiler »

solipsism wrote: post #22
gorgoiler wrote: post #12

I think there are two things that weaken Swift’s message here: 1/ There’s no need to call out gender — “be a good little girl and shut up”, referring to “these men”, etc. Not during 2019’s entertainment industry harassment crisis. This is an intellectual property rights issue but it feels like Swift is trying to nudge it in another direction, unfairly. 2/ When your net worth is measured in the hundreds of millions of…

I think there are two things that weaken Swift’s message here 1/ There’s no need to call out gender If you think that'll weaken her message, you haven't been paying attention to society lately. This will resonate strongly with the people she intends it to resonate with. Maybe you mean it makes the message less compelling to you personally. I'm not sure Taylor cares about that though... 2/ When your net worth is measu…

Thanks for responding to my comment. I should be clearer that I think her message is weak specifically on a moral basis. That’s a bad thing because it is pretty damaging behavior to see coming from someone with so much influence over young people.

As a piece of PR though, you are absolutely right. There’s nothing weak at all in this message.

Attempting to mobilize millions of fans like this is a nuclear option not only because it is a huge expression of power, but also an apt analogy in terms of the morality of whether such power should be used at all. (Said with all due respect to the victims of actual nuclear weapons.)

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#59

Post by divbzero »

deogeo wrote: post #18
0xfffafaCrash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taylor Swift signed a deal with a record label instead of being an independent artist because it seemed (and possibly was) advantageous at the time and now that she is rich and famous and doesn't need the label, she no longer wants to hold up her side of the deal (giving the label certain rights to her earlier music for a certain period of time) and so now she is playing victim to get her fans to pressure the label i…

It should be noted that music label contracts are notoriously one-sided, and artists often make their labels millions without seeing a dime themselves.

We should thank those who have helped nudge the startup world in a different direction.

Re: Taylor Swift: Don’t know what else to do

#60

Post by dehrmann »

deogeo wrote: post #49
cyberferret wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised to learn recently (my son is just beginning his career in the music industry) that a lot of artists out there don't own the legal rights to their own music once they sign with a label. It is I guess similar to the case where you might get hired as a programmer for XYZ Corp, and while there you use their resources and facilities to create an Uber or AirBnB app which goes on to make billions for the com…

> I was surprised to learn Of course you were surprised - the music industry doesn't like to advertise what a bunch of snakes they are, and media consolidation helps, so that what used to be common knowledge/stereotype, is now obscure.

They want to hide that, but they also want to build up the mythos of the artist because it helps them sell more records. Apparently Tay Tay is more marketable than this dude: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Max_Mart... (arguably the best songwriter since Lennon/McCartney)
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