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Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

pluralistic.net

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Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#61

Post by bjornsing »

> You see, the money the Big Three got in the form of [Spotify] dividends, stock sales, etc was theirs to spend as they saw fit. They could share some, all, or none of it with musicians.

How can this be legal? Has it been tried in any court?

To me it feels unlikely that a court would accept the argument that since the Big Three got paid in something other than money they don’t have to pay royalties to the musicians on that. Otherwise what’s stopping any licensee from just charging their customers in gold instead of dollars, and pay zero royalty?

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#62

Post by anukin »

tom-_- wrote: post #21
pfdietz wrote: post #4

What this is saying is that creativity is privileged and (unlike other forms of labor) should be given more than the market says it's worth. Why should non-creatives go along with this?

No, the author is saying the share of revenue the distributors (tech, music industry) are receiving is misaligned with the value they're adding. Compare content creators with a SWE. They both produce the product being sold, what percentage of the revenue should they receive?

Majority of the so called creatives or influencers in the tech platforms produce sub standard material. There are cases of people like sssniperwolff etc whose entire content is rehashing on other peoples work and making money of it. And then there are people who produce life vlogs and shopping hauls. Are they worth more than a software engineer or a farmer who produces actual tangible assets for consumption?

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#64

Post by pjmorris »

bequanna wrote: post #44
MourYother wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Central planning of anything is generally very inefficient and results in the concentration of power. So far, we haven’t been able to find a way to concentrate power without corruption. The lesson is: only give the government as much control as necessary, never more. In a system that is more socialist, the people forfeit their power to the party. Super easy for one party to dominate in these systems so votes mean lit…

> Central planning of anything is generally very inefficient and results in the concentration of power.

When corporations take over the central planning, what forces should counteract? Before you say 'market forces', you have to address the present case, where three music owners control 60-70% of the market on terms favorable to them rather than to customers or creators.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#65

Post by anigbrowl »

whimsicalism wrote: post #50
portaouflop wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barrier to getting paid is significantly higher though, so in the end it’s more or less the same: if you want to make a living off creative work you’re going to have a hard time

low barrier to entry lowers cost, so this is exactly the desired outcome

But also quality. For example, YouTube pretty much forces people toward lowest-common-denominator filler content, because if creators don't upload new content frequently enough they'll drop out of recommendation lists even for subscribers. Creative software tools are easily available and distribution is free, but YouTube has a monopoly of information and so creators have very little insight into what/when/how people see the creative product or how revenue is calculated.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#66

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

photochemsyn wrote: post #30

Elevator music hell: that's what will come from safety-first social-value-aligned corporate-AI-written song lyrics and music scores. Already autotune and excessive compression have created a dreary modern musical landscape, and live pitch correction is widely used in performances - pretty farcical. I'd rather go back to 80s punk/metal bands playing their barely-in-tune instruments in garages - but it would be fun to…

There are still garage bands with scratchy instruments, it's just called bedroom punk now. Also on Spotify.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#68

Post by roughly »

pfdietz wrote: post #4

What this is saying is that creativity is privileged and (unlike other forms of labor) should be given more than the market says it's worth. Why should non-creatives go along with this?

> more than the market says it's worth.

The market’s got nothing to do with it. The music industry is a cartel. Look at the profit margins of the big 3 music companies: that’s a lowball on what the market says the art is worth, but it’s not making it back to the artists.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#69

Post by bequanna »

pjmorris wrote: post #64
bequanna wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Central planning of anything is generally very inefficient and results in the concentration of power. So far, we haven’t been able to find a way to concentrate power without corruption. The lesson is: only give the government as much control as necessary, never more. In a system that is more socialist, the people forfeit their power to the party. Super easy for one party to dominate in these systems so votes mean lit…

> Central planning of anything is generally very inefficient and results in the concentration of power. When corporations take over the central planning, what forces should counteract? Before you say 'market forces', you have to address the present case, where three music owners control 60-70% of the market on terms favorable to them rather than to customers or creators.

It has never been easier to show people your creative works whether you paint, make music etc. The barriers are pretty small.

The real issue for creatives is there is too much competition. Too much to choose from. Supply up, demand is largely constant.

Re: Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off

#70

Post by MattGaiser »

raytopia wrote: post #67

Has anyone ever figured out if there's a way to design the internet so gatekeepers and centralized platforms don't come to dominate everything? Or are we just doomed to see this happen time and time again.

Infrastructure to facilitate exchange isn’t free and it provides a far superior experience for the buyer than buying from individual vendors.

So you would need a way to make setting up and maintaining that common infrastructure very low cost.

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