ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), which collects royalties from broadcasters on behalf of musicians, has the right to sing the blues. At least, its members do. Revenues in 2021 rose only $8 million, or .6 of 1%, far below the rate of consumer inflation, which was 4.7%. (See Figure 1.) In other words, ASCAP lost more than 4% in purchasing power -- a fact that in the midst of glossy photos of ecstatic faces, and oozing self-congratulation ("record-setting financial results...It is so gratifying that ASCAP has delivered more money to our members when they need it most”), its annual report forgot to mention. (In fact, nowhere does ASCAP explain how it derived its statistics, a violation of the ethics of annual reports.) The average payout for an ASCAP member was only $1,475.
ASCAP blamed pandemic lockdowns -- a curious claim, since these mainly occurred in 2020. In reality ASCAP revenues have just inched along since 2013 at least (see the table below) -- especially recent international collections. Even without adjustment for inflation, revenues from foreign societies fell in 2021 by nearly 10%. ASCAP said this was "due largely to business closures and a lack of vaccinations," without providing a shred of evidence. ASCAP’s rival BMI (Broadcast Music) faces similar trends.
Figure 1
Source: musicbusinessworldwide.com
The table below shows ASCAP's annual collection in millions of dollars (Revenue), the growth rate in revenues without adjusting for inflation (Growth), the rate of inflation for urban consumers, which is the standard measure (Inflation), and the growth rate of revenues adjusted for inflation (Adjusted). Growth rates are in percentages. For example, the growth rate in purchasing power in 2013 was minus 1.2%. Except for three years, ASCAP's growth in purchasing power has been mediocre at best.
Everyone listens to streaming. So why aren’t musicians getting rich from it?
In the old days, musicians could collect royalties
through ASCAP because the government limited the number of broadcasters.
Washington asserted rights over the electromagnetic spectrum and auctioned off
pieces to radio and TV stations. Seymour, Indiana, for example, had only one
radio station, WJCD.
Because there were only so many broadcasters, it was
easy for ASCAP to determine who was not paying royalties for the musicians and
force him to cough up. And there were few scofflaws, because each broadcaster
had a lock on the local market and thus c from itould attract lucrative ads. Paying
royalties was not a problem.
That world no longer exists. Today, thanks to the
World Wide Web, anybody can broadcast.
I can stream Aimee Mann if I want.
ASCAP can’t possibly collect from billions of broadcasters. Even if
ASCAP could, it wouldn’t do any good, because so many broadcasters would
compete for ads that they would quickly drive ad rates to zero. No one would make a dime, and ASCAP wouldn’t
be able to collect one.
Take it to the judge
There are legal limits, of course. In the United States, a 2001 federal ruling, in A&M Records v. Napster, found that peer-to-peer file sharing could be held responsible for copyright violations. ("Peer-to-peer sharing" just means that you can copy my file.) Since then, in the US, estimates of Internet piracy have fallen as streaming platforms like Spotify have become more popular. See Figure 2. But a piracy rate of 4% of the population is nothing to sneeze at, and we still face a dilemma that we might call "friendly piracy." I may email a song to a friend. By itself, this is virtually harmless. But aggregated over billions of people, it may generate large losses for musicians. I don't know how one can curtail friendly piracy.
The biggest problem is to enforce intellectual property rights the world over.
Figure 2
Source: Wikipedia. By Blendersuh19
Streaming does have a few advantages for musicians. Rather than pray for an auction with a major label, a young musician today can post videos cheaply to build her own audience and parlay this into sales of CDs and concert tickets. But streaming will probably long account for the lion's share of the demand for a musician, who cannot cash in directly on streaming.
In short, it is true that streaming robs the musicians blind. It
is also true that streaming enriches billions of lives, especially in poor
countries, where people could not have dreamed of such a wealth of music under
the old system.
One solution is the convenience of streaming platforms that charge a subscription fee low enough to attract users from piracy. The platforms also attract advertisers by providing specific information about potential customers. But platform users may object to loss of privacy. And in any event, the platforms will flourish only until someone invents software that makes the pirate sites just as convenient.
Look to the government?
Another solution is to enforce intellectual property rights through the World Trade Organization, which can sanction nations that condone piracy. Under the TRIPS agreement of 1986, musicians and producers can protect their recordings for up to 50 years. Piracy on a commercial scale is a crime. But sanctions can be onerous for poor nations, and so the WTO may be reluctant to enforce them. For example, it has often let poor countries erect high tariffs for a while. The least-developed nations have until 2034 to comply with TRIPS. Perhaps, rather than penalize a nation for sheltering pirates, the WTO can reward it with a small subsidy for each violation of property rights reported. But this may lead to the novelty of too much enforcement.
A last solution, a radical one, may be for the government to levy a stiff
tax on all of us and turn over the revenues to the musicians. In exchange, we
would get free music. Yes, we get free music now, but the artists are
footing the bill. This won’t go on forever:
Sooner or later, talented people who must earn a buck will go into
engineering rather than music. We will be deprived of Dylans and Mellencamps.
But the difficulties in a public subsidy of music are almost insuperable. All nations must join in the subsidy; otherwise, broadcasters in a non-member nation can undermine it. The problem is like that of curtailing global pollutants, and we have had only limited success with climate change policy. Finally, the policy would politicize music.
Is this a long step towards socialism? You bet. But information
technology has reforged the rules of the market. It is hard to sustain a laissez-faire
policy when anyone around the world can touch you.
--Leon Taylor, Baltimore,
tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Reference
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Consumer Price Index, 1913- | Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (minneapolisfed.org)
Tim Ingham. ASCAP’s revenues grew by just $8m in 2021, and couldn’t catch BMI’s annual collections (musicbusinessworldwide.com) March 21, 2022.
No comments:
Post a Comment