Money for music: a study of communication with copyright and file sharing
Recently on Habré a translation of a short article about the American study of the influence of copyright on musicians was published. The article was greeted critically, as it was difficult to judge the reliability of the survey data and conclusions.
After reading the original, I found that the authors of the study made a lot of effort to collect and analyze statistics on this complex and not amenable to accurate analysis of the topic.
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In the preface, one of the participants writes that, unfortunately, despite the active debate at all levels, there is very little real data about how copyright and file sharing affect authors. Therefore, in 2011, they and a group of colleagues decided to investigate in detail the structure of musicians' incomes and their attitude to the Internet, in particular file sharing.
I did a brief survey of the study, under the cut - the survey methodology, tables and figures. The original is here . (pdf, 76 pages)
The main thing that the author would like to find out is how much of the musicians' income depends on copyright and to what extent, so that lawmakers can make more informed decisions about whether to change copyright, and in what direction. Therefore, the main question that was asked was the distribution of income over the last year from eight main sources. Some of them have a direct connection with copyright, some - mixed, the rest - indirect or no connection. The distribution of income by source is also different for musicians with different income levels and by genre.
He notes that the majority of people related to music earn in several ways (writing, recording, concerts, session work, teaching, etc.) - 89% of respondents indicated that they are engaged in two or more activities, and 82 % - while receiving income from them. Consequently, with changes in the market and copyright laws, they can adjust to the situation and devote more time to this or that occupation.
In addition, although he collected information about how the incomes of musicians changed compared with the past, the author emphasizes that the survey data clearly show only the current state of affairs, and that the study should be repeated in the future in order to track changes in more detail.
Part 1. Theory
In the theoretical part, the author analyzes how the study of income streams in the music industry between authors, intermediaries and the public can help optimize copyright law so that it motivates creativity and contributes to the prosperity of culture. I’m missing this part, as there’s nothing new for readers of the “copyright” blog.
Part 2. Methods
Before preparing the survey, researchers conducted interviews with several dozen musicians, some of whom provided full access to their financial records in recent years.
In total, more than 6,700 people passed the survey, but only 5,371 of them could provide accurate data on the distribution of income by category. The researchers note that the sample of respondents was quite diverse both geographically and in musical genres.
When designing a survey, many factors were taken into account. In particular, classical music was singled out in a separate group, since earnings in this area have great features. Also, special attention was paid to poets and composers.
Preliminary interviews showed that, most likely, the largest group of musicians will have a neutral or indifferent attitude to the Internet and in particular to illegal file sharing. The rest either support the position of labels, publishers and authors' societies, in that the Internet has brought them destruction and misfortune, or vice versa, they treat it positively, as they have more listeners.
From January to August 2011, a team of researchers developed questions for respondents. Special attention was paid to language and terms, so that they could be understood by musicians and composers, representatives of any genre and group. 4 stages of beta testing were conducted to analyze the clarity of the questions and the structure of the survey.
The survey took place on the Internet from September 6 to October 28, 2011, citizens and residents of the United States who were at least 18 years old could participate in it. Participants could choose one of 3 survey versions: short, medium or full, the answers to which should take about 20, 30 and 40 minutes respectively.
The authors have developed a strategy for attracting a wide range of survey participants. They turned to various music organizations, and also advertised their project publicly. They hired a consultant, John Simson, director of SoundExchange, who worked as music manager and served on the board of the National Academy of Art and Science of Sound Recording. They also hired a public relations expert who developed a marketing plan to cover the survey in traditional media, on the Internet, and at music events. In total, they collaborated with more than 100 organizations to attract musicians to participate in the survey.
Prizes were also offered. Among those who participated in the full version of the survey, four iPad2 were played out. Of those who chose the medium version, 100 people received a gift certificate at Amazon or the Guitar center. The first 100 people who responded to the short version of the survey before the start of the Future of Music conference were invited to this conference at a reduced price.
A total of 7395 people participated in the survey, but many of them at one stage or another stopped responding. Most retired were on the most difficult, but key, issue: the distribution of income by category. Apparently, the majority of those who could not provide this data were young and novice musicians.
The author also pointed out some funny facts, for example, 49 respondents have not yet turned 18, judging by the date of birth, which they entered. Several dozens of fictitious questionnaires were eliminated, with answers apparently filled in by the robot from Chinese IP addresses, as well as absolutely identical answers from the same IP address. 332 people were not US citizens.
The researchers analyzed the representativeness of the sample based on general data obtained from respondents (such as age, annual income, membership in organizations, etc.) in comparison with data from other studies and government statistical surveys of the labor market in the category of “musicians and singers”. The analysis showed that the sample is fairly reliable.
Part 3. Results
Fully all the data obtained can be viewed in the original document, I will give only part of them.
1. Demographics
The distribution by age turned out to be almost uniform, although most of the musicians fell into the group of 50-59 years:
| Age group | Number of respondents | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| from 18 to 29 | 955 | 17.8% |
| from 30 to 39 | 1148 | 21.4% |
| from 40 to 49 | 974 | 18.1% |
| from 50 to 59 | 1360 | 25.3% |
| from 60 to 69 | 723 | 13.5% |
| from 70 and more | 211 | 3.9% |
The respondents were asked to choose from a list of 32 musical genres of the main one in which they work, and two additional ones. As a result, the majority (35%) indicated classics, 16% - jazz, 7% - rock, all the rest were distributed in the region of 1-3% per genre, or less. Therefore, according to the results of the genre survey, the author decided to divide the entire sample for analysis into 4 groups: classical, jazz, composers, and all other genres. Although the composer is not a musical genre, they were decided to be separated into a separate group. Poets and singers, however, he did not single out, since their activities can usually be attributed to a particular genre, and the number of those who chose this item in total turned out to be only 3%.
35% of respondents have any higher education, 45% - incomplete higher education or college. The share of music education among composers and performers of classical music is approximately 80%, among all the other 50%.
2. Income and labor costs
Respondents were asked to specify the scope of their annual income (not only from music, but in general) in the form of ranges, ranging from 0 to 20 thousand dollars. and further with an increment of 20 thousand.
| Annual income, $ | Number of respondents | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| more than 200,000 | 99 | 1.8% |
| 140,000 to 199,999 | 138 | 2.6% |
| from 100,000 to 139,999 | 347 | 6.5% |
| from 60 000 to 99 999 | 1049 | 19.5% |
| from 40 000 to 59 999 | 1053 | 19.6% |
| 20 000 to 39 999 | 1350 | 25.1% |
| less than 20,000 | 1006 | 18.7% |
| No, I do not know, no answer | 329 | 6.1% |
The average value was 55 thousand dollars, a rather high income in comparison with the average income of an American, but this is because novice musicians who could not accurately indicate the financial data were eliminated at the beginning of the survey.
As for the time that each respondent spends on any lessons related to music, be it performance, composition, teaching, or working on his musical career, the values were in the widest limits and were distributed almost evenly:
| Time to music | Number of respondents | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| more than 45 hours a week | 1119 | 20.8% |
| from 31 to 45 hours a week | 1303 | 24.3% |
| 16 to 30 hours a week | 1466 | 27.3% |
| from 0 to 15 hours a week | 1483 | 27.6% |
It was reasonable to assume that the percentage of income received by respondents specifically from music will vary greatly, namely:
| Music revenue share | Number of respondents | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| 100% | 2262 | 42.1% |
| from 75% to 95% | 570 | 10.6% |
| from 50% to 70% | 346 | 6.4% |
| from 25% to 40% | 328 | 6.1% |
| from 5% to 20% | 1293 | 24.1% |
| No (0%), or no answer | 572 | 10.7% |
Although it was not included in the survey, it is obvious that more than half of the respondents most likely have a second job, not related to music.
3. Division into groups for analysis.
Based on the figures of annual income and the share of income from music, the author calculated the annual income from music and divided all respondents into 8 unequal groups: he singled out 1% of the highest paid musicians in the first line, the next, less income group (4% by number) - 2 line, and so on. Then he added a second parameter to this - 4 groups by genre. The result is the following distribution:
For further analysis, he uses this two-dimensional division into groups. The table shows the number of respondents in each group. The last, eighth, line of incomes are those people (6% of the total) who have not earned anything on music over the past year, so they do not participate in the following income-related items.
4. Sources of income
The central point in the survey was the distribution of income into 8 major groups:
- Composing music and songs : advances from publishers, royalties from sales records, royalties from ASCAP / BMI / SESAC, custom essay, deductions from performing songs on radio or concerts, licensing of finished works for cinema and TV, special orders for cinema or TV, sales of ringtones and music.
- Salary as a member of an ensemble, orchestra or group.
- Revenues from concerts, shows, tours : received both from solo performances, and as part of a group / ensemble.
- Sale of recordings : on physical media, in digital form, support for labels, sale of CDs at concerts, fees for online listening services upon request, licenses for using songs on TV, in movies and ringtones.
- Sessional work : payment for work in the studio, at concerts, freelancing.
- Merchandise : sale of related products - T-shirts, posters, etc.
- Teaching
- Other
The author concludes that, based on this picture, the majority of musicians receive income from performances, teaching, salary. And from the essays, the sale of records and related products (merchandise) - a small fraction. He further notes that this is only a general picture, and now we need to move on to the analysis of income in individual subgroups of musicians.
In particular, he points out that a large proportion of incomes in the “salary” column in this diagram comes from a huge proportion of classical music performers among the respondents. On the other hand, on average, merchandise accounts for only 2%, but for those musicians who receive income from it (and their 12% of the total), it is as much as 14%.
Note Many readers wondered how it turned out that the sale of records was only 6%, because from this we can conclude that if they stop buying records at all, no one will go bankrupt. Therefore, here is another, more detailed schedule, which was later published on the project website, which shows how much of the income musicians received from the sale of records:
As you can see, 66% of respondents do not receive income from records at all, and another 22% receive less than 10% of their total musical income from them. Of course, there are performers who receive much more from records, and even 100%, but the number of such musicians is small.
5. Linking sources of income with copyright
Each source has a different relationship to copyright. Revenues from writing (music or lyrics) and selling records obviously depend on it directly.
The sessional work was attributed by the author to incomes that have mixed dependencies, since this includes work for recordings for sale and work at concerts. Apparently, the majority of session musicians conduct both the one and the other activities. In addition, even when working for a recording (on which the copyright has a greater influence), the musicians themselves do not have rights to the music. Therefore, the author decided to include the session work in a separate category.
The remaining five categories are either not directly or do not depend on copyright at all. Possible dependencies that I will not give were analyzed. For example, the relationship between the activities of intermediaries (publishers, labels, unions and other organizations) and consumer behavior (in the sense of increasing the need for music), which is beyond the scope of this study, therefore the author denotes the possibility of such an effect by the category “indirect dependence”.
In this classification, it turns out that on average, for all respondents, 12% of income depends on copyright directly, 10% is mixed, and 78% is indirectly or not at all dependent.
And although the researcher again notes that these are only average indicators, he concludes that tightening copyright, if it has a positive effect on the incomes of musicians, will be only a small part. He assumes that the incomes of the most highly paid musicians are likely to increase, which will be seen later in a detailed analysis.
6. Sources of income with the division by income and genre
Then the author asked a question: if, on average, the share of income associated with copyright is so small, maybe there are separate groups of musicians for whom it makes up a significant part? He cites data with the division according to annual income and genre, describing in detail that there are noticeable differences in the groups, which I will not list, all this can be seen from the figures:
However, for any group sales of records do not constitute more than 10%: neither for the poor, nor for the rich, nor for composers or representatives of any musical group.
The author also analyzed individual music genres (there were, I recall, 32), and it turned out that, for example, for representatives of hip-hop, electronic, experimental, avant-garde, sales make up a large part (although it does not indicate how much), apparently because that these genres are not popular in live performance.
It then presents the same data in two dimensions, in relation to copyright dependence:
Here, incomes are shown in red, having a direct connection with copyright, yellow - mixed, green - indirect or no connection. It is clearly seen that rich musicians have the greatest dependence on copyright on revenues. Composers depend on it in all income groups.
7. Changes in revenue streams over time.
Understanding that the majority of musicians most likely will not be able to provide accurate data on the distribution of income for previous years, the author asked respondents to indicate only in which direction their incomes from various sources changed over the past 5 years:
| Revenue group | Increased | Not changed | Decreased | I do not know | Not applicable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teaching | 30.4% | 18.8% | 16.7% | 0.8% | 33.3% |
| Concerts, shows | 27.2% | 20.2% | 27.9% | 1.2% | 23.5% |
| Sessional work | 17.2% | 20.0% | 25.2% | 1.6% | 36.0% |
| Selling records | 15.7% | 18.4% | 21.8% | 2.6% | 41.5% |
| Wage | 15.6% | 16.7% | 20.2% | 1.2% | 46.3% |
| Composing music, songs | 14.7% | 16.5% | 10.8% | 1.8% | 56.2% |
| Merchandise | 7.0% | 11.3% | 7.5% | 1.5% | 72.7% |
The last column “not applicable” means that the musician was not engaged in this kind of activity in the last year.
He then examined in more detail the changes in those revenue streams that depend on copyright: writing and selling records. In these tables, the groups are highlighted in green, in which most of the respondents reported an increase in income, in orange - more than decrease, and yellow - approximately equally.
As you can see, revenues from the sale of records mainly fell, from writing - they increased mainly, and it was the groups most dependent on copyright (see Table 7) who reported an increase in income over the past 5 years. These are incomes from compositions for all groups, and incomes from recordings of the richest pop / rock musicians. While everyone else is basically reporting a slide.
It turns out that copyright and its further enhancement lead to the promotion of only a small part - the richest musicians, and not all musicians in general, as would be desirable. And this situation is understandable: labels, unions of rightholders and other similar organizations seek to redistribute income towards the most successful artists. This happened with the sales of discs, and continues now with online services. The author cites as an example an article that spotify unfairly distributes income in favor of performers who have contracts with major labels, depriving authors working with independent labels.
8. Other data included in the survey.
The musicians, who decided to take part in the average and full version of the survey, indicated how over the past 5 years their income streams have changed in detail. I will not give you the details here. In total, researchers identified 42 sources of income.
Questions were asked about how musicians would like to reallocate their time. Teaching, which now generates a significant portion of income in all genres, is not an attractive occupation for everyone. 40% indicated that they would like to teach less, and only 26% would like to teach more. Most of the respondents indicated that they would like to devote more time to composing and performing songs, and to spend less on administrative activities. There was also a number of issues related to the Internet: whether the musician has a website or a blog, what means and services he uses to promote his works, to communicate with colleagues and fans. The list included facebook, youtube, twitter, and many other music-specialized services.
9. Attitude to new technologies
Was a group of questions asked (in random order) under the general title “How did the Internet and new technologies affect your musical career in the last 5 years”? The results are presented in the following figure, the questions are sorted by the greatest positive reaction.
The researcher emphasizes the results of answers to the most pressing question about illegal file sharing. 30% of respondents refrained from answering, since, obviously, a musician of a symphony orchestra and a teacher of classical music hardly has anything to do with it. Among those who answered, more than a third expressed a neutral attitude to the question, the rest were divided into approximately equal parts with a positive and negative opinion.
The author then added up the reaction to 5 “positive” questions, which express a positive attitude towards the Internet, and subtracted from them the reaction to “negative” questions in order to evaluate the picture as a whole, within the framework of the division of income and genre already used:
Considering that the range of values was from -20 to +20, the reaction in all groups is weakly positive. With a slight bias in the plus among low-paid musicians, in general, the attitude to the Internet, including file sharing, is ambiguous.
Two seemingly extremely indicative values are in fact the least reliable: a score of -4.0 among the richest jazzmen was obtained on the basis of responses of only 3 people, a rating of +3.1 among un earned composers — on the answers of 8 people (see paragraph 3)
Part 4. Conclusions
Recently, various amendments to copyright legislation have been proposed. Suppose these efforts succeed, and lead to a reduction in the illegal downloading of music. Further, suppose that as a result, income from the sale of records and royalties to composers increased by 20%. Such a result would have been an incredible, previously unheard of success. In this case, for musicians whose activities are highly dependent on copyright (composers and successful performers), this would immediately lead to an increase in their income. They are still reaping the fruits of copyright, and their welfare would have improved.
Most musicians will not feel the effect of such a change, or the effect will be minimal. In order to feel it, they will first need to become famous and successful. It should be borne in mind that there may be complex side effects, such as changes in consumer behavior due to tougher copyrights, increased costs associated with licensing protected content, etc.
The music industry also includes a complex intermediary mechanism. Over the past 5 years, according to the survey and interviews with musicians, the support of musicians by intermediaries has decreased significantly. Hypothetically, we can assume that in case of copyright enhancement, the labels will again support more novice and lesser-known musicians, but there is no data that would confirm or deny this hypothesis.
As a result, one can say that musical creativity includes many forms, not all of which are protected and stimulated by copyright. Legislators should take this into account when determining copyright policy, and think about measures that go beyond copyright that would facilitate creativity.
Part 5. Conclusion
In conclusion, the author reiterates the need to repeat the survey in the future in order to track changes over time. He also reports that their team continues to work on the data, are going to publish detailed interviews with individual artists, which were conducted during the research. There is even a “suggestion for researchers” on their website who wish to obtain initial data and analyze the survey results themselves.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/168549/
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