If You Like It, Buy It- Jodi Kirkner

            Raise your hand if you play music. Keep them up. Now raise your hand if you have music on your phone, even a single song. Alright, I’m assuming everyone has their hands raised at this point, but even if you don’t, I’m confident you at least know what music is. What you may not think about is that music is someone’s job. If employment is everyone’s issue, then the problem with music is definitely everyone’s issue, because countless jobs are inside your phone right now. Every artist’s name inside your iTunes app is a human being, somewhere in the world, making a living, and you have the power to supply their wages with the tap of your screen. Sadly, every day, artists are cheated out of their paychecks by means of unfair contracts, streaming, and illegal downloading.

There’s a little saying I read online over the summer. Someone’s advice to new artists. They said something along the lines of, “There are three entities in this world. There’s music, the music business, and the music industry. You’ve got to love the first, learn the second, and outsmart the third.”

To understand exactly what this means, it is important to first understand the types of contracts most artists get from record labels. Artists start out fighting for a contract from the pool of other artists the company has shown interest in. They could have been handed a business card on the street or gotten a message on social media about their music, asking them to come in and chat about a deal. At this point the company tells them, “We’ll choose whoever shows the most potential.” The artists end up basically wrestling each other on the floor of the record company for the contract, and in the end, the decision really comes down to something as menial as, “Well, which group already has the most likes on Facebook?” (Swift). The chosen artist is then told, as if they hadn’t already done enough, “We need to see you work even harder before we can take this chance on you.” After weeks, and months, and usually years of working harder and harder, the artists are finally presented with a contract, and they don’t think twice before scrawling their names on the lines and going home to take a much-needed rest. If you had worked for this single opportunity for years, would you think twice before singing? Of course not. It’s only later that artists realize the unfair and often completely ridiculous terms of their contracts. These are referred to as 360 contracts. They often include terms for the company to oversee all sales, distribution, scheduling, and manufacturing, as well as an annual net output for the artist and inflated interests rates on everything. After some more extensive “tweaking” of the artists style and image, they may finally be allowed a single, or if they’re lucky, an album. And if they’re really, REALLY, lucky, they might to go on a tour. But no matter how lucky they are, by the end of the year, based on the terms of their contract, they’ve made about half of what a minimum wage worker at McDonald’s would make in that same year. After contributing millions of dollars to the music industry with their art and hard work alone, they make, on average, one-hundred and seventy-five times less money than their label does off their own music ("The Problem With Music").

These same types of contracts are just as prevalent in other world music industries. One example being South Korea’s music industry, commonly referred to as “K-Pop.” This industry relies on even stricter versions of the 360 contract which usually depend on children being recruited as young as age 10 and training for five to ten years before being allowed to debut. K-Pop contracts can even include their label making decisions on their personal relationships, as well as their body image. Yes, body image. In fact, K-Pop companies often ask artists to get plastic surgery or lose unhealthy amounts of weight as terms of their contract. In 2010, three members of K-Pop group TVXQ sued their label for the unfair terms of their 13 year contract, and ended up leaving their band and the company. Later, one member released a single called “Song Without a Name,” talking about his treatment at the entertainment company. I’d like to share the translation of one verse.

“Hearing that we had finally struck gold and brought in results so unimaginably astronomical,

I walked into the office with a spring in my step to receive my pay.

Our team members were looking at each other with excited gazes.

We complimented each other on how hard we had worked.

But the statement of accounts we received said we were at a deficit

Everything was listed under expenses

Damn it, how could all that money have gone towards paying expenses.

What kind of expenses were there to make that much money vanish?

I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I asked them to show me the detailed statement of accounts, something I had never seen before.

They told me they would show it to me, but I ended up never seeing those few sheets of paper as all I did was work…

Are the things we do for the company

Really and truly things that are for the company?

One of the workers told me the company would make it hard for us to survive if we left.

Those words refuse to leave my mind.” (Kim, Kim, and Park)

Obviously, this don’t apply to artists like Kanye West and Taylor Swift who own everything, including their own label, but for the other 900,000 musicians in the United States alone (Thomson), this is so often the case.

But while we’re talking about Mrs. Swift, it’s important to note that even she still faces challenges as an artist. Last year, she removed all of her music from the popular streaming site, Spotify, because she felt their service didn’t value her rights as an artist, as it let anyone stream her music for free. In an interview with Time Magazine, she said, “I think there should be an inherent value placed on art… people should feel that there is a value to what musicians have created” (Swift).  She also expressed that free streaming is one of the main reasons album sales are decreasing. If someone can listen to music for free, why would they bother paying for it? Spotify does pay artists for their contribution, but in 2014 they admitted to paying on average less than one cent per play (Engel). And that’s only to the label. By the math of the typical contract that I mentioned before, artists would be earning one cent for every 200 plays of their song on Spotify. Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” was the most popular song on the site for five months straight, with over a million plays. How much do you think she received from Spotify at the end of that year? A hundred thousand dollars? Ten thousand? One thousand? No, Lady Gaga received 167 dollars for more than a million plays on Spotify. As one producer puts it, “That’s barely enough for a meat dress” (Tod).

Earlier this year, other artists were having the same troubles with the new streaming service “Apple Music”. Apple offered its members three free months of the service, without ever consulting the people who actually owned the music. During this three-month period, artist’s music could be played for free, with no compensation from Apple or the listener. Independent label Beggar’s Group said this could be detrimental to independent artists who release albums during that time, because they need the revenue from sales. Some artists that refused to play their music on the service are Adele, Basement Jaxx, Radiohead, The Strokes, and our favorite artists’ rights advocate, Taylor Swift. In fact, she even released an open letter to Apple telling them exactly what she told Time Magazine about Spotify. She values her music, and she wants others to do the same, and for this reason, she would not put her new album, 1989, on Apple Music. In response, Apple released a letter saying they would pay all artists’ royalties, and many then agreed to have their music added to the service, Swift included.

Although streaming is a huge hurdle to artists’ revenue, even more detrimental is the illegal downloading and piracy of music. I know most of us have gone on one of those sketchy online sites that gives you free downloads, or used the “YouTube to MP3” converter to strip the audio from some music video we. And with music from artists like Justin Bieber who earn millions a year, the effects of our actions may never be felt or realized. But for any regular artist, this is a little like “being mugged every day, very gently.” Or at least, that’s how producer and TV-film composer Felix Tod puts it. He says that we should stop illegally downloading music, because it’s just as simple these days, if not simpler, to just click and purchase on iTunes. The digitalization of music was supposed to make it easier for artists to sell their music.

Brian McTear and Steve Albini, both producers and former musicians, argue that it has. McTear says that the best thing for the music industry is for artists to build their fanbase through personal interaction with their fans, and that the internet makes this interaction entirely more possible through email and other social media. And Albini agrees, saying that the access the Internet gives fans to artists, and artists to fans eliminates the problems of music contracts completely, and allows independent artists to showcase, advertise, and sell their music without the help of a label. Which should be true, right?

But it isn’t. YouTube, for years, has been the biggest site on the internet for music video sharing. Almost every musician around the world shares their music videos through YouTube, even K-Pop artists. But do any of you remember the day that you got on YouTube and started seeing ads before you could watch your video? That was the beginning of Google’s reform of the site, after they bought rights from the original owner. Around the same time you started seeing ads, independent artists started having their music taken down from YouTube. This was a result of their refusal to sign less than fair contracts with Google, offering them very little compensation for their work. If independent artists can’t share their music on YouTube or Spotify without being strong-armed out of fair compensation, how is it supposed to be a benefit? In effect, it isn’t.

If there’s one thing Tod, Albini, and McTear can all agree on, it’s that artists don’t ever deserve the maltreatment of 360 contracts. But independent artists can’t be successful without dedicated fans. Dedicated fans, meaning people who will attend their concerts, buy their merchandise, or at the very least, pay 99 cents on iTunes to own a copy of their song.

The last lines of TVXQ’s “Song Without a Name” say,

“My heart it at ease now.

I’m happy because we have our fans as family,

We’ll work hard forever, so please stay by our side.

For we, who you made, are worth only what you made.” (Kim, Kim and Park)

The members of TVXQ realized that their devoted fans had made their independent career, after splitting from SM Entertainment, possible. The type of devotion shown by fans of K-Pop to the artists is what made South Korea’s music industry one of the few that has experienced an increase in physical music sales since the general industry plunge in the 2000s (Tsai). If we showed this same type of support and devotion to artists we like, as opposed to streaming and downloading their music for free, they may all be able to break free of the chains of the 360 contract and have the successful career they deserve.

            I want to leave you with the short, but still sweet slogan of the Independent artists’ movement. If you like it, buy it.

Works Cited

Albini, Steve. "Keynote Address: Steve Albini." Face the Music 2014. Melbourne, Australia. Web. 28 June 2015. Speech.

     

Albini, Steve. "The Problem With Music." Baffler No. 5 Nov. 1993: n. Web. 28 June 2015.

Engel, Pamela. "Taylor Swift Explains Why She Left Spotify." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 13 Nov. 2014. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

England, Lucy. "Artist Rebellion against Apple Music Grows as Independent Labels Say They Won't Participate in the Launch." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 19 June 2015. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

Kim, Jae Joong, Yoo Chun Park, and Jun Su Kim. 이름없는 노래 Part 1. JYJ. 2011. MP3.

Written by TVXQ’s revival group JYJ, 이름없는 노래 Part 1 (Unnamed Song Part 1) is the story of how their music label, SM Entertainment, violated their rights with the 360 contract and wouldn’t pay them although they worked constantly. This song was a part of the album Essay Songs. Unnamed Song was written after the group sued SM Entertainment and is a message to the company and their fans that they will not give up although they are facing difficulties. It is uncommon for individuals to speak out against a label that has money and influence to ruin their career, so this is a unique message. This source is credible because is it a firsthand account from the perspective of a group member involved in the dispute. 

McIntyre, Hugh. "YouTube Is About To Delete Independent Artists From Its Site." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 18 June 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

McTear, Brian. "A Modest Proposal for Fixing the Music Industry." TEDxPhiladelphia. Philadelphia. 28 June 2015. Speech.

Swift, Taylor. "For Taylor Swift, the Future of Music Is a Love Story." WSJ. The Wall Street Journal, 7 July 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

Swift, Taylor. "Taylor Swift Talks Business." Interview by Jack Dickey. TIME. Time Magazine, 13 Nov. 2013. Web. <http://time.com/3578249/taylor-swift-interview/>.

Tod, Felix. "How to Save the Music Industry." TEDxBermuda. Bermuda. 30 June 2015. Speech.

Tsai, Patricia. "Discovering the Full Potential of the 360 Deal: An Analysis of the Korean Pop Industry, Seven-Year Statute, and Talent Agencies Act of California." UCLA Entertainment Law Review 20.2 (2013): 324-48. eScholarship: University of California. Web. 27 June 2015. 

Williamson, Lucy. "The Dark Side of South Korean Pop Music - BBC News." BBC News. British Broadcasting Channel, 15 June 2011. Web. 30 June 2015.