Featured Artist Wars

The last few days have seen another battle in the war over filesharing and the future of the music industry. One one side is a group of recording artists including Lily Allen, Elton John and James Blunt, and on the other side a group of recording artists including members of Radiohead and Pink Floyd as well as Allen's rival in estuary pop Kate Nash and long-time activist Billy Bragg (Guardian). Trade body UK Music and business secretary Peter Mandelson want a three-strikes-and-you-lose-your-internet policy for people breaching copyright online (Guardian; The Register). The Featured Artists Collection (FAC), whose directors include Bragg, Nash, Nick Mason (Pink Floyd), and Ed O'Brien (Radiohead), believe this is too severe a punishment, although they oppose copyright violation.

Lily Allen set up a blog called It's Not Alright (which some critics reckoned was a pun on her first album Alright, Still) to promote UK Music's point of view, which received support from people such as rapper Tinchy Stryder to criticise the Featured Artists Coalition. "They do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world", Allen complained (alluding to Nick Mason's hobby) while Stryder lambasted the FAC: "These guys have probably never even been on a computer/iPod/mobile phone LET ALONE the internet LOL, so I don't know how they're so sure!!" (BBC) Bragg had already led a campaign to change MySpace's terms of service which he felt were ripping off artists (New York Times) but Allen and others were newer to this kind of thing, and she shut her blog down a few days later. She announced by Twitter that she was giving up the fight amid accusations she had illegally distributed copyright material online (Guardian; TechDirt). The next stage will be a summit between UK Music and the FAC to try and find a common position.

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The FAC is an organisation of British "featured artists", those people whose names appear on record covers (as distinct from session players, etc). As well as high-profile members of Blur, Radiohead, Travis, and the Futureheads, its committee includes members of smaller bands like The Young Punx and the Fire Escapes and rapper Master Shortie. The organisation was founded with the belief that "music artists should control their destiny" (FAC website), a theme raised in the past by the likes of Prince and George Michael. They campaign for artists to have greater rights over record companies, including giving artists ownership of recordings and improving the contracts recording artists sign. They also recognise the disruptive nature of the internet, MP3s, filesharing, etc, on music revenues, and seem to be pursuing a policy of enlightened self-interest to maximise their income in the face of technological changes.

CD sales have been falling in recent years; album sales including downloads dropped 3.2% from 2007 to 2008 (Guardian). On the other hand, due to downloads singles sales are booming (Guardian) - though a 79p single download bring less profit than a £10 album.

There are many factors involved - music is now available for free (with advertisements) from Spotify and YouTube. There are far more radio stations than 20 years ago, although not always with a corresponding increase in variety. Illegal downloading may play a part in falling album sales, but some studies have found it has no effect or even increases sales (Washington Post; Industry Canada); they allow people to preview music which they may still purchase. Legal downloads mean that people can buy their favourite tracks rather than purchase the whole album as well as allowing them to try a couple of tracks before they buy the whole album. More power for consumers often means lower profits for business - although this isn't necessarily the case if consumer power gives them more confidence to buy.

Some musicians have tackled downloading by making CDs more desirable, with de luxe packaging, booklets, DVDs, MP3s, and other gimmicks. Both Pink Floyd and Radiohead have tried that in the past, but the most famous example is Josh Freeze who offered a range of deals for buyers of his album; for $50 they got a thank-you call, and other packages included miniature golf, having a song written about you, and hanging out with him for a week (only $20,000). This is probably not something every musician should do.

Recent events such as the takeover of EMI by private equity group Terra Firma (BBC) have placed the industry under financial pressures from investors at the same time as revenues are under threat from the internet. This is already leading to cost-cutting at EMI. It may be that we will see a lasting change in recording industry practices, which traditionally worked on a slightly bizarre model where new artists get large advances on signing but must pay for their own recording fees, recouped by the label retaining royalties (see Wikipedia; in contrast, film directors or actors are typically paid a fee plus residual payments and sometimes a share of profits, and do not have to pay the cost of film production, but benefit less if the film is an unexpected success). The FAC wants a better deal for artists; record labels would doubtless like to reduce spending; Lily Allen argues that record company investment is necessary for developing talents.

The result of all this is emotive language: while home taping may not have "killed" music in the 80s, downloaders are called "pirates" (ironically in view of the rise in real piracy on the ocean) and "thieves", although downloading is legally different to stealing. Even the term "illegal downloading" may be an overstatement: small-scale downloading or copying for private use is not a criminal offence; only if it is commercial or on a large enough scale to affect the owner of the copyright is it a criminal offence under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which applies in Scotland and England. Otherwise it is a civil matter, like other infringements of property rights, and the most the copier will face under English law is to surrender the material, pay compensation for quantifiable financial losses, and pay the costs of the suit.

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How artists and record labels should be compensated in the event of declining music sales is a complex issue. In the past, musicians have had to deal with the introduction of recording and the early recording industry was unnerved by the growth of radio, both of which threatened business models and earnings; more recently we have seen singles become by the 1990s loss-making advertising for an album rather than sources of profit, and the internet offering a way of distributing music at almost no cost. One way out is for artists to not rely on major record labels but to self-distribute or partner with independent labels; this is probably more viable if you are already famous or willing to spend years building a fanbase. The internet circumvents the necessity for shops and distributing physical objects; you can sell worldwide with minimal overheads - other than the cost of recording the music in the first place.

Only a small fraction of artists actually make a living from record sales, and the changes proposed by Lily Allen will not affect that. Most musicians must rely multiple sources of income. Ticket sales are reckoned a panacea by some, but not all artists choose to perform or are able to, due e.g. to their reliance on studio techniques or large numbers of musicians, or family commitments, and smaller bands may make little money. Other sources of income are fees for radio plays, songwriting royalties, revenue from services such as Spotify which provide small fees for each play of a track, and licencing music to advertising and films. Many musicians will object to advertising (even if they are asked) and other methods bring in small sums of money: while a musician may get 10-15% of a 79p iTunes download (Guardian), comparable to the percentage for a CD royalty, payments from a Spotify are tiny.

Some people have questioned Spotify's business plan: in August 2009 with half a million British users it had UK "advertising income of £82,000 and just 17,000 UK users signing up to pay £120 a year for Spotify Premium" (The Guardian); The Register suggested in June that it receives income of 14p per user per month. Nobody wants to pay for the premium service, and the advertising that non-premium users hear brings in negligible income (advertisers are limited to a few record labels - who as they part-own Spotify may get cheap rates - and some public-sector bodies).

In the past a number of governments imposed a tax on blank tapes to pay recording artists and record labels for revenue allegedly lost due to home taping. In the digital age there have been similar plans suggested. These range from a tax on MP3 players or the internet, to the currently popular ideas of licencing file-sharing so that for a monthly payment people can share all files - this mirrors the current licences for public performance of music. ISP PlayLouder offered this facility without a large takeup; more recently Virgin Media has reportedly considered and rejected it (Guardian).

Also open to musicians are the traditional methods of income for practitioners of other arts: teaching, working second jobs, relying on parental or spousal wealth, etc. In some art forms such as poetry and literary fiction there is little money to make; most well-known poets are simultaneously employed as academics, many young artists teach, while many authors and playwrights make ends meet with reviewing, journalism, teaching creative writing, and other sources of income. Such secondary jobs have advantages in keeping the artist in contact with the world, but can pose a significant drain on time and energy, and for musicians would interfere with touring.

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Encouraging people to buy music is another tactic to increase sales. In the 1980s the music industry claimed "home taping is killing music". Recently the motion picture industry has tried various advertising strategies to encourage people into cinemas and away from pirated and illegally downloaded movies. These advertisements ranged from the "Knock-off Nigel" theme in which buyers of pirated movies are ridiculed as skinflints and meanies, to a series based on blockbusters like The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe and Fantastic Four which compared the experience of cinema-going with big screens and booming sound systems to the experience of watching bad-quality pirate movies, to the most recent series in which celebrities such as actor Martin Freeman thank audiences for supporting the British Film Industry.

Billy Bragg has suggested that the music industry wants ISPs to take action against infringers rather than pursuing them through court (which is the remedy mandated under existing copyright law) because the music industry does not want to seem the bad guys - when the RIAA in the USA started pursuing filesharers through the courts there was a massive reaction, much of it negative. The British film industry has been trying to show itself in a good light. The record industry may have a similar goal, but seems to have no idea about PR.

Already many people in cult or up-and-coming bands have to work to support their music. It's not as bad as in poetry where (except for the independently-wealthy Frederick Seidel who writes verse about expensive motorcycles - much as many wealthy rock stars do) nobody is rich, or in classical music where state funding and corporate sponsorship are the norm. Whether we want state funding of pop music is another question (arguably Britain had it in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to generous unemployment benefits and subsidised student unions).

Most people enjoy music, and most people seem willing to pay for it in some way or another, whether by CD purchase, download, live, listening to commercial radio, some other even more esoteric delivery mechanism, or just by spending hours hunting for illegal downloads. While the FAC are seriously asking how recording artists can maximise their incomes, the one question nobody seems to be asking is what method is best for the consumer.

The evils of Apple

Whether banning books, launching long-running lawsuits, or being investigated and sued for anti-competitive practices, Apple is seldom out of the headlines. Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs allegedly projects a reality distortion field able to convince almost anyone of anything, but lately it seems Apple's legendary PR machine is going rather wobbly. Here are some recent stories and some classics from the Apple files.

Banning rival iPhone applications: If you want to sell or even give away an iPhone application, you need to go through Apple's online store. When Apple banned Google's GoogleVoice internet telephony application, the result was an FCC inquiry, still ongoing. (Wall Street Journal) They also banned the Opera browser and the podcasting application Podcaster because they were too similar to Apple's browser Safari and Apple's iTunes media player. (Register)

Banning iPhone applications for no reason: As well as commercial considerations, they've been punishing app developers for the mildest of obscenity. They briefly stopped sales of Eucalyptus, which allows users to browse public-domain texts, because it lets you download and read the Kama Sutra. (Guardian) Equally bizarrely, they banned the Ninjawords dictionary for including swearwords. (Telegraph)

Anti-competitive deals with other companies: Apple and Google have until recently been close, with Google CEO Eric Schmidt sitting on Apple's board of directors. The two companies cemented their close relation with an agreement not to hire away staff from each other. This led to a US Justice Department probe. (Washington Post)

Failure to provide MMS in the USA: the only American network supporting the iPhone was unable to provide the MMS multimedia messaging service for months after the June 2009 launch of the iPhone 3GS. The 3rd generation iPhone was the first Apple phone to support the messaging standard, which has been widely available on other phones in Europe since around 2004. (Computer World)

Clamping down on cloners: they have spent a long time suing Psystar who produce Apple-compatible hardware far more cheaply than Apple do (in contrast, so many manufacturers produce systems compatible with IBM's PCs that IBM got out of the market years ago). Apple accuse Psystar of copyright breaches; Psystar have counter-sued claiming restraint of trade under anti-trust laws. (Register)

Keeping iTunes music tied to iPod/iPhone hardware: recent action against software allowing you to sync iTunes with a Palm Pre (Tech Crunch; The Apple Blog) is just the latest in a long line of limitations placed on what you can do with your music. (EFF; Ars Technica; Apple Insider)

Exploding phones: in common with other major producers like Sony and Dell, Apple products have occasionally caught fire, sometimes causing alleged significant damage. (Gizmodo; CNet)

No user-serviceable parts: unlike many manufacturers of consumer goods, Apple products almost never have user-replacable batteries. Rechargable batteries often lose some of their capacity and need to be replaced; with an Apple product you must take it to an Apple store and pay them for the privilege. (Register; CNet)

Suing blogs for publishing stories about upcoming products: They drove ThinkSecret out of business when it published rumours about a new Mac and wordprocessor (Wikipedia) sued over a post on the AppleInsider forum about a new Apple mouse (Wikipedia) and their lawyers had dealings with MacScoop. (Wikipedia) See also NY Times.

Censoring critics: Trying to stop publication of Jeffrey Young and William Simon's iCon: Steve Jobs - The Greatest Second Act in The History of Business published by John Wiley and Sons, they pulled all Wiley's books (including the Dummies series and other Mac-related titles) from the shelves of Apple stores. Four years later Apple are still not selling them. Apple also attempted to stop a profile of Jobs in the Sunday Times. (Register; Brand Republic)

Getting a journalist arrested: Apple's persecution of bloggers ratcheted up in April 2010, when the home of Jason Chen, an editor of Gizmodo, was raided by police. He had received an iPhone 4G prototype from a source who found it left behind in a bar, and Chen's home was raided by police with a warrant accusing him of handling stolen property. California's special computer crime division REACT, whose advisory board included Apple, were behind the raid and seized his computers (Times). A number of groups including EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) claimed the raid was in contravention of Californian laws protecting journalists. (BBC) Eventually the warrant was dropped and Chen's property returned (EFF).

Breaching copyright and antagonising Eminem: Apple used the Eminem song Lose Yourself in an advertisement without his permission; he sued and they settled out of court in 2005. He has also accused them of offering his songs to download on iTunes without permission, although at time of writing this is still to be decided in court. (The Guardian)

Driving contractors to suicide: In summer 2010 there was a press scandal about worker conditions in far-eastern plants run by FoxConn, one of Apple's suppliers; there had been 10 suicides in 5 months. However the plant also supplied Dell, Nokia, HP, and Nintendo, so working conditions were not unique to Apple. (Forbes)

Ryanair: The Simon Cowell of transportation

Ryanair has agreed to change its advertising strategy after been referred to the Office of Fair Trading. (The Register) To mark this historic day, here are some of Ryanair's greatest hits in advertising and public relations:

Apr 2009: Ryanair claims to be considering a surcharge for overweight people on its flights. (Ryanair)
Feb 2009: Ryanair does away with check-in desks in airports and allegedly considers charging customers to use the toilet on its planes, although many people suspect the latter is a PR stunt by the company. (BBC; The Register)
Feb 2009: Ryanair staff post abusive comments on a blog after the blogger claims to have found a bug in their website. A Ryanair staffer claims "you're an idiot and a liar!!" (The Register; Jason Roe)
Dec 2008: The airline is found to flout regulations by automatically adding insurance and checked-in baggage to transactions on its website, both of which carry extra costs. (The Register)
Sep 2008: The Irish Times reports on a dispute where Ryanair is allegedly instructing pilots to carry less fuel for use in emergencies. Ryanair wholly deny the allegations. (Irish Times)
Oct 2008: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline for the third year running in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Travelmole)
Aug 2008: Ryanair announces it will cease to honour tickets booked through aggregators, such as price comparison sites. (The Register)
Jul 2008: Newspapers report that Ryanair was unable or unwilling to help a disabled passenger onto a plane, forcing her husband to carry her onboard. (Sun; Daily Mail)
Apr 2008: The ASA upholds a complaint over a misleading promotion, finding Ryanair offered insufficient evidence to prove the cheap flights advertised were available. (ASA)
Feb 2008: A French court awards 60,001 Euros damages to Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy after Ryanair used images of them in an ad without their permission. (The Register)
Jan 2008: Ryanair is censured by Advertising Standards Authority for a sexually suggestive press ad showing a woman in a schoolgirl costume. The ASA said the ad "appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour and was irresponsible and likely to cause serious or widespread offence." Ryanair refused to withdraw this ad and said, "This isn't advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected self-appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising." (BBC; ASA)
Jan 2008: Further ASA criticism over the wording of ads, as Ryanair fails to insert the word "from" before the figure "£10". (ASA)
Oct 2007: The ASA ban a Ryanair advert which falsely accuses lastminute.com of "robbing" and overcharging customers. (The Register; ASA)
Oct 2007: Ryanair voted least favourite airline again (Glasgow Evening Times)
Aug 2007: While Ryanair claims to be faster and cheaper than Eurostar from London to Paris, the ASA differs. Complaint against Ryanair upheld. (ASA)
July 2007: A Ryanair campaign encouraging people to write to the UK government over climate change policy is criticised by the ASA. (ASA)
May 2007: Complaints upheld over ad about promotional flights from Stansted. (ASA)
Apr 2007: The London Evening Standard reports that a "boy of 14 in a plaster cast from his ankle to his thigh was forced to stand for nearly two hours on a Ryanair jet." Ryanair subsequently apologised. (Evening Standard)
Apr 2007: Ryanair named in an Early Day Motion by British parliamentarians for "refus[ing] to provide an email address for the purposes of making complaints and direct[ing] its customers to use either a telephone number which costs 10 pence per minute or to post or fax complaints to its head office in Dublin". They call upon "online-based companies such as Ryanair to improve the ability of their customers to communicate with the company after sales by at least publishing an email address for this purpose so that redress for poor service is made less complicated and expensive", and publish a phone number for the airline. (UK Parliament)
Feb 2007: The Times reports that Ryanair has been criticised by air accident investigators for pilots flying too low over houses and other safety concerns. Pilots blame pressure to turn around planes in only 25 minutes; Ryanair declined to comment. Incidents include (1) a plane landing in Cork that "exceeded the normal operating limit for tilting the Boeing 737's wings" and set off its ground proximity alarm twice, flying as low as 425 ft above houses, (2) a near-accident in Knock, Ireland, that was not reported for almost 2 weeks and some evidence deleted in the interim, and (3) a co-pilot having to take control of a flight approaching Rome when the captain "suffered a breakdown". (Times)
Dec 2006: Ryanair fails to take consumer rights website ryanaircampaign.org offline for trademark infringement when the World Intellectual Property Organisation Arbitration and Mediation Center rules against the airline. (The Register)
Nov 2006: Ryanair advertisements that promise free flights but fail to quantify taxes and airport fees are criticised. (ASA)
Oct 2006: Ryanair cuts baggage allowances by a quarter while passengers are on holiday: "a family of four could end up paying £110 just to bring back the same amount of luggage they took." (This Is Money)
Oct 2006: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Guardian)
Aug 2006: Another "misleading" comparison in press ads. (ASA)
May 2006: UK statutory body the Disability Rights Commission criticises Ryanair for imposing a 33 p levy on each ticket to pay for transporting disabled people; the DRC feel 0.02 p would be a fairer price. Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary is quoted as saying "The DRC wouldn't f***ing know how much it costs if it jumped up and bit them". (Daily Telegraph)
May 2006: Complaint upheld for imposing too many conditions on cheap flights that weren't mentioned in ad. (ASA)
Feb 2006: The Irish Independent reports that the Irish Aviation Authority has "engaged" with Ryanair after "getting dozens of letters from pilots worried about their professional status with the low-cost airline. The pilots warned that they may no longer be able to comply with the conditions of their licences because they may, in effect, be compelled to fly while it might not always be safe to do so." Ryanair claim they respect the authority of pilots but refuse to comment on a pilot allegedly demoted for refusing to fly due to fatigue. (Irish Independent)
Feb 2006: A documentary for Channel 4's Dispatches series claims to expose "inadequate safety and security checks, dirty planes, exhausted cabin crew and pilots complaining about the number of hours they have to fly". (Channel 4)
May 2005: Complaint upheld when Ryanair promise cheap summer flights, but none are available after May 26th. (ASA)
Dec 2004: Both Ryanair and Stansted found to have jointly discriminated against a disabled passenger by charging £18 for a wheelchair rental. This overturns an earlier ruling that found Ryanair solely responsible. (Out-Law)
Dec 2004: Complaint upheld for claiming Girona airport serves Barcelona; Girona is 112 km (70 miles) away. (ASA)
Sep 2004: The International Transport Workers' Federation criticise Ryanair for staff's long working hours, hiring eastern European crew on lower wages, and intimidating workers who try to join unions. (ITWF)

You could draw up similar lists for other airlines, such as BA and Virgin's price fixing (BBC), and EasyJet's reluctance to offer refunds (Guardian) and automatically adding optional surcharges to flights (The Register), but Ryanair's is almost certainly the longest.