Labels and copyrights: A word to the musicians themselves
The theme of "copyright in music" on the hub traditionally suffers from the "amateurish" approach. More than once, fighters with "copyrights", "labels" and other "burping music business" have been reproached for the naivety and theoretical nature of their knowledge. Few people here heard the opinion of the musicians themselves, whose “happiness” is the struggle, but what do they themselves think about all this? How are things in real life?
The original author of the text and the interviewer is romx , you can make comments, send rays of hatred and pros to karma for a useful initiative directly to him.
Some time ago, in comments, I promised to inquire about the situation in Russia (and specifically in Moscow) with music, earnings, concerts, labels and copyrights from a real, “practical” musician. Below is a transcript of the conversation. All names given are carefully made up, all names are screened. A man plays in a fairly well-known rock group, one of which is probably one of the top five in Russia, so here is the opinion of a “fighting” Russian musician with 25 years of experience.
The conversation was conducted in several receptions in the chat. The transcript is somewhat combed, since we are familiar with the person ... u, for more than 20 years, for sure, so I had to comb some “ease of communication” and non-parliamentary expressions;) but the facts and figures were left “copyrighted”. So "just the facts." Conclusions about the reality of the world "without copyright" and "life at donations and concerts" do yourself.
Listen, but tell me, if you know, just about. So with ZZZZ you recorded and released discs, how much it cost in a circle. I understand that everything is different, but as an example, we take for simplicity only studio work and its payment, without production and circulation.
Plus, it took about how much time from the moment “but come on” to “mastering”.
From let’s - a year or two of life, paying for a re-base, buying tools (beer, drugs, whatever) a re-base - $ 20-25 for one rehearsal. To get an album, we need to rehearse
two rehearsals a week for two years . Well, probably for pops it happens less.
Recording - studio rates. Despite the fact that we wrote in a cheap basement studio, and only drums, in fact. Well, another bass, 50 percent ... Guitars were written at home ... On average, for one 3-5 hour session in the studio you can record a couple of things, this is ours. This is with our super drummer and extremely difficult material ... Further, variations are possible, as you understand - with a good drummer and simple material, you can tap the entire album per session, and vice versa, respectively ... If you record guitars and vocals in the studio, then the cost of this will increase order, because no one knows how to play or sing, nowhere and never, especially beginners. And the hochezzo is like Shobes in adults, but everything is heard in the studio ...
The information — in our case, our soundman took it and brought it home on his knee, practically without monitoring — cost $ 100 per thing, plus, as a rule, in the finale he begs $ 200 for “mastering” ...
I don’t know the print run, there it was the label’s expenses ... about $ 1000, I think, with a circulation of 500-1000 pieces. We from the label had a number of copyright disks for free.
Comment from A:
Offhand, I recall something about $ 2.5 apiece, with a print run of 500 or more - this is the Moscow “samopal”. If done at the factory, legally - then there is a monopoly of the Ural Electronic Plant. Their prices are:
hxxp: //www.disc.ru/price.htm
It seems that there are dealers of the same factory in Moscow peters through which you can print there, but a little cheaper.
Yes, somewhere in the circulation of 1000 pieces at $ 1000, it goes, plus or minus.
And what is your financial relationship with the label?
a box of discs ... or I don’t remember two boxes .. :)
Well, that is, you take it, do it yourself, bring the master to the label, they print it through their channels, give you a copyright box, they sell the rest themselves, that's for $ 10 that website written?
Yeah, so.
Do these relations impose any obligations on you? Somehow presses, limits?
No, we give the master, they print the circulation for their own, we get a box of copyright for free, plus at the cost of the discs, if there were not enough discs to give out. Everything seems to be. We are not on their salary.
What percentage do you have from circulation, if any?
Nothing. I don’t know how this is for sale. We have published discs hanging on our web page, I don’t know who buys them there, if they buy them.
And how much it costs in a club hall in Moscow to play a concert, well, if approximately, if it is impatient, for example, in a week.
And what are the prices in the studio?
In the studio, everything depends on the studio. In an adult - see on the internet. For our session, we gave away $ 100 in my opinion, but this is a freebie, and we only wrote drums and quickly.
Hall for the evening - 20 thousand rubles, although, of course, depends on the hall. There are different conditions.
Here we rent XXX we are here soon anniversary boom to play your own, 10 years a group of type ...
In general, there are places with halls where they’ll let them go for free, if you guarantee them a lot of people ... But few can guarantee it, as you understand. Well, more than once or twice, only “stars” can assemble a hall.
That is, if I think correctly:
Let's say 10 things, two for a session - $ 500 per recording in the studio, well, we will throw another 200 - 700. Then 100 for a thing - 1000 + 200 “mastering”, well, let 2000.
Let's say rehearsals year, 50 weeks, 2 rehearsals per week, $ 20 each - $ 2000.
That is, according to a very, very optimistic option - a year of time and $ 4000 of money give the master for the output at the exit. Didn’t miss anything?
Yeah ... sort of ...
Well, that is, you take it, you do everything yourself, bring the master to the label, they print it through their channels, give you a box of copyrights, they sell the rest to you, what is written on this $ 10 on the site?
Have you tried to accept donations from a web page? And generally sell music over the Internet?
And is there a profit from a concert in your (or the industry and colleagues average) case?
Well, let's say, a typical case, not a hall in XXX in honor of the 10th anniversary :)
Honey, ... yes, it’s us ... I? - this time, and two - which m ... will it buy? Who do you think will buy "air", even if no CDs are sold? After the release of the last album in the Internet release, we gave a link to the mp3 archive and scored on this matter. Disks - give away. No, the producer comes to bargain. Pxxxxxxxx-va sells his discs at concerts, and since that he has pretty good sales, but there are 500-600r discs there, and her number of albums tends to infinity.
Earnings from the concerts we had with Olga, with a full hall on tickets to the OGI, for example, reached $ 100 per snout ...
Earnings = corporate parties. There marketing money is washed and poured, there earnings of about a thousand dollars in the snout, even with a large team. Corporate parties, riding in dachas, in the sense of come and work there is a holiday. The tavern is shorter.
Stay and play "Earth in the Porthole" until the stage you wander from such art.
In general, rumors and legends are about gigantic earnings in corporate parties. Now, for example, a gypsy project in which I was called (a golem tavern), there they promised 20,000 rubles for half an hour of work without question, but this is for 7 people, so again in the finals we have $ 100 in the snout ...
Which, you understand, is not superfluous , but he won’t feed him ...
But rock music, I'm sorry ... When, in the sense, the independentman is not earnings. And who needs it there. Every Tatyana Ovsienko earns there, “Gems” are different, and other stars of discos of the 80s and 90s.
You can probably go on a tour of European clubs such as we went with XXX then - it turns out to earn money, but in Moscow there is only one laugh at the clubs.
Taxi to and fro and beer when it closes - I am satisfied ..)))
Well, that is, I will summarize again: to conduct a concert is, if very optimistic, to pay 20-30 thousand rubles (800-1000 $) for the rental of the hall, and your earning from it is usually $ 100 for each of the five persons, that is, $ 500 from a concert?
Yeah.
Is it a profit, or even a profit?
Profit, but minus is played very often.
Addendum about the cost of organizing a concert from another person (I.B.):
Source http://bogushevich.livejournal.com/143691.html
“Suppose we are now looking for a room in which we could play a program with a chamber composition: piano-bass -troechka (small drum set of the "jazz" type) -vocal. [...]
There is such a cozy room with 470 seats in Moscow time. And they ask for him 180 thousand rubles of rent. If we do a concert ourselves, we must pay the rent a couple of months (before the concert). Suppose we took a chance. But that is not all. In this room the so-called apparatus is installed: portals, monitors, microphones and all other garbage.
So, if you rent a room, it does not mean that you can use all this wealth. Nevermind! To sing in a microphone, from which the wire reaches into the remote control, you must also rent an apparatus. (Which, I recall, is permanently installed). For an additional 200 thousand rubles. But bring your apparatus, not for 200 thousand, you do not have the right.
Using simple calculations, you can find out how much each of these 470 spectators should pay for a ticket just to recapture these investments - even if all the artists work for free. But there’s still advertising costs - and there’s an agency commission if, for example, you want to blame the whole organization on special people, and you go out in a white coat and engage exclusively in art. ”
Now let's talk about food, about the possibility of being a professional musician, that is, living with classes in
Gygy's music . OK, let's try.
Let's define a living wage and, say, the level of “acceptable poverty” or something.
For obvious reasons, we take Moscow, because the whole music business is sitting here, here we take you, a non-Muscovite, without a mom and dad who feed, with the need to rent housing, and all that. A typical nonresident come in large numbers.
Mm ... thousand 20-30r rent (apartment). Everything else is individual ... how to eat, how to drink, how to get out ... I spend an average of 2-4 thousand dollars, (60 - 120 thousand rubles), but I have + gasoline, car repairs, hobbies, so I'm not an indicator. less than 2 thousand $ as a whole never happens. So yes, perhaps 50-60 thousand, this is one and very good. modestly ... Without medical insurance, loans, mortgages, shelving for a rainy day, and other bourgeois excesses.
Well, tell me, because I am completely behind your Moscow life. Your criterion.
Well, here I am. 2 thousand dollars.
That is, a subsistence from 2. And is the base acceptable?
Well, damn it ... Watching what evil deeds you want to allow yourself. I can not tell. It is possible and 5 thousand p. a month to survive - cereals and bread, and you can crib 100 without hesitation ...
That is, between 3 and 4 thousand dollars?
Yeah.
That is, if you wanted to become a real professional musician who lives exclusively with music, you would need to earn at least $ 4,000 a month, which is about $ 45,000 a year, as of now, in Moscow , “After taxes”?
Go away, longing, do not torment me :) The
question about sitting on the contract, as far as I remember, Olka practiced so. What were the conditions there?
Well, she signed something with Khkhhhhh there in 2007 or even earlier, I don’t remember.
There was nothing there, no interest, God be with you. There was a percentage of the circulation, with sales, but no sales. Some disks were given so, "copyright". The rest - she bought for money, well, at wholesale prices, of course, if she wanted to bring a sell-off at a concert.
But paid for the entry?
Yes, they wrote a voice in their studio, for free.
I mean, there were no financial investments at all.
Them - studio time and the work of a soundman ...
Their soundman, studio, too, sobsno.
Ah, well this is interesting. That is, the label paid to record the material.
Well, yes, on their own label studio.
And Phhhh-va, you say, has a profit from sales?
Roma ... how are you ... mean ... look ... a girl sits at her concerts and sells XXX disks, for the salary she is paid by M. (owner of XXX and the organizer of concerts). Pkhhhhh-va this girl also slips her wheels that she has ... that she also sells them, gives the loot Phkhhhh-howl. These are the whole intricate scheme. Taxes are zero. You don’t have to share with anyone ...)) the profit ... will also say ... I have accumulated words.
Well, where did they come from? Someone made them, too, or is it written somewhere besides XXX?
Phkhhhh-howl disks - firstly, it is mainly issued not in XXX, but from third-party labels, respectively, receives part of the circulation for so, part has the ability to redeem either at cost or at wholesale - I don’t know, but in any case it’s good ...
And here about Olka. What limitations or requirements did this contract impose on her?
Like "do not play concerts", or "record no later than six months from the start of the contract, otherwise forfeit" This is my fantasy.
There were limitations in the contract regarding the use of material in a movie theater and so on, reproduction on the air ... there was something about the terms too, but without sanctions in my opinion ...
Well, that is, not “bondage” at all?
No, not bondage.
Well, a rhetorical question, probably sorry.
So you would prefer to receive some stable percentage from sales during, for example, two or three years after recording an album that the label would sell there through its channels, regardless of what you are currently doing, or would you rather would play on corporate parties, getting for concerts, directly?
Well, of course, who will refuse to receive money "for that"?
[end of interview]
That’s sobsno, all that I wanted to say “about Vietnam”.
The original author of the text and the interviewer is romx , you can make comments, send rays of hatred and pros to karma for a useful initiative directly to him.
Some time ago, in comments, I promised to inquire about the situation in Russia (and specifically in Moscow) with music, earnings, concerts, labels and copyrights from a real, “practical” musician. Below is a transcript of the conversation. All names given are carefully made up, all names are screened. A man plays in a fairly well-known rock group, one of which is probably one of the top five in Russia, so here is the opinion of a “fighting” Russian musician with 25 years of experience.
The conversation was conducted in several receptions in the chat. The transcript is somewhat combed, since we are familiar with the person ... u, for more than 20 years, for sure, so I had to comb some “ease of communication” and non-parliamentary expressions;) but the facts and figures were left “copyrighted”. So "just the facts." Conclusions about the reality of the world "without copyright" and "life at donations and concerts" do yourself.
Listen, but tell me, if you know, just about. So with ZZZZ you recorded and released discs, how much it cost in a circle. I understand that everything is different, but as an example, we take for simplicity only studio work and its payment, without production and circulation.
Plus, it took about how much time from the moment “but come on” to “mastering”.
From let’s - a year or two of life, paying for a re-base, buying tools (beer, drugs, whatever) a re-base - $ 20-25 for one rehearsal. To get an album, we need to rehearse
two rehearsals a week for two years . Well, probably for pops it happens less.
Recording - studio rates. Despite the fact that we wrote in a cheap basement studio, and only drums, in fact. Well, another bass, 50 percent ... Guitars were written at home ... On average, for one 3-5 hour session in the studio you can record a couple of things, this is ours. This is with our super drummer and extremely difficult material ... Further, variations are possible, as you understand - with a good drummer and simple material, you can tap the entire album per session, and vice versa, respectively ... If you record guitars and vocals in the studio, then the cost of this will increase order, because no one knows how to play or sing, nowhere and never, especially beginners. And the hochezzo is like Shobes in adults, but everything is heard in the studio ...
The information — in our case, our soundman took it and brought it home on his knee, practically without monitoring — cost $ 100 per thing, plus, as a rule, in the finale he begs $ 200 for “mastering” ...
I don’t know the print run, there it was the label’s expenses ... about $ 1000, I think, with a circulation of 500-1000 pieces. We from the label had a number of copyright disks for free.
Comment from A:
Offhand, I recall something about $ 2.5 apiece, with a print run of 500 or more - this is the Moscow “samopal”. If done at the factory, legally - then there is a monopoly of the Ural Electronic Plant. Their prices are:
hxxp: //www.disc.ru/price.htm
It seems that there are dealers of the same factory in Moscow peters through which you can print there, but a little cheaper.
Yes, somewhere in the circulation of 1000 pieces at $ 1000, it goes, plus or minus.
And what is your financial relationship with the label?
a box of discs ... or I don’t remember two boxes .. :)
Well, that is, you take it, do it yourself, bring the master to the label, they print it through their channels, give you a copyright box, they sell the rest themselves, that's for $ 10 that website written?
Yeah, so.
Do these relations impose any obligations on you? Somehow presses, limits?
No, we give the master, they print the circulation for their own, we get a box of copyright for free, plus at the cost of the discs, if there were not enough discs to give out. Everything seems to be. We are not on their salary.
What percentage do you have from circulation, if any?
Nothing. I don’t know how this is for sale. We have published discs hanging on our web page, I don’t know who buys them there, if they buy them.
And how much it costs in a club hall in Moscow to play a concert, well, if approximately, if it is impatient, for example, in a week.
And what are the prices in the studio?
In the studio, everything depends on the studio. In an adult - see on the internet. For our session, we gave away $ 100 in my opinion, but this is a freebie, and we only wrote drums and quickly.
Hall for the evening - 20 thousand rubles, although, of course, depends on the hall. There are different conditions.
Here we rent XXX we are here soon anniversary boom to play your own, 10 years a group of type ...
In general, there are places with halls where they’ll let them go for free, if you guarantee them a lot of people ... But few can guarantee it, as you understand. Well, more than once or twice, only “stars” can assemble a hall.
That is, if I think correctly:
Let's say 10 things, two for a session - $ 500 per recording in the studio, well, we will throw another 200 - 700. Then 100 for a thing - 1000 + 200 “mastering”, well, let 2000.
Let's say rehearsals year, 50 weeks, 2 rehearsals per week, $ 20 each - $ 2000.
That is, according to a very, very optimistic option - a year of time and $ 4000 of money give the master for the output at the exit. Didn’t miss anything?
Yeah ... sort of ...
Well, that is, you take it, you do everything yourself, bring the master to the label, they print it through their channels, give you a box of copyrights, they sell the rest to you, what is written on this $ 10 on the site?
Have you tried to accept donations from a web page? And generally sell music over the Internet?
And is there a profit from a concert in your (or the industry and colleagues average) case?
Well, let's say, a typical case, not a hall in XXX in honor of the 10th anniversary :)
Honey, ... yes, it’s us ... I? - this time, and two - which m ... will it buy? Who do you think will buy "air", even if no CDs are sold? After the release of the last album in the Internet release, we gave a link to the mp3 archive and scored on this matter. Disks - give away. No, the producer comes to bargain. Pxxxxxxxx-va sells his discs at concerts, and since that he has pretty good sales, but there are 500-600r discs there, and her number of albums tends to infinity.
Earnings from the concerts we had with Olga, with a full hall on tickets to the OGI, for example, reached $ 100 per snout ...
Earnings = corporate parties. There marketing money is washed and poured, there earnings of about a thousand dollars in the snout, even with a large team. Corporate parties, riding in dachas, in the sense of come and work there is a holiday. The tavern is shorter.
Stay and play "Earth in the Porthole" until the stage you wander from such art.
In general, rumors and legends are about gigantic earnings in corporate parties. Now, for example, a gypsy project in which I was called (a golem tavern), there they promised 20,000 rubles for half an hour of work without question, but this is for 7 people, so again in the finals we have $ 100 in the snout ...
Which, you understand, is not superfluous , but he won’t feed him ...
But rock music, I'm sorry ... When, in the sense, the independentman is not earnings. And who needs it there. Every Tatyana Ovsienko earns there, “Gems” are different, and other stars of discos of the 80s and 90s.
You can probably go on a tour of European clubs such as we went with XXX then - it turns out to earn money, but in Moscow there is only one laugh at the clubs.
Taxi to and fro and beer when it closes - I am satisfied ..)))
Well, that is, I will summarize again: to conduct a concert is, if very optimistic, to pay 20-30 thousand rubles (800-1000 $) for the rental of the hall, and your earning from it is usually $ 100 for each of the five persons, that is, $ 500 from a concert?
Yeah.
Is it a profit, or even a profit?
Profit, but minus is played very often.
Addendum about the cost of organizing a concert from another person (I.B.):
Source http://bogushevich.livejournal.com/143691.html
“Suppose we are now looking for a room in which we could play a program with a chamber composition: piano-bass -troechka (small drum set of the "jazz" type) -vocal. [...]
There is such a cozy room with 470 seats in Moscow time. And they ask for him 180 thousand rubles of rent. If we do a concert ourselves, we must pay the rent a couple of months (before the concert). Suppose we took a chance. But that is not all. In this room the so-called apparatus is installed: portals, monitors, microphones and all other garbage.
So, if you rent a room, it does not mean that you can use all this wealth. Nevermind! To sing in a microphone, from which the wire reaches into the remote control, you must also rent an apparatus. (Which, I recall, is permanently installed). For an additional 200 thousand rubles. But bring your apparatus, not for 200 thousand, you do not have the right.
Using simple calculations, you can find out how much each of these 470 spectators should pay for a ticket just to recapture these investments - even if all the artists work for free. But there’s still advertising costs - and there’s an agency commission if, for example, you want to blame the whole organization on special people, and you go out in a white coat and engage exclusively in art. ”
Now let's talk about food, about the possibility of being a professional musician, that is, living with classes in
Gygy's music . OK, let's try.
Let's define a living wage and, say, the level of “acceptable poverty” or something.
For obvious reasons, we take Moscow, because the whole music business is sitting here, here we take you, a non-Muscovite, without a mom and dad who feed, with the need to rent housing, and all that. A typical nonresident come in large numbers.
Mm ... thousand 20-30r rent (apartment). Everything else is individual ... how to eat, how to drink, how to get out ... I spend an average of 2-4 thousand dollars, (60 - 120 thousand rubles), but I have + gasoline, car repairs, hobbies, so I'm not an indicator. less than 2 thousand $ as a whole never happens. So yes, perhaps 50-60 thousand, this is one and very good. modestly ... Without medical insurance, loans, mortgages, shelving for a rainy day, and other bourgeois excesses.
Well, tell me, because I am completely behind your Moscow life. Your criterion.
Well, here I am. 2 thousand dollars.
That is, a subsistence from 2. And is the base acceptable?
Well, damn it ... Watching what evil deeds you want to allow yourself. I can not tell. It is possible and 5 thousand p. a month to survive - cereals and bread, and you can crib 100 without hesitation ...
That is, between 3 and 4 thousand dollars?
Yeah.
That is, if you wanted to become a real professional musician who lives exclusively with music, you would need to earn at least $ 4,000 a month, which is about $ 45,000 a year, as of now, in Moscow , “After taxes”?
Go away, longing, do not torment me :) The
question about sitting on the contract, as far as I remember, Olka practiced so. What were the conditions there?
Well, she signed something with Khkhhhhh there in 2007 or even earlier, I don’t remember.
There was nothing there, no interest, God be with you. There was a percentage of the circulation, with sales, but no sales. Some disks were given so, "copyright". The rest - she bought for money, well, at wholesale prices, of course, if she wanted to bring a sell-off at a concert.
But paid for the entry?
Yes, they wrote a voice in their studio, for free.
I mean, there were no financial investments at all.
Them - studio time and the work of a soundman ...
Their soundman, studio, too, sobsno.
Ah, well this is interesting. That is, the label paid to record the material.
Well, yes, on their own label studio.
And Phhhh-va, you say, has a profit from sales?
Roma ... how are you ... mean ... look ... a girl sits at her concerts and sells XXX disks, for the salary she is paid by M. (owner of XXX and the organizer of concerts). Pkhhhhh-va this girl also slips her wheels that she has ... that she also sells them, gives the loot Phkhhhh-howl. These are the whole intricate scheme. Taxes are zero. You don’t have to share with anyone ...)) the profit ... will also say ... I have accumulated words.
Well, where did they come from? Someone made them, too, or is it written somewhere besides XXX?
Phkhhhh-howl disks - firstly, it is mainly issued not in XXX, but from third-party labels, respectively, receives part of the circulation for so, part has the ability to redeem either at cost or at wholesale - I don’t know, but in any case it’s good ...
And here about Olka. What limitations or requirements did this contract impose on her?
Like "do not play concerts", or "record no later than six months from the start of the contract, otherwise forfeit" This is my fantasy.
There were limitations in the contract regarding the use of material in a movie theater and so on, reproduction on the air ... there was something about the terms too, but without sanctions in my opinion ...
Well, that is, not “bondage” at all?
No, not bondage.
Well, a rhetorical question, probably sorry.
So you would prefer to receive some stable percentage from sales during, for example, two or three years after recording an album that the label would sell there through its channels, regardless of what you are currently doing, or would you rather would play on corporate parties, getting for concerts, directly?
Well, of course, who will refuse to receive money "for that"?
[end of interview]
That’s sobsno, all that I wanted to say “about Vietnam”.