Mick Jagger talks downloading and piracy (I knew he was pretty cool)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8681410.stm

This BBC News interview with Mick Jagger on the 40th anniversary of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street contains a few really choice grafs about the myth that the internet has robbed artists of their livelihoods. He seems pretty chill about the perceived threats of downloading, and explains that for a long time, the record labels did a fine job of robbing artists:

BBC: What's your feeling on technology and music?
Jagger: Technology and music have been together since the beginning of recording. just one facet of the technology of music. Music has been aligned with technology for a long time. The model of records and record selling is a very complex subject and quite boring, to be honest.

BBC: But your view is valid because you have a huge catalogue, which is worth a lot of money, and you've been in the business a long time, so you have perspective.

Jagger: Well, it's all changed in the last couple of years. We've gone through a period where everyone downloaded everything for nothing and we've gone into a grey period it's much easier to pay for things - assuming you've got any money.

BBC: Are you quite relaxed about it?

Jagger: I am quite relaxed about it. But, you know, it is a massive change and it does alter the fact that people don't make as much money out of records. But I have a take on that - people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn't make any money out of records because record companies wouldn't pay you! They didn't pay anyone!

Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone. So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn't.

Not only do the Stones have damn near 50 years in the business, but they also got screwed royally by Allen Klein for their entire 60's catalog.

Considering how many decent quality Stones boots are out there, if I didn't know better, I might think Mick was leaking the stuff himself. (And if it's true, Mick how about leaking the master tapes from the "Some Girls" sessions next. Every version I've heard of that is all hissy and muddy, and could really use an upgrade. Or just make that your next "deluxe box set" project, and make it official.)

1. As someone who has made a lot of money through the music business, so what does he care about if there isn't money to be made anymore. (BTW, the Stones are still one of the highest grossing acts out there)

2. As someone who was a starving young musician sitting around with Keith and Brian eating boiled potatoes all the time.

It's nice to hear someone that knows, tell the truth about how things are, for a change.

:kick: for Mick

They claim it's for the artists, but they are really worried about the record companies making their cash.

Downloaders also are selfish.

Shit, he just made another wad of cash from Susan Boyle. It just keeps rolling in for him.

Don't worry about up and coming artists that need the money, Mick!

Considering all that he's been screwed out of, I think they are rather gregarious.

The problem is that people with no talent without computer enhancement expect to make buttloads of money and be treated like fucking royalty, then whine when it doesn't happen as much as they think they deserve.

Now THAT is selfish. The world has changed.

up and coming artists.

Anything that screws record companies is okay by me. But artists are often collateral damage.

Let's add Ticketmaster into the mix of evil folks sucking off musicians.

The business is very different from when he was not yet famous.

-- the ones who aren't megahit artists, loses money off of album sales rather than makes it.

Here's how it works:

1. The record company signs you.

2. They pay for you to record your album.

3. They release the album and you get a small percentage of sales -- but:

4. Only after all of the costs of recording that album are recouped (charged against YOUR percentage), which can be tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes more. So, for example, if you get a dime a song and the record company gets 90 cents, those costs are deducted from YOUR dime, not the record company's 90 cents.

5. So unless you sell a shitload of albums, you don't make squat, while the record companies make out like bandits.

Then they drop you and you're fucked.

In other words, since they rarely get any actual money from the record companies, most artists aren't affected by illegal downloads, except in one way:

Artists make their money from touring. The downloads are advertisements for the concert. You could give all of your songs away for free and wind up making a lot of money through your tour.

The only selfish people here are the record companies. But then middle men rule the world.

Even if a shitload of albums are sold, many times the artists are still in debt to the company.

a lot of bands who otherwise wouldn't get any exposure. I'm not saying I think pirating is right or that illegal downloading is okay (I use Rhapsody myself and pay a monthly subscription fee), but a lot of smaller acts have been discovered through illegal downloads.

that it sells concert or road tour tickets.

But again, I'm not ADVOCATING piracy. I'm just trying to look at this thing from all sides and see the benefits in something that can't and won't ever be stopped.

I'm sure there are plenty of Nick Drake types out there that can't bear to perform live or can't tour for some reason. How does piracy help them?

that not all music is appropriate for live peformance.

The apologists for music theft just burn me.

than straight up theft. I wish people wouldn't confuse the two.

Funny thing is that the unfamous bands I know (you know, people that just make a modest living playing their music), make their $ from the venues, on-line sales directly through their sites, and CD/merchandise sales at the shows. They know people share tjeir music and they are grateful for the exposure. More people hear it, so more people come to hear it.

Not only that, but most of the time you are still under a contract that you can't sign with anyone else.

if it is about the music and they get paid fine.
but if it is all about the money, sacrificing the music THAT is a sellout.
I was a Metallica fan until I realized They were about the money. especially as their Music went from great to dull the wealthier/more sober they got. also Metallica is too young to have been ripped off by the record companies like the stones were.

Rock on Mick!

Is that they fully admit to circulating their "No Life Till Leather" demo tape and encouraging their fans to copy it for their friends, the end result being them playing to sold out clubs the entire length of the West Coast before they even had an album out. If Napster had existed in 1982, damn right they would have used it. And most of their fans would have ended up hearing much better quality demos than they got from a 10th generation copied cassette.

people should not have to pay for creative content. Folks on this board don't want to pay to read the NYT, Guardian, etc. They think it should be free like the Citypaper.

I just think you vote with your dollars.

You could hear bands you never heard before, and occasionally hear an album that hadn't been released yet. My old FM radio station used to play those "leaked" records in their entirety, and I would record it onto cassette and play the Hell out of it for the next 6-8 weeks until the record hit the stores, and then buy it. I did the same thing when U2's "All You Can't Leave Behind" album hit Napster. Downloaded it, burned it onto a CD, and then replaced it with an official copy the day it was released. I see absolutely nothing wrong with doing so, regardless of the medium available.

When the Rolling Stones (bringing Mick back into this) release their remastered "Exile on Main Street" not only is it gonna have the original album I've already paid for at least three times, but also a bonus disc, half the songs of which have been on bootlegs for decades. But I'm gonna buy it, and gladly so. Not that Mick, Keith, and Charlie really need any more of my money, but because it might encourage the labels to put out some REAL music, that's NOT 40 years old.

As for reading the Guardian, I'm not sure I could afford whatever it would cost to get a British newspaper delivered to my door every day, and it would probably be old news by the time it did. And I read the Guardian because it has (ironically enough) better coverage of US News than any whore media paper here. I'd never pay for the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal because neither are worth it anymore with their obvious right wing bias.

I'm a collector.

Yes, you vote with your dollars. And paying for "Exile" is a good vote to make.

Vis a vis the Guardian - The Independent put up a pay firewall. The folks at the Guardian - I read the Scotsman also - know we're logging on from North America. But, in the future, they might make us pay for some articles. I would do so. I'd pay $50 a year to read the Guardian on line.

Give the Toronto Star a try - it's the most progressive paper in North America.

The NYT is actually doing some excellent reporting on the financial crisis. I HATE their op-ed page.

There's a lot of bands I first heard of via copied cassettes and CDs, and I've since bought CDs and gone to shows. And I've turned friends on to bands the same way. If I'd never heard of the band via that "pirated" copy, I'd never have bought a single CD or ticket. In the case of copying a CD of a major band just to avoid paying for it, that does cross the line... so IMO motivation and intent does have a significant bearing on the ethics of music sharing.

Mick went to the London School of Economics and knows the score.

There was a story before one of their San Diego concerts in the 1990s about the first time they played in San Diego in the 1960s, they were terrified they weren't going to be paid. That really showed Mick-the-businessman in his formative stages. Nobody gets to be as rich as he does without at least some business sense. You have to grudgingly kind of admire him a little for that ability. He's managed to convince people to buy tickets for as much as $400 to watch them play music for a couple of hours from hundreds of feet away along with 20,000 other people. Their artistic/creative well may have run dry about 40 years ago but at least their business acumen is strong and that's how they have survived in that industry...

the amount of money he made when mick told him how he should invest.

She said the record company producers hadn't paid attention to her for years, until she put some of her songs on her website for free download. She had the rights to do this, but the producers were livid that she was rocking the power of the system.

And ironically she said her sales went UP when she put free downloads on her site.

we buy music that we like, and in order to like it, we have to hear it first. Who buys music that they have never heard before? It seems like being able to listen to songs on the Internet has replaced radio, as the way that artists get exposure and subsequently sell their recorded music and concert tickets.

Sure you can sell a lot of copies of a record, and make money that way, but for the vast majority of records, that's pretty much a one-shot deal anyway. Sure, there are some records that sell and sell for years, such as "Tapestry" etc. But for the most part, the real livelihood of a musical artist, over the long term of their career, is live performances and selling tickets to see them perform live. At least that's how I have understood it. Correct me if I'm wrong. Even though the Rolling Stones got screwed financially over their 1960s recordings, they have still made many millions of dollars by touring since then.

before that bands got the short end of the touring money too. It wasn't until bands demanded and received a > percentage of the gate that touring really paid big $. A lot of 60s artist basically toured themselves to death for a short gate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF2l_rWdvDs

:yoiks:

...the underlying problem stems from the corporations' attempt to exploit artists.