Is music copyright over? Does it matter? Apparently not according to the sentiments of one Terry McBride, because once you stop taking in money from royalties and actual sales, you should start taking them in from advertising deals.

McBride is the author of a report entitled “Meet the Millennials“, which outlines the challenges facing record companies in a world where young people are more interested with getting their hands on music instantly and on the device of their choice than paying for it. McBride is also CEO of Nettwerk. Nettwerk manage Barenaked Ladies and Avril Lavigne and list MC Lars (see below), Fear of Music, Sixpence None the Richer, Treble Charger and All Saints - amongst their eclectic catalogue. Nettwerk is one of the first large music companies to abolish DRM - releasing songs in MP3 format, as well as the lossless FLAC format.

MC Lars - Download this Song, look out for the typical downloader

There are some fairly horrific statements in the executive summary of McBrides report, for example: “The lifestyle and attitude an artist represents are saleable commodities” - take a moment to think about that and it becomes a fairly bitter taste in ones mouth.

We all know that cola ads are designed to sell us the image of a lifestyle that includes snowboarding down at the local swimming hole on a hot summers day or sitting out on the street on a sofa that apparently hasn’t been urinated on by a tramp yet - all in the company of some unfeasibly attractive thin people. Actually, considering the nutritional content of such brands, I envisage that in the near future thin attractive people will be grown in tubes by advertising companies to sell stuff to the rest of us….probably.

A typical high fructose corn syrup induced life style

But getting back to the point, we have entered into the frightening realm of the cult of the personality, if sadly, ever has it been so. Take for example Brian O’Driscoll and his penchant for chugging a certain bleach coloured power drink whenever a TV camera appears. Or the fact that in the last election in some parts of Dublin,on posters the name of the candidate was accompanied by a picture of Bertie Ahern as opposed to the candidate themselves. Says mcBride “…purchasing their music is just a way (but by no means the only way) of buying into their brand.” I am now selling you my music, my opinions on the war in Iraq, a solution for world hunger and a packet of Tayto crisps. If I do really well next quarter someone might let me sell you an iPhone.

Not all of it involves selling crack to children though. The overall tone does embrace the “what we want when we want it” idea of media distribution, which at the end of the day is what those of us on the client-side of a web-browser or torrent want. I can’t remember the last time I was dictated to by the TV schedule, oh those were dark dark days. Nettwerk themselves refuse to carry out litigation against fans of their artists, viewing such lawsuits as destructive and not in their own best interests.

So maybe I’m firing on McBride for simply sticking his head above the trenches and trying to find a common ground between producing music and paying for music, so even if McBride is not necessarily “the bad guy” (because it’s impossible to have a discussion without one of those) his report does give us a flimsy pretext to dive back into the old debate. Especially since there was something nagging at me the whole way through the report….and this was it: “Oh no, they’ve followed us”.

It’s very web 2.0 - the kids love it!

In this age of Web 2.0, those of us involved in bands and gigging thought we had arrived in a wonderful world where we could make announcements, offer our music to possible fans, put up a video of a performance up on our site and build a fan base, even sell the music from our websites if we had a mind to - all for next to nothing and without the “aid” of large record companies.

But that glimpse of a utopia is over, even the likes of a simple site presence like MySpace involves getting into bed with Rupert Murdoch, never forgetting of course that if not for Billy Bragg - Murdoch et al would own any music you chose to put on mySpace.

I’m of a mind set that doesn’t see much of an advantage in being ‘discovered’ by an AR man, to me it’s more like a game of reverse Russian Roulette and even if I am hit by that silver bullet (in the noble game of ‘reverse Russian Roulette’ - being hit by the bullet it a good thing), if I don’t produce the sales numbers in time I’m gone.

The problem that the record companies face is that the playing field has been leveled, on the recording front at least. I was speaking with a friend of mine in another band recently and we both commented how lucky we were to be doing this, and doing it now. Ten to fifteen years ago, the likes of me wouldn’t have been able to cobble together the cash to put together a decent demo, never mind EPs, albums etc. We can now do what the big names were doing.

It’s important to remember that people like Springsteen, Madonna, Robbie Williams are statistical anomalies. If one was to graph a chart of all the bands in America (for example) who had ever made an album from 1970 to present day, then the above mentioned would be spikes on an otherwise calm looking graph. But it is these spikes that the record companies desperately cling onto, and it’s these spikes that they need to continue to promote and brand in anyway possible in a world where the returns on sales of a physical disc are (allegedly) shrinking. And remember that I specified bands or artists who had made an album, if we left in those who never got past the EP or Single stage, the graph would be even more striking.

These statistical freaks and the occasional flash in the pan pop-hit are the only ones who will be involved in this marketing nirvana and they may well be welcome to it. This is very much a race to the middle of the road. Not every large act will go for it, I can’t see Pearl Jam rocking out with the hamburgler any time soon, especially after their much publicised battle with TicketMaster.

How much can I make from a montage?

So where do you draw the line? It’s a little morality conversation that I’ve had with a few other musicians - how far can you go before you’ve “sold out”? Does it matter if it allows you to continue your work? I sometimes think that it might be cool to turn on a TV show and hear one of my songs playing over a scene. But if you look at it from another angle, TV Execs don’t view their shows in terms of ’story quality’ or ‘artistic content’ - for them the shows are a vehicle which carries a package of advertisements showing at 15 minute intervals.

There’s also the danger of a song loosing it’s impact - I despair every time Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Hallelujah” is used in TV drama over a slow motion montage of someone being rolled into a hospital operating room, while friends and relatives wait and pace as the camera cuts to the other characters in this weeks story and their related troubles. Instead of being moved by the combination of music and images I think - “oh, they’re playing ‘Hallelujah’ - someone’s life must be on the line.

Impactless music? The character of ‘Marissa’ dies from invisible injuries in this scene from ‘The OC’. A classic example of hallelujah induced death.

Would Neil Young’s “Needle And The Damage Done” be half as poignant if it had been written for a brand of wipe to be used on vinyl records? What if Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” had been written as a jingle for a pet store?

Maybe movies are a more streetwise target, the sound track for ‘Juno’ has brought Kimya Dawson and the Moldy Peaches to a broader audience over this side of the pond, as ‘Garden State’ did for The Shins.

The soundtrack to “O, Brother Where Art Thou” is one of my favourite listens, but I don’t see any of the artists on the record as selling out - why is that? Possibly it’s an illusion that there is no product for sale, when what is in fact for sale is the film itself as well as the soundtrack CD, not to mention the possible purchase of the back catalogue of the artist who stands out for you on that soundtrack.

Or not. I once found, talking to a girl who had seen the Johnny Cash bio-pic “Walk The Line” and loved the music from the film, rather than go and buy one of the affordable “Best Of Cash” or “Essential Cash” compilation albums, she had opted to spend more money on the film-branded soundtrack sung not by Cash and June Carter Cash but by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, both trying their hardest to sound like Cash and Carter. Rather than go for the cheaper ‘real thing’ she was successfully sold the movie, and the movie imitation-soundtrack at a tasty profit for the studio.

Scene from Mac and Me, the ultimate example of payola

It’s very easy to look edgy and cool by accusing others of selling out, but more often than not we can’t imagine the factors that have led to whatever media endorsement a band have taken part in. At the recent Radiohead concert I heard more than a few complaints from my fellow punters who had been convinced that what with Radiohead having a ‘Best Of’ out at the moment that they would be treated to a verbatim rendition to ‘The Bends’ and ‘OK,Computer’. The explanation of course was that Radiohead are not on a ‘Best Of’ tour, nor do Radiohead have a ‘Best Of’ album on release. Their ex-record label has a ‘Best of Radiohead music that we still own’ compilation out at the moment, Yorke and his band mates are none too pleased about the release. I managed to look cool by pretending that I was only interested in hearing the new material, it was a close call but I think I got away with it.

I suppose it’s a decision that is made based on the value that the work holds for you (which is why I have flip-flopped from one side of the argument to the other) and the realisation that a piece of music is not solely something you’ve written for one occasion and only one occasion. Michael Stipe didn’t write “Everybody Hurts” specifically for the Samaritans - but it multi-tasked into a component for something that was as much a consciousness raising campaign for the Samaritans as it was a publicity campaign. The money you are paid for someone using a few seconds of your work on TV might help you record the next song or record on your own terms. Sure, I’d like to be paid for the songs I write, I’d like more exposure for my music, I want people to buy my CDs, I just don’t want KFC selling them to you.

Starbucks retailing of tunes played in its coffee houses has become a lucrative avenue of profit for a variety of major label artists

So what if we don’t do it? What if we don’t collect the wrappers and send off for a secret pass-code that allows us access to a website that asks us for our gender, DOB, hobbies and e-mail addresses of friends - in return for a free download?

Will music disappear? No, it won’t - what will disappear is the lowest common denominator, The X-Factor and Christmas number ones. Will you really miss them?

And that’s the filthy little secret, for a little more effort, and a lot less money i.e going to gigs by local bands and musicians or talking to people who peruse a particular ’scene’ for tips on whose worth a listen, you can cut out the middleman, the PR guy, the Advertising exec, the tooth rotting cola and listen to something you really want to hear. I’m not saying it’s me, I’m just saying it’s out there.

So is the internet viral marketing / word of mouth / ’street team’ route still feasible, or will McDonalds be giving away your MP3 downloads when the kids Supersize their meals? I guess it’s all down to which brand of the Kool Aid you want to drink, but I didn’t get into this to sell burgers.

Dermot Byrne is the lead singer and songwriter with "Dermot Byrne and the Dancing Frankensteins" His by-line pic is not very flattering, he could stand to loose a little more weight and his mother says he should smile more.
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