The music industry is hugely affected by pirating as well. Record labels can barely stay afloat. Everyone thinks they have all this money because of huge artist selling millions of records or legitimate downloads. The truth is, only fifteen percent of record labels top artist support the whole business. The other eighty five percent is bands that incur a loss or just get the bills paid. They call these bands developing new artists. Where do the pirates go to when stealing songs to sell? The top fifteen percent is what is attacked by pirates. These are the songs that are played on the radio and what people want to buy. According to the website www.timmygotsoul.com the list of the 10 most illegally downloaded song, album and video has all big sellers in the music industry. For example, Brittney Spears song Telephone was the number one illegally downloaded track of 2010 followed by Lady Gaga, Christie Aguilera, and Katy Perry. The number one illegally downloaded video was by Brittney Spears with the same top four of illegally downloaded song. Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber were in the top 10 as well of both categories. There is a staggering stat that came out of Britain December of 2010. There were 1.2 billion songs downloaded illegally last year. The projected legal download sale for 2010 was 370 million. That is an 870 million difference in sales of legal and illegal download sales. That is a lot of revenue that is lost and cannot be made up anywhere by the record companies. It was reported that the Black Eyed Peas sold over one million downloads last year and Lady Gaga sold over 250,000 downloads and the rest of the bands made up the difference.
This poses a huge problem for the aspiring artist wanting to make a living in the music industry. This would include songwriters, producers, publishers, singers and musicians. It is a ripple effect. When songwriters receive low royalty checks because of piracy everyone is affected. Producers usually work on a point system which gives them a percentage of sales which is more lucrative than a hourly rate. Obviously if songs are not being bought legally by consumers then producers and songwriters suffer financial loss. When that happens then the musicians and singers wages are driven down to record and perform. Twenty years ago musicians could make 500.00 a day recording. Now they would be lucky to make 100.00 a day. Road musicians are not nearly paid as well as they used to be too. If the top of the record label is suffering financial loss it will trickle down and affect everyone involved. Artist now depend on ticket sales and merchandise sales when they tour. That is why ticket sales are so high. One way or another, consumers will pick up the tab of pirating.
I support the legislation to protect creative people and companies from copyright infringement. I support the PROTECT-IP bill that is in Washington right now. Intellectual property should not be pirated at all. Let’s look at the facts. In the music industry there has been yearly losses in the billions. What once was a vibrant industry has become very fragile. The state that it is in right now I would not be surprised if there is more increases of song downloads and merchandise prices will be on the rise. There are a few bands that embrace the illegal downloads of their songs. The band Dream Theater does not care if they make a dime off of downloads or cd sales. They have decided that they will market their tours and make their money there. I guess if you cannot beat them you might as well join them.
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