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Subsidizing music?

In the short time i've been hanging around these forums I've seen endless discussions about commercialization ruining electronic music, most recently the J00F topic. And yes, i think they are right. It's a well established fact that were neo-liberal economic principles reign, culture suffers because a lot of cultural and artistic output is unlucrative.

To put it in more depth: Producers these days are apparently not making enough money. Which has a host of unfortunate side-affects including producers being forced to be poor DJ's or make uninspired commercial music. This is even more problematic with other music styles, if you start a rock band these days you don't have a chance in hell of making it to the top without extravagant promotion, regardless of your talent.
Now, the problem is, who's to blame for this?
Most discussions on this subject lead to useless finger pointing.

The music industry will claim It's the consumers fault for generally being apathic and not paying for their music.

As a consumer, I think this is bullshit. I pay whatever they ask me for their music, If they can't get around then that's not my problem and I'm certainly not the one to blame. I could complain about people that download a lot and ruin it for others but that would be completely pointless.

Again, the industry is the one that has to solve their own problems. Not the consumers. I do realize however that it's a difficult situation for them, They can lobby for illegalization of internet piracy. But everyone with a brain knows that's not going to happen because there's no good way to enforce it.
The only other option is to raise prices, which will lead to even further decrease in sales.
The market can theoretically solve this issue but it will take years, as it involves producers completely stopping and the public eventually acknowledging what they're missing. This might never happen though as most people will just accept it and listen to commercial music instead with a few grunting on forums about how thing used to be. In fact you could say this is already happening.

Now, onto the actual subject.
I actually want to offer a possible solution: government subsidization.

First of all, this isn't anything knew. It's used widely in Europe at least for movies (mainly local and art-house productions), modern art and even orchestral acts which are usually to expensive for normal people to attend. It's basically society choosing to keep things out of the market because of cultural value. Seems aristocratic, but it's really the opposite. A good example is public TV channels, with the BBC as a well known example. They get money from the government so they can host high quality programming often with educational purposes which would never be lucrative enough for commercial channels to air.
This actually works because it's something people want to pay for.

This topic is mainly to discuss if and how something like that could be implemented for music. Obviously, you can't simply have the government issue a standard salary for starting musicians of any kind, obvious problem with this is that it's vastly inefficient as you're funding everyone even if they haven't the slightest bit of talent or chance to become something. What i'm looking for is a way to keep it localized, with the government's role being as small as possible. Money could for instance be inned via extra taxes on concerts/festivals, as it avoids people from having to pay for promoting music they're not interested in. There also needs to be some way to get it to the right people.

Also, i'm consciously avoiding the matter of private funding here, as that's basically what lead to the mess we're in right know. If there a way to do this in a better way i'd be interested as well.

I will do some more research in the coming time.

It's an interesting idea, but I tend to shy away from government influence in creative areas. I just don't like the idea of any sort of authority influence in something that is very often used as a strong form of protest. Just imagine what the 60s would've been like if Bob Dylan had been getting government funding. Granted, I think that, in the US at least, the government is too concerned with saving face to attempt censoring artists this way, but I'm paranoid about freedom of speech.










Also the government is run by old people who don't like our boom boom boom techno mooziks.

More labels and producers than ever, fewer people willing to pay money for canned recordings, and a general lack of innovation and a resistance to change is what got us here. Everyone is fighting for an increasingly smaller slice of the pie. You can serve more pie but it won't help for long.

it's being done in Toronto for genres outside of EDM and electronic music in general.

hasn't helped much in terms of creative output (at least from the subsidized bands that i've heard).

er... i would shy away from this kind of solution actually. imagine if raves got government subsidies in the early 90s. it would have ruined the music, no?

the only solution is to go crazy, lose sleep, lose health, lose money and make music. ... and wasn't it always this way anyway, at least with popular music?

quote:

Originally posted by Scrittah Also the government is run by old people who don't like our boom boom boom techno mooziks.

quoted for posterity

Hmm, it seems like some of you fear the loss of music fueled by passionate idealism rather then financial gain. I do sympathize with that, as i think the scene is operating just fine that way even these days. However, consider a few of these things:

• Producers may still choose to be independent.
  
• Government funding is usually more objective and is far less likely to influence output then commercial funding is.
  
• It does not look like the nineties are coming back in the foreseeable future. The whole scene would have to die out and start from scratch again, which isn't happening either.
  

i don't want my hard-earned money going to some unemployed drugged-out hippy smacking some keyboard. f that.

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange i don't want my hard-earned money going to some unemployed drugged-out hippy smacking some keyboard. f that.

Um...

In what way is culture suffering? You say "Producers these days are apparently not making enough money." What is the evidence for this? The primary consumer complaint I see on TA is that entry costs are very low, so producers are putting out a great number of tracks, many of which are of low quality. When Beatport is flooded with too many tracks, it's hard to find the best stuff. That is not a reason to subsidize the production of music. In fact, if you want to induce quality upgrading, the easiest way to do so is to raise entry costs!

If you want to subsidize the production of high-quality music, then I look forward to legislation defining musical quality.

Evidence (Joel Waldfogel, NBER 16882):

quote:

In the decade since Napster, file-sharing has undermined the protection that copyright affords recorded music, reducing recorded music sales. What matters for consumers, however, is not sellers� revenue but the surplus they derive from new music. The legal monopoly created by copyright is justified by its encouragement of the creation of new works, but there is little evidence on this relationship. The file-sharing era can be viewed as a large-scale experiment allowing us to check whether events since Napster have stemmed the flow of new works. We assemble a novel dataset on the number of high quality works released annually, since 1960, derived from retrospective critical assessments of music such best-of-the-decade lists. This allows a comparison of the quantity of new albums since Napster to 1) its pre-Napster level, 2) pre-Napster trends, and 3) a possible control, the volume of new songs since the iTunes Music Store�s revitalization of the single. We find no evidence that changes since Napster have affected the quantity of new recorded music or artists coming to market. We reconcile stable quantities in the face of decreased demand with reduced costs of bringing works to market and a growing role of independent labels.

Gated pdf.

i think it's a pretty stupid idea tbh

we have it over here, and it always ends up going to autonomists and hippies and the best thing you can hope to get out of that is some dubstep. it's not expensive to produce dance music, and, unless you're someone like faithless or hybrid, not a very good place to make a career

i'd say low entry costs are actually a good thing. low price of entry is actually part of what gave birth to the scene in the first place.

if there's one thing i'd wish for it's for the banning of making covers. god that annoys me.

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Originally posted by Spacey Orange i don't want my hard-earned money going to some unemployed drugged-out hippy smacking some keyboard. f that.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Dingel The primary consumer complaint I see on TA is that entry costs are very low, so producers are putting out a great number of tracks, many of which are of low quality. When Beatport is flooded with too many tracks, it's hard to find the best stuff. That is not a reason to subsidize the production of music. In fact, if you want to induce quality upgrading, the easiest way to do so is to raise entry costs!

^Exactly.

Government is inefficient as it is, on top of that, you expect politicians to hire competent workers to go out there and identify talented EDM producers and pay them a stipend for their music?

And you expect millions of taxpayers to willingly pay more in taxes so that a small minority of people can enjoy the proverbial "good EDM"?

EDM, or any music for the matter, isn't a public good. Why on earth should the government get involved? Let the consumers of music decide what they want to listen to by voting with their wallets. If they vote to listen to mass commercialized music, so be it. The idea of the government subsidizing music, which is inherently subject to personal taste, is beyond ridiculous.

quote:

Originally posted by Bierheld Government funding is usually more objective and is far less likely to influence output then commercial funding is.

How do you figure? How would the government set their standards to be objective for something as subjective as music? On top of that, do you really trust the government to not push their own propaganda through music?

quote:

Originally posted by Bierheld Still, potential gains would be a more healthy and accessible scene of original music with bedroom producers having more room to promote themselves. It's also a way of negating some of the supposed damage done by piracy. In a way it would make paying for music more like an optional donation. Not ideal by any means, but this is basically already the case.

The only things bedroom producers need to produce music are already available at their fingertips. Yet they are producing a ton of garbage. Now you want the government to come in and pay them to continue to produce garbage?

At least, now these bedroom producers are doing their best in the hopes of making it big. You have the government coming in and handing out cash like drunken sailors - and they'll start to produce an endless stream of garbage that fits in with whatever "objective" standard that the government sets.

quote:

Originally posted by projectd And you expect millions of taxpayers to willingly pay more in taxes so that a small minority of people can enjoy the proverbial "good EDM"?

Of course the OP is. He is probably a young kid who has yet to have to support himself financially by having a real job. That is, he probably still lives with his parents and has a lot of growing up to do.

I'm not certain what the motive behind this thought might possibly be.

You want to somehow improve the quality of music in general by ensuring that select artists are minimally compensated for their work?

Did you ever stop to consider that it's the drive to succeed amidst the gaping possibility of failure that impels people to innovate in the first place?

Also, most government employees are required to participate in drug screenings. Do you see the problem here?

I will admit to not entirely knowing if this can even be implemented yet and it will take me some time to research, this topic is just for bouncing off ideas. So don't be afraid to criticize, or insult me if that makes you feel better. Even though i don't feel like wasting my time on arguing i suppose it comes with the job.

Most of your concerns aren't new to me and I've already tried to steer around some of them in the opening post. I'll try and reply to them anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Spacey Orange i don't want my hard-earned money going to some unemployed drugged-out hippy smacking some keyboard. f that.

Don't think i don't understand this. The goal is off course to try and work around this by trying to collect money from people who have a higher chance to benefit from it, which is why i suggested to add some extra taxes to concert and festival tickets. But to be honest if that doesn't work out i'm still not opposed to using the general government treasury. You could also see it as an investment, a healthy music scene is a good way to put you're area or country on the map. Again, this is already in affect in my country: Local artists get a certain salary from local governments, And they even encourage public institutions like schools to spend a certain percentage of their funding into buying their art. This is done not only to prevent cultural demise in poorer regions that don't get opportunities for big corporate funding but also to attract tourists which is important to the region's economic growth.

quote:

Originally posted by projectd ^Exactly. Government is inefficient as it is, on top of that, you expect politicians to hire competent workers to go out there and identify talented EDM producers and pay them a stipend for their music?

I don't, if you hire companies or officials to do that job the result would no different to what labels are doing now. You have to give everyone a slice indiscriminately or you might as well not bother.
You can hire inspectors that make sure they're actually being productive But that may end up costing more then it's worth.

I will admit this is a major Achilles' heel and i'm not quite sure how you deal with it and the opportunities of abuse it creates, but i have a feeling it might be possible. As again, it's not a new thing i'm proposing here. I'm just having difficulties figuring out how these things work at the moment. I'm thinking about requiring musical education for instance. These schools usually have a high standard for talent and ambition and can help separate the good from the bad.

quote:

And you expect millions of taxpayers to willingly pay more in taxes so that a small minority of people can enjoy the proverbial "good EDM"?

I didn't expect millions of taxpayers to willingly pay taxes for getting involved in pointless wars in the middle east either. We all have things we don't like or don't agree with when it comes to government spending. The only thing that's important is that there is some objective argument for it to be worthwhile. Which is what i'm trying to figure out here.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Dingel In what way is culture suffering? You say "Producers these days are apparently not making enough money." What is the evidence for this? The primary consumer complaint I see on TA is that entry costs are very low, so producers are putting out a great number of tracks, many of which are of low quality. When Beatport is flooded with too many tracks, it's hard to find the best stuff. That is not a reason to subsidize the production of music. In fact, if you want to induce quality upgrading, the easiest way to do so is to raise entry costs!

It was established again in the recent J00F topic.
I never agreed with any of those complaints you mentioned.
From what I understand entry cost's are not low at all especially If you don't want to resort to piracy. It is not even slightly hard to find good stuff on beatport, a flood of records also means more good records after all. Raising entry costs is nonsense as it will just make it a rich man's hobby.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On I'm not certain what the motive behind this thought might possibly be. You want to somehow improve the quality of music in general by ensuring that select artists are minimally compensated for their work? Did you ever stop to consider that it's the drive to succeed amidst the gaping possibility of failure that impels people to innovate in the first place?

For some, yes. The problem now is that producing almost never nets you any money regardless of how innovative it is. How many people do you know that have made a considerable amount of money just by producing electronic music? The ones that do are not the talented or innovative, they're the businessmen, and it almost almost requires some form of live act as well. Two things that are highly problematic for a large number of producers to do. Now i will admit this will not solve any of these issues, but i'm hoping it will at least give these guys a chance both to develop and promote themselves better.

If you don't, you may have saved a few bucks but you might loose something important in the long run. But then again, maybe i'm too pessimistic. As i said before i think things are fine in that aspect to date.

quote:

Also, most government employees are required to participate in drug screenings. Do you see the problem here?

Not really? It's not like the government has to hire EM connoisseurs.

quote:

Originally posted by Bierheld It was established again in the recent J00F topic. I never agreed with any of those complaints you mentioned. From what I understand entry cost's are not low at all especially If you don't want to resort to piracy. It is not even slightly hard to find good stuff on beatport, a flood of records also means more good records after all. Raising entry costs is nonsense as it will just make it a rich man's hobby.

What's the evidence that producers don't make enough money? Don't make me hunt through an 8-page thread for it. If you agree that we have more good records than before (even if they are a smaller share of the total market), then why are you worried that producers aren't making enough money? You must be saying that we're on an unsustainable path, in which producers are currently making good records but will have to exit the industry in the future. What's the basis for that forecast?

this topic is too well written by the OP to not have lots of pages. im bumping this one, come on guys talk more about this. i want to see lots of dingle berries have pointless douchey discussion thanks,

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Dingel What's the evidence that producers don't make enough money? Don't make me hunt through an 8-page thread for it. If you agree that we have more good records than before (even if they are a smaller share of the total market), then why are you worried that producers aren't making enough money? You must be saying that we're on an unsustainable path, in which producers are currently making good records but will have to exit the industry in the future. What's the basis for that forecast?

there are a lot of producers that had to turn DJ (that didn't want to) just to be able to live man. That's a fact. A lot of the guys who have successes w/ their songs will tell you they'd rather be in the studio then on tour but the fact is they need the touring to survive and most artists have to tour constantly and that's when the music takes a dive, they have less time to devote to their productions, they have less time in their studio and they're forced to work quickly on planes, trains, hotel rooms etc. Granted they're doing music full time and that in itself is a dream come true but the amount of people who can survive solely off putting out records is microscopic.

Not only our government, but I think most in Europe are decreasing budgets for subsidizing. That's why I think it will be difficult in the next few years.
But maybe something could be done with taxes. Problem maybe is when you buy your equipment (and software) as a bedroom producer, you need to pay taxes. And when you're at the point to earn some money you already did buy all the stuff. At least I think that's how it went for my friend Lisaya, who probably won't be an exception.

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