December 2010

Might as well go out with a bang for 2010. Just read a blog post that pretty much encapsulated almost everything that is wrong with the music business in one post!!

It was posted on December 8^th on the Jazz Journalists of America website, titled Horror for freelancers? Written by my old friend Howard Mandel, a legendary jazz journalist.

The post started out by describing an email sent out to journalists concerning a Wayne Shorter concert at Town Hall in New York City. The concert was being described as a “No comp” event, meaning that everyone covering the event, writers and photographers alike, would have to buy a ticket (for $76.00).

Problem #1: Why should a concert by a legendary, but not very famous jazz musician, have tickets priced at $76.00? Has greed taken over the marketplace? Almost every blog in the music business is blaming the demise of the music business on high ticket prices. Yesterday at lunch I was explaining to three friends of mine why this sometimes happens. One of my friends is a famous catered, having done tour catering for the Rolling Stones, Dixie Chicks, etc. She was wondering why there seemed to be about 100 people working on every major tour. My explanation was this:

The promoter sets the ticket price as the band is preparing the production. They agree that the price has to cover the cost of production and leave something for each party and their representatives. The artist has to have a production commensurate with the ticket price, and the whole thing keeps on growing, until no one can afford a ticket. I remember road managing a tour in 1999. We were in rehearsal and did an inventory and figured that we needed one truck to haul all the stuff. By the end of the second day of rehearsal, the production had grown to the point that we needed a second truck, raising the cost of the tour a considerable amount (second truck, driver, fuel and lodging). At that point, raise the ticket prices or lose money.

Problem #2: The post went on to explain the pay scale for journalists:

“Considering that payment for concert reviews ranges from as little as nothing (online and in a significant number of music publications) to $50 (for print editions of some international jazz magazines) to a top of an estimated $250 (from major international newspapers — which typically assign salaried staffers and cover ticket costs), a “no comp” policy could significantly deter coverage of major performance presentations.”

This didn’t go into the pay scale for photographers. In last weeks post, I talked about the fact that over this last year, my average licensing fee was $18.10 per image. What I didn’t mention was that only about 2% of my licensed images went for more that $50.00 in fees. So, where does the $76.00 come from? The publications paying 0 to $50.00 per review certainly won’t cover the cost. So, at some point, it is better to just stay home.

Problem #3: The post goes on to quote the promoter:

“The truth is, as a presenter, I don’t really care so much about concert reviews. I need previews, which are less and less possible nowadays. I remember when I started out at FPI [Festival Productions, Inc.] 20 years ago, we used to get preview articles in the NYT. Now that is virtually unheard of. . .”

Several questions arise from this. First, is this the artist’s wish? I would thing most artists would love to have great reviews of the event- it would drive record sales, at the least and provide material to help the artist sell shows in other cities. I wonder if Wayne Shorter’s people agreed to this? If I were his manager, I would not be happy about journalists having to pay for seats. Second point, going back to problem #1- maybe if he was charging a reasonable price for tickets, he would fill the house and would be able to comp some journalists. Also, if I were Wayne’s manager, I would ask my record company (If there is one) to do a ticket buy for journalists.

Problem #4: From the blog post:

From a journalist- “Funny, my rent was only $650 back when everything was free. Now that my rent has exactly doubled, mags start wanting free content and promoters cut out press tickets. This can’t go on too much longer, at least not for me.”

For photographers, our work has been devalued to the point that the only way we can get any work is if we agree to work for free or next to free. True we are building up a stock library, but when licensing fees are dropping at an alarming rate (I licensed one image this year for 72 cents- my share was 36 cents!!!!, are stock libraries worth anything?

Then come the comments to the post.

First was a comment from David Whiteis, a very well respected Chicago journalist:

“Part of the problem, although no one wants to admit it, is that the definition of “journalist” has been seriously dumbed-down by technology in recent years. I’m pretty close to the folks who put on the Chicago Blues Festival, and I know for a fact that in recent years they’ve been utterly inundated with comp requests from self-described “journalists” and “critics” whose “assignments” are nothing more than their own desire to get their opinions aired on their own personal websites, blogs, etc. (Then there are all the fly-by-night “blues societies,” each with its own newsletter or online “publication,” and many of which seem to exist only to get their members free passes and backstage access at festivals.) In light of this, Chicago’s Mayor’s Office of Special events have seriously tightened up their procedures for getting press access — you need to jump throiugh several hoops to PROVE to them that (1) you’re on a real assignment, and (2) the “publication” you’re writing for actually exists somewhere outside of your own imagination or your own Facebook account.”

I agree almost completely with David, except for one point- restrictions have gotten so tight in the photo business that sometimes the only way that you can get any kind of access is if you invent your own publication. Is this any different than 25 years ago when we would lie to publicists, telling them that we had assignments, when the assigning magazine did not give out assignments. (Second step was to call the magazine’s photo editor and have him or her lie for us when they were asked if we were on assignment). Worked every time! Seems like today, the only way to get a start in the business is to invent your own publication. (I actually published 50,000 copies of a 32 page newspaper on three different occasions, sold advertising to pay for it and gave it away for free – much easier now to start a webzine!

Next was the best comment of the bunch, from legendary photographer Enid Farber:

“Photographers whose cost are usually pretty high because of 1.) transportation expenses to schlepp our equipment to gigs such as a Carnegie Hall concert where you need a 300mm lens and for those of us who are not as young as we used to be or have suffered bodily injuries so that we can’t carry heavy bags up and down flights of subway stairs and need to take cabs and 2.) equipment maintenance and replenishing costs and 3.) processing costs (now even with digital-the time it takes for post processing is costly); point being, if we then have to absorb the costs of the ticket to cover a performance and then do all of this for free, who is going to be left to document the music? Well it seems that there are the doctors and lawyers and other highly paid professionals with the best equipment that money can buy and are passionate about the music and don’t need the income from it, that are able to afford to keep shooting and perhaps that is the wake up call for those of us who have devoted our lives to the craft of music photography but did not prepare for the new world where we are expected to contribute our work for free and where everyone has a digital camera and fancies themselves a photographer. I hate to sound bitter but that’s what it has come to and I for one can not continue to document the music I have spent over 30 years loving if the industry makes it too difficult to work with and having my work published just to keep my name alive is not good for my health.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself! She went on to echo what I have been saying for the past year. Who is going to be there to document what is going on in music today? I earn a great part of my living contributing photos to greatest hits and best of box sets. Right now we are in the golden age where most of the great bands of the 80’s are having 20 and 25 year anniversaries and there work is being re-released with deluxe packaging. There is tons of great material out there to add value to the product. What is going to happen in 2030 when Taylor Swift and Beyonce are having their 25 anniversaries (sorry almost fell out of my chair laughing). When the art directors of that period ask for photos from 2010, everyone in America will send them the same picture!

To read the whole post:

http://news.jazzjournalists.org/2010/12/horror-for-freelancers/

People might think I am actually an intellectual if I keep on quoting the New York Times!

This week (12/17/10) the New York Times had an article written by  Damon  Kulash, the lead singer and guitarisyt for OK GO, a Chicago rock band who have relocated to California. For those who have never heard of the, they make crazy videos for very little money, all of which seem to get massive amounts of hits on uTube (in the millions). They win awards for these videos, but their record company couldn’t figure out how to translate that fame into income large enough to satisfy their corporate greed. Here is what he has to say:

We once relied on investment and support from a major label. Now we make a comparable living raising money directly from fans and through licensing and sponsorship. Our bank accounts don’t rival Lady Gaga’s, but we’ve got more creative freedom than we did as small fish in her pond.

For a decade, analysts have been hyperventilating about the demise of the music industry. But music isn’t going away. We’re just moving out of the brief period—a flash in history’s pan—when an artist could expect to make a living selling records alone. Music is as old as humanity itself, and just as difficult to define. It’s an ephemeral, temporal and subjective experience.

Many bands these days are making a career out of touring, and giving their recorded music away. Recorded music has been devalued to the point that in many cases, it is, as retailers say, a “loss leader,” a product given away to get people in the store to buy other products.

So what does this have to do with photography? Recently I did some calculations based on a premise I decided on many years ago. The premise is this:

If someone can’t afford a minimum of $50.00 to license one of my images, they should look elsewhere.

So…….. Recently I received a sales report from the agency that represents me. They licensed a rather large number of images that month, and, while reading down the list, I saw many images licensed for a fee that gave me under $2.00 as my share! So I decided to do some math, and soon figured out that although I licensed a pretty amazing amount of images over the last year, and although my checks per months were pretty nice, the average license fee (my share) was $18.10 per image. YIKES!!

So, my conclusion is that photography has been devalued, just as recorded music has, to the point that is difficult if not impossible to make a living doing this. So the question is- is there another revenue stream that will allow a photographer to make a living, while practically giving away his or her work??? That is the question that I hope to answer in the coming year.

A couple of articles I read recently made me start thinking about “Rights grabs” as they are now being called. I like to call them stealing from the photographer. I still find it hard to believe that anyone would sign one of these contracts, much the less actually send a  disc of photos to a manager or artist.

This week I read an article in the new Downbeat Magazine about companies that are bootlegging music publications, stealing annotated songs from established companies and republishing them under their own cover. It went on to say that some companies are now actually naming their publications “The Real Songbook.”

Recently somebody sent me an article from the New York Times dated August 6^th, 2010. It was called The Music Copyright Enforcers

The article follows a woman named Devon Baker, an executive with Broadcast Music Incorporated, otherwise known as BMI. They are a P.R.O., or performing rights organization; P.R.O.’s license the music of the songwriters and music publishers they represent, collecting royalties whenever that music is played in a public setting.

Her job is to go to bars and restaurants and collect a licensing fee the venues right to play copyrighted music in their establishment. They deal with radio stations, TV and cable networks, film studios andstreaming Internet music sites. But they also deal with bars and restaurants, along with funeral parlors, grocery stores, sports arenas, fitness centers, retirement homes — tens of thousands of businesses, playing a collective many billions of songs per year. The situation is very similar to a manager asking for copyright to a photographer’s work- we are not using it for anything really important, so why should we have to pay for it? The photographer should just be happy that he or she was allowed some measly access to the band!

From the article:

Once, a venue owner exploded, kicked her off his property and told her, as she recalled, “to get the bleep outta here.” Another hissed at her that she was “nothing more than a vulture that flew over and came down and ate up all of the little people.” It wasn’t fun. It was just the sort of thing, in fact, that could bring Devon Baker to tears.

Further along:

As Richard Conlon, a vice president at BMI in charge of new media, put it: “A few years back, we had Penn, Schoen and Berland, Hillary’s pollster guys, do a study. The idea was, go and find out what Americans really think about copyright. Do songwriters deserve to be paid? Absolutely! The numbers were enormously favorable — like, 85 percent. The poll asked, ‘If there was a party that wasn’t compensating songwriters, do you think that would be wrong?’ And the answer was, ‘Yes!’ So then, everything’s fine, right? Wrong. Because when it came time to ask people to part with their shekels, it was like: ‘Eww. You want me to pay?’

So, what does all of this mean? It seems that intellectual property is worth nothing in the 21^st century! Whenever I go to a show, after negotiating to not sign the ridiculous contract that is offered, I am amazed to see many photographers who have signed away all of the rights to their work, just for the ability to shoot 3 boring songs (or less) usually from a vantage point that makes it impossible for them to get anything useful from the experience. Why do they do it? I have no idea. Some say that they use fake names and signatures. But that doesn’t make the issue any more palatable. Many times I am told this:

“Everyone else is OK with this, why not you?” I usually just hang up and stay home and watch television. I earn most of my living licensing photos I took 20 or so years ago, not taking new photos. Most of the new photos taken these days are of the boring first three songs variety. What will happen in 20 years when bands of today are looking for photos from 2010? What will they come up with?

Yesterday the new Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail, with the lovely Taylor Swift on the cover, designated the “Entertainer of the Year” with another headline suggesting world domination The article inside made note (as all of her CD reviews of her new album also do) that at the age of 20 SHE WROTE ALL THE SONGS HERSELF!!!

Question: has the bar been set that low that that is newsworthy? I know there are plenty of professional songwriters churning out hits for all the young talent out there. But is it news when someone of that age group actually has the talent to write a group of songs?

I decided to do a little research:

Smokey Robinson– Born in 1940. Formed his first band at the age of 15 and started writing songs. Formed the Miracles in 1958 at the age of 18- signed with Motown (As their first artist). Released their first album in 1960 (Smokey was 20) containing songs written and co-written by Smokey, including “Shop Around” to this day one of the classic soul songs of all time.

The Beatles– Pretty good little band. John and Ringo born in 1940, Paul in 1942, George in 1943. Formed the band in 1960. In 1963, they released two albums “Please Please Me” and “With the Beatles.” Paul was 21, George was 20, John and Ringo 23. Songs included on these two albums include: “I Saw Her Standing There” “Ask Me Why” “Please Please Me” “Love Me Do” “P.S. I Love You” “Do You Want to Know a Secret” “There’s a Place” “It Won’t Be Long” “All I’ve Got to Do” and “All My Loving”

Not bad for a bunch of 20 and 21 year olds!

The Rolling Stones– The Stones were formed in 1962. Brian Jones was 20, Mick and Keith were 21. In 1964, they released “England’s Newest Hitmakers.” And “Out of Our Heads.” Songs include: “Tell Me” and “Heart of Stone.” They were a year away from “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” arguably the greatest rock and roll song ever recorded (My pick at least). More songs from that year include: “The Last Time”, “Play With Fire”, “Get Off of My Cloud” and “As Tears Go By”

So I went out in the snow this morning and bought Taylor Swift’s new album (need to make an informed decision! As she is one of those divas who only lets people shoot 30 seconds of her show from the soundboard, I will probably never see her live, this would be the only way I could hear her stuff.)  Went home, put it in the CD player and proceeded to listen. YIKES!! This is one bitter 20 year old! All the songs (or as many as I could get through) were about her getting screwed over by guys. She seems to have been pretty busy- seems to have picked a whole series of jerks. I would have to suggest that all the guys of America stay as far away from her as possible, or risk getting immortalized in a song, for all the wrong reasons. Songs are pretty nice, couple of steps above mediocre, but I would doubt that any of them will last 40 or 50 years, like all the songs above. Let’s see what she comes up with when she turns 21!