The shrinking ricebowl

Yesterday, I was just talking to sh who pon work and I pon school.... =P... and we just came upon the topic of piracy and copyrights. Both of us were debating, trying to get our own points across and talking very seriously while queueing up at the interchange for the bus to come and I could see from my view an auntie looking curiously at us like we were some weirdos.

Anyway...... to what extent is piracy a breech of copyrights?

Personally, I'm totally against the fact of giving money to pirates who try to make money of intellectual property that does not belong to them because giving them the money only allows them to buy more powerful burners to duplicate even more cds or vcds.

True, I'll rather download. And yes, I do download but I do have a principle with regards to the downloading of music. Afterall, I'm totally uninterested in downloading movies or games or anime or dramas (yes, i'm quite a bore.. haha, but its not the point that we are driving at right now)

The fact is, the ricebowl of the music industry is shrinking rather quickly. I do know of a songwriter who has sold his songs to huge names in the industry last time, but has stopped writing because it is totally not worth it any longer in terms of $$$. We may argue that a song writer composes to have his music heard but songwriters need to eat too right? So for those who are unfamiliar with how the pie is divided out in the music industry, I will attempt to give a brief explanation. Not an expert though, but its what I've learnt here and there over the last 2 years. I will not be liable for the accuracy of this information =P

Lets imagine this senario.. You go out to buy a CD (not mayday but perhaps someone like Liang Jing Ru who has pple writing songs for her and sessionists to play for her recording session).

You pay $18 for the CD to the record store
The record store however probably only paid $10 to buy it from the record company.
So, the record company earns $10
The record company who took a big risk in signing up the artiste draws majority of that $10.

The artiste must be receiving the remainder of that money?
Wrong! Because the artiste does not even receive any of it. Instead he or she does not get any royalties until they earn back an advanced payment the record company gives them upon agreement to cut an album.
In other words, the artiste is in 'debt' until his/her album sells extremely well.

Instead, that remaining royalties goes further down the line to pay the sessionists, recording/mixing engineers and then the music publishers who act as agents for the lyricists and composers.
That's alot of mouths to feed after majority of $10 per album has been deducted away...
The lyricists and composers who at the bottom of this huge production line are in fact the worse off.

In one CD, there are at least 10 songs, if the lyricists and composers are all mutually exclusive, it means that for 10 songs, there are 20 different pple involved (10 lyricists and 10 composers).
The variable rate usually given to song writers per album is about 5.55% of that $10 we mentioned earlier on.

Doing some math, 5.55% x 10 is 55cts.
Given that there are 10 songs per album, one song earns 5.5cts
The agent (the music publisher) draws 50% of this, leaving 2.75cts to the lyricist and composer
If they are 2 different pple, each earns 1.375cts for the song that they wrote per CD sold.

1 cent.... how measly can that amount get?
For every 100 albums sold, that poor composer only receives $1
Can't even buy a bowl of mee with that...
But of course, you might argue that,in the real world, who only just sells 100 albums?

Still, its essential for us to see the true details of the industry to understand fully why piracy is such a big issue today.

Even though that is no true direct correlation between the downloading of mp3s and buying of albums, there is still an undeniable connection.

In my opinion, downloading mp3s is not wrong, only until it has been abused. mp3s give us a chance to preview albums or give a listen to artistes that we probably won't bother about, but as I said, it should only be a preview. If you enjoy that album, go buy it because it is the blood and sweat of many many people.

At least, don't forget that these people are doing all these creative work for our entertainment and also to feed themselves, just as most of us do in our different jobs.

If you don't have enough money to buy an album that was pressed in Taiwan, buy a china version rather than a pirated one or depend fully on mp3s, especially if you want the music industry to thrive on.