Final Reflection

Good afternoon readers! It's a beautiful day out and after you turn in your final essay you should make some time to frolic outdoors and enjoy the sunlight (at least for a little while, then you can get back to studying and writing papers). Today I write my final submission for this class in which I will divulge to you all of my new found wisdom.

To be honest, it has been a long time since I've done such extensive critical writing, but I feel like I have learned a lot and that I have become a stronger writer and researcher because of this experience.This class has given me the ability to not only explore my own field of study extensively (the music business) but  to learn about other fields of study as well. For example, in Assignment 2 I chose to write about the nature of radical environmental movements and the rhetorical means by which documentary creators get their messages across. I knew that going into that assignment would be a challenge because I had no prior background knowledge or experience with the radical environmental movement or its causes nor had I ever truly attempted to understand the rhetoric of documentary making, but now I am more informed than ever about both of these subjects. This experience taught me the importance of gaining a new perspective on complex movements. It also got me interested in further researching the relationship between protestors and law enforcement officers as well as the division of loyalty police feel when faced with protest movements.

This class has also allowed me to see the complexity of the linkage between two fields of study. I've found that the relationship between law and ethics drives business but that this relationship is extraordinarily complex. This complexity creates some confusion within the music industry. I can use this knowledge in the future to make more ethical decisions while working within the music business and to better decipher the ethical/unethical actions performed within the confines of the business. Or I can just go to law school and become an entertainment lawyer. Either way.

In the future I will likely continue to blog. For me blogging is a way in which I release all of my creative energies and emotions. What I love about blogging is that you can always look back through your archives and see how far you've come as a writer. In terms of research, you can see the research development process from start to finish on your blog and can see how much more you have learned about any given subject. In terms of creative writing you can see the complexity in the development of your stories and poems. Currently I have this blog as well as a poetry blog, but I would really like to start a travel blog or a blog about current events and issues within the production side of the music business. I think that this would be an interesting way to use my spare time instead of refreshing Facebook or stalking Tumblr blogs.

Anyway, I would like to thank you all for taking the time to read this blog and would like to thank you, Professor for all of your hard work and dedication to this class. I appreciate all of you and can't wait to see the results of your labors!

With love,

Lacee

Law and Ethics - Which Rules?

You may or may not remember from my class presentation that I talked about how society's expectations govern the ethical guidelines under which corporations operate. If you don't remember here's the quote I used:

 “Society is predicated upon behaviour that it expects will advance itself. It is not interested in behaviour that will force the society to regress. Business is established and allowed to exist because in capitalist societies it is deemed to have a central and pivotal role in the betterment of society.”

- Svensson and Wood, 2008

I found that society's expectations do not only affect ethical behavior, but that they also affect the laws under which corporations and the rest of society operate. Why is this? Because the laws under which corporations operate are naturally affected by ethical principles. This idea is so incredibly intriguing, and I'm not going to go into all of the details here because there's so much to write about and not all of it will be relevant to this paper, but I think it's worth bringing up. I actually think I could write an entire research paper about the way the law and ethics are intertwined, but I'll save that for another day. Anyway, I found this wonderful article by Jose Antonio Marina called "Genealogy of Morality and Law" that does a great job simplifying this topic. 

Here's the progression of his argument for why law and ethics are intertwined:

1. Law aims to search for acceptable ways to solve conflict.
2. A conflict may only be considered as solved when protection of some value considered as fundamental for coexistence is achieved.
3. One feature of law is to search for a system of solution to social conflicts that keep society's fundamental values safe.
4. The selection and justification of those fundamental values is not legal but moral.
5. Therefore: The fundamental criteria to legally solve problems is extralegal.

In lamens terms, ethics help to shape laws, but together laws and ethics govern business. How and why is this important to the recording industry?

The recording industry has copyright law to govern its actions as well of the actions of music consumers. The recording industry legally has the right to sue its consumers. But does that mean that it is ethically sound for the recording industry to sue one music pirate but not another to prove a point? Based on the animosity that has been bred between the recording industry (aka business) and its consumers (aka society) it seems like society is against big business suing individual consumers. If ethical principles are governed by society, and a majority of those in society think that it is not ok for the recording industry to sue individual music pirates, then perhaps it is not ethically sound for the recording industry to sue individual music pirates.

But then you must ask: If society governs what is ethically sound, and ethics shape the meaning of laws, should copyright law be abolished? That's not an easy question to answer and I don't intend to answer it here. Copyright law has its own ethical implications and reasoning behind it. It is meant to protect the rights of the creators of each work, but in the growing technological age it may just act as a barrier to innovation. It protects the creative works of society, which is why it was implemented in the first place, but at the same time it's stifling the sharing of music throughout society, which is something that consumers dislike. It is a complicated subject. Perhaps I should continue to look into it.

When Economics Become An Ethical Issue

Hello, hello dear reader. I'm back again to talk to you about some ethical issues that might just make an appearance in my research paper. Today I'd like to talk to you about the economics of the music biz and how ethics and economics sometimes just don't match up.

You've probably read a lot of reports about how the recording industry is going under financially and how record companies are becoming closer and closer to being a failing enterprise. Curious about whether this was true or not, I decided to check up on the latest Nielsen Soundscan forecast to see how well the recording industry was doing in comparison to previous years. Here are the facts from their 2011 report:

• Total music purchases reached the 1.6 billion mark for the first time
• Overall album sales are up by 3.2% from 2010
• Total album sales are up for the first time since 2004 with total sales equaling 330.6 million
• More vinyl albums were purchased in 2011 than in any other year since Soundscan's inception - interestingly enough they accounted for 1.2% of album sales (WOAH!)
• Digital music sales account for 50.3% and for the first time digital sales are larger than physical album sales
• Physical album sales declined by 5%

What Nielsen's forecast shows us is that overall the music business is doing extremely well for itself, but consumers are still under the impression that it's in this state of failure. Why is this so?

What consumers don't know is that the "Big Four" record companies control 80% of the music market, aka the number of albums that come out in any given year. These four record companies have the ability to influence media coverage and consumer beliefs about the music business and about music piracy. So if the Big Four tell the media that they're in a state of failure because they're not recouping enough money from album sales this makes it seem like the entire industry is in a state of failure. Is this an ethical move by the Big Four? My initial response is a big N-O. Why? Because as a music consumer myself I feel like I have been deceived into believing that an entire industry is failing when it's really just a couple of companies who aren't making as much of a profit and want me to believe an entire industry is failing so they can recoup their losses. It just puts a bad taste in my mouth. But then I had to ask myself: Even thought overall music sales are up, does that mean profit is up within the industry overall? To be honest I can't really say, but let's delve into this a little further to see if we can figure it out.

Let's say that putting out an album costs $500,00 to create and distribute. This money comes out of the record company's pocket in the form of an "advance" to the artist and then the artist is expected to recoup a large percentage (if not 100%) of this cost through album and merchandise sales before the record company or the artist ever gets paid.*

Now putting together a physical album package (CD and jewel case) probably costs around $0.90 to make and is then sold in a retail store for about $15. This means for every album sold the artist is getting back $14.10 that they can use to pay off that $500,000 advance so that both artist and record company make money faster. But with a digital album sale there is no physical album to distribute so when the artist sells a single song on let's say iTunes, they get $0.99 from each single song and $9.99 for each album sold that they can use to pay back that $500,000. Furthermore, many online music shoppers don't purchase full albums anymore because they're only interested in purchasing their favorite individual songs on iTunes. This is very different from purchasing a physical album for obvious reasons: with a physical album you're paying for all of the songs on that album and don't have the option to purchase individual songs. So artists are likely not recouping money as quickly, which means both record company and artist suffers.*

So is the industry failing? I think it's probably just moving into a new plain of existence. Time will tell.

NOTE: I'm sure some of the numbers and projections in these paragraphs aren't 100% correct so forgive me for that. I just wanted to give a general view of how the system works more than anything.

The Musician's Business Model: Lessons From Mike Masnick and Trent Reznor

Obviously it's been a while since I've posted here and for that I apologize, but I do have some updates for you that I hope you'll find interesting and exciting.

Throughout my research I've read a plethora of Tech Dirt articles by Mike Masnick, who debunks a lot of myths and rumors about the ethics and economics of the music business. I will admit, I don't know much about Masnick's background, but he seems as informed, if not more informed, than any record label executive I have ever met. Anyway, as I was browsing through Nielsen Soundscan numbers (for those of you who don't know, Nielsen Soundscan tracks all music sales) I ran across a video lecture from Masnick in which he talks about Trent Reznor's (lead singer of Nine Inch Nails) business model for selling music. It's actually really simple and looks like this:

CwF (connect with fans) + RtB (reason to buy) = Business Model ($$$)

Let's run through these elements one by one using one of the Trent Reznor business models Masnick displays in his video lecture. The album we're going to examine is called Year Zero. As a brief introduction Year Zero was written in 2007 as a concept album. The album's goal was to criticize the current state of the United States government through presenting a dystopian view of the world in 2022 and featured the song "Capital G" that seemed to directly criticize President George W. Bush. At this point in time Reznor and Nine Inch Nails were signed to a major record label and Year Zero was to be released on this major record label.

Step 1: Connect With Fans (CwF)

Reznor connected with fans in two ways: 

1. He hosted an internet scavenger hunt that helped to enhance the fan experience beyond the music Nine Inch Nails was putting out. This scavenger hunt helped to engage and excite fans for the release of the new album and gave them something to do in anticipation for Nine Inch Nails's upcoming tour.

2. For every tour date Nine Inch Nails went out on Reznor had USBs with new music on them hidden in bathrooms all across the world. Fans found these USBs and were encouraged to share the new tracks online with others. This drew fans out to the tour in droves and further unified the fan community by strengthening their relationship to one another and to Nine Inch Nails as a band.

Step 2: Reason to Buy (RtB)

Reznor had the attention of his fans, but now he needed to find a way to profit from that fan connection: he needed to give Nine Inch Nails fans a reason to purchase a physical album. He did this through creating a CD that changed colors as it warmed up. As Masnick points out, this color change is something you cannot duplicate in an MP3 format. And although this color change doesn't seem like a big deal, the album sold over 187,000 albums in its first week out and reached number two on the Billboard top 200 charts. That sounds like a win to me.

Step 3: Profit

Needless to say, this fan connection combined with a reason to buy a physical copy of Year Zero led to some nice profits for Reznor and Nine Inch Nails.

Masnick seems to think that Reznor's strategy was brilliant, and I cannot help but agree with him. Unfortunately Reznor's record label and the RIAA did not find this approach amusing. The RIAA began hunting down fans who were sharing these new music files online which became problematic for several reasons. First and foremost, the RIAA seemed to forget that it was Reznor's choice to hand out his music for free, but instead of punishing Reznor or the band for their actions, the RIAA punished Nine Inch Nails' fans for sharing music that was already given to them for free. Second, instead of embracing the free marketing campaign Reznor had presented them with, the "big four" record labels did what they always do: they fought against a technology that could help them move forward into a new business model. Furthermore, when the RIAA started treating NIN fans like criminals instead of like regular people, they created an animosity between the recording industry and those who purchase NIN's music. Fans started seeing record labels as a nefarious entity instead of as a business. This led to a state of distrust that major labels are yet to bounce back from.

But the damage was already done and Reznor was ready to test his business model again. Nine Inch Nails separated themselves from their record label and continues to operate under this business model successfully today.

If you want to learn more about Masnick's point of view and Reznor's strategies, I recommend that you read Masnick's article here and view the entire video lecture below.

Ethics and The Music Business

I went to my first concert when I was 13 years old. I remember everything about it: the wait in line, the rush to get inside the venue, the butterflies in my stomach and the stars in my eyes, and everything in between. That night the Hush Sound, From First To Last, Hawthorne Heights, The All-American Rejects, and Fall Out Boy played in that exact order. I reveled in the beauty of their music. I screamed every word to every song, knew every crescendo and decrescendo hidden in each melody. I was lost in a vast sea of 15,000 people, and although they were strangers to me I felt so connected to them. It was like I had finally found my place in the world. I felt free there, I felt like I belonged in that moment, and I try to never let that feeling go. I fell in love with the music industry that night and have been fascinated in its workings every since.

Fast forward eight years to the 21 year old sitting here typing this blog piece. At this point I've been to hundreds of shows, I've had the pleasure of seeing some of the most highly revered artists in the world, and I have had the pleasure of working in the music industry myself. I have developed a lot of skills, not just in the professional sense but also in the social sense, and have gained a lot of knowledge by working with some of the finest people I'll ever meet. I know a lot more now about the business than I did a few years ago, but I'll admit that there are so many things that are still mysterious to me. I have seen some of the most luminous parts of this job but know that there has always been a subtle darkness within it. I have heard stories of bribery, fraud, theft, links back to the mob or to other shadowy figures, and executives resorting to desperate measures to save their own career or to sabotage the careers of others. The question that immediately comes to mind is: Are these stories true? And if they are, are they just reminiscent of another time or do these "crimes" still occur today? I hope to examine some of these charges to determine the current ethical state of the music industry, or to determine whether there are ethical values within the music industry at all.

You may be wondering why understanding the ethics of the music business is important at all. Honestly, this research is a bit of a selfish endeavor. I want to understand what kind of ethical values might govern the way I react to various work circumstances in my future career. I want to know what I'm getting into. I also want to share this information with folks like me who are trying to break in to the music industry so they can better understand the way the biz functions. So what do you say, are you ready to take this journey with me?

Does it Make a Sound?

The documentary that I have chosen to write about for our second assignment is called "If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front". The Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, is a leaderless, international environmental organization whose soul mission is to protect the wilderness they love.

Marshall Curry's goal in the creation of this film was to display the complexity of the issues surrounding environmental radicalism and domestic terrorism. The film features interviews from ELF members who were part of a sect called "The Family," FBI investigators, environmental experts, and lumber mill owners among others. Curry has been applauded by news sources such as the New York Times for his even-handedness in surveying these complex issues and the reasoning behind the actions of each party involved.

I chose to write about this film not because I am an expert on the Earth Liberation Front, in matters of environmental radicalism or on eco-terrorism, but because I have in interest in better understanding how these three elements operate together. I am interested in debating the same questions that Curry asks over and over again: Why do environmental radicalists take such extreme actions? How do we define terrorism? Is it terrorism if someone burns down a building and nobody is in it? How have our perceptions of terrorism changed over time? These questions keep me intrigued.

Here is the trailer for the film:

Welcome

Welcome to my WRIT 340 blog where I will detail my every day thoughts about WRIT 340: Writing For The Social Sciences.
Please enjoy this wonderful trailer of Beasts of The Southern Wild while you're here.



And be sure to visit the University of Southern California website here.
Here's some daily food for thought: