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    Superfans: Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry
    Superfans: Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry
    Superfans: Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Superfans: Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry

    By Emily Gumbulevich

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    About this ebook

    Ever wonder where your concert ticket money goes or what happens when you stream your favorite song on Spotify? Heard about the Music Modernization Act but not sure what it means? In Superfans: Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry, concert fanatic Emily Gumbulevich dives straight into the mysteries of the music industry.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNew Degree Press
    Release dateApr 8, 2020
    ISBN9781641374910
    Superfans: Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry

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      Book preview

      Superfans - Emily Gumbulevich

      Superfans_Amazon_Ebook_Cover.jpg

      Superfans

      Superfans

      Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry

      Emily Gumbulevich

      New Degree Press

      Copyright © 2020 Emily Gumbulevich

      All rights reserved.

      Superfans

      Power, Technology, and Money in the Music Industry

      ISBN

      978-1-64137-489-7 Paperback

      978-1-64137-490-3 Kindle Ebook

      978-1-64137-491-0 Ebook

      Dedication

      To my Pandemic Legacy partner: there’s no one I would rather be with at the end of the world.

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      PART ONE

      Chapter 1:

      Starving Artists

      Chapter 2:

      How Did We Get Here?

      Chapter 3:

      Pirates

      Chapter 4:

      Well-oiled Machine

      Chapter 5:

      Behind the Velvet Curtains

      PART TWO

      Chapter 6:

      Money

      Chapter 7:

      Why Now?

      Chapter 8:

      Change

      Conclusion

      Appendix

      Acknowledgments

      I would not have been set down the path of trying to help creators quit their day jobs without the courage to engage with artists at small live shows. For that courage and education, I am grateful for my longtime friend and college classmate, Sean O’Keefe, who convinced me to abandon my plans to watch Pitch Perfect again and instead to leave my studio apartment that fateful night in May 2015.

      Without Sean’s encouragement, I would not have met Connor, Emily, Mikaela, Jenn, Aly, Chelsea, or Becca, all of whom changed my life by showing me how to be a superfan. A special thank you to all of these friends for sharing their stories with me for this project and for being supportive listeners when I became overtired or frustrated with writing.

      Thank you to my family for supporting me throughout this book-writing process, particularly to my parents, Kristina and Kenneth, for always encouraging me to work hard and pursue my constant curiosity, and for instilling in me a love of music at a very young age; to my siblings, Jennifer and Kenny, fellow music superfans, for understanding and supporting me through thick and thin; and to my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, without whom this book would not be published: Matt and Tamara, Bobby and Carly, Steve and Cheryl, Robert and Karen, Tiffany and JP, Linda and Jimmy, Rick and Sharon, Lauren and Ken, Tony and Karen.

      Thank you to all of my interviewees. Without you, I would not have pivoted my thesis into what it is today. Thank you for sharing your stories, advice, and support of my mission to help creators find success.

      Thank you to my educators, especially Brian Pinaire, for believing in me and pushing me to write. Thank you to Lehigh University for creating a wonderful atmosphere for creativity and curiosity to flourish, and for introducing me to some of the most amazing lifelong friends: Victoria, Doug, Eric, Seth, and Carl.

      A very special thank you to Eric Koester—I appreciate your unwavering positivity and determination, and your dedication to your students.

      Thank you to my editors, Ashley and Bailee, and to the New Degree Press team—Brian, Leila, Amanda—for your input, feedback, and most of all, patience throughout this process. You truly made this book transform from a collection of thoughts swirling around in my head into something that makes sense.

      Thank you to my work colleagues, past and present, particularly to Deborah, Simone, Tracy, Will, Kenny, Stacy, Randy, Katie, Sunish, Matthew, and Andrew, who helped me cross the finish line in my fundraising campaign, and to those who were patient with me when I came in with bags under my eyes or used my lunch hour to conduct interviews. I am lucky to have colleagues who support having passions outside of work.

      Finally, a HUGE thank you to everyone who supported my book through my fundraising campaign and contributed ideas in my beta reader group. Without you, I would not have been able to complete this journey to seeing this book on shelves. I am so grateful for your support:

      Angelo DeRosa

      Kristen Sweeney

      Matthew Diamond

      Derek Clark

      Nifemi Aluko

      Matt Brooks

      Shelley Strong

      Linda Gottlieb

      Introduction

      Forty years ago, co-writing a song with Ringo Starr would have provided me a house and a pool. Now, estimating a hundred thousand plays on Spotify, we guessed we’d split about eighty dollars,¹ explains world-renowned composer, songwriter, and musician Van Dyke Parks.

      In a 2014 op-ed, Parks describes heading up to Ringo Starr’s home and spending two straight days working on a song together.² For the sake of argument, let’s say that they each spent two typical workdays—eight hours per day—on the song. Splitting the aforementioned eighty dollars, which Parks later describes as optimistic³ because Spotify typically pays a fraction of a cent per play, would result in a payment of forty dollars each for sixteen hours of work, or $2.50 per hour. For comparison, US federal minimum wage in 2014 was $7.25/hour.⁴

      Songwriters are not usually paid by the hour, though that might be more lucrative than how they typically get paid. Sometimes, they don’t get paid at all. When it is deemed difficult to trace a song back to its copyright owners, royalties end up in what the industry has termed a black box.⁵ The royalties never reach the owners of the copyright so the streaming services, or whoever is attempting to pay the royalties, can keep the owed money indefinitely.

      Further, the US Copyright Office allowed for bulk-filing of the necessary forms to claim that the owner of the copyright was too difficult to discern or find, which gave streaming services an easy out from having to find the rights’ owners.⁶ These services would file thousands of claims at once to avoid having to search for the rights holders to pay when songs from their catalogs were streamed.

      Black Box

      Van Dyke Parks’ story is just one small example of how broken the music industry is today, and unfortunately, this is not a new problem. In 1781, a newspaper declared that the music-shop keepers take the money, and for the composer remains only the honour, by which he is to live.⁷

      I always imagined that behind the big velvety red curtains in every old theatre worldwide, there hummed a well-oiled machine: the music industry. I thought that the industry had plans for every artist to follow in order to make it big: a clear path to fame, big fat checks, and private jets.

      I was dead wrong. My Disney-esque image of the music industry, rooted in The Lizzie McGuire Movie and Josie and the Pussycat Dolls ignorance, slowly broke down over the past five years as I educated myself:

      •A major milestone of success for creators is being able to quit their day jobs and live off of the money they make from music. Sometimes it takes years to reach this milestone.

      •The industry isn’t just confusing and opaque for fans—it is for creators as well (artists, songwriters, musicians, producers, et al.).

      •My ticket/merchandise/whatever money typically reaches the artist last.

      •It is challenging to support yourself or your family with a career in music.

      •If we don’t fix this, we risk losing an important part of our culture.

      The term black box⁸ is a great way to describe the current music industry in general. At the very least, there is a lack of transparency in how (and how much) people are paid, where fans’ money ends up, and how to succeed. Contrary to other career paths, being an artist does not have a straight-line trajectory or clear next steps. In addition to weaving and bobbing, there are mountains and vales—times when artists seem to be making it and times when they are not able to feed themselves.

      Starving Artist

      If we ignore this problem, we risk significant damage to our culture. Making music must be a choice that can support creators and their families or people will stop choosing it as a career. If recording music cannot pay money, it will cease to become an occupation, it will become a hobby,⁹ proclaimed Alex Ebert, singer/songwriter of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, at Boston-based Berklee College of Music’s Rethink Music event.

      Further, X Ambassadors’ manager Seth Kallen aptly notes, If the artists can’t feed themselves, there will be no more music.¹⁰

      A deeper look at the music industry over three hundred years from George Frederic Handel’s first copyright in 1720 to Taylor Swift’s battle with Scooter Braun in 2020 reveals that fans, artists, and inventors have taken the industry head-on when the longevity of culture is threatened. In the past, how the industry reacted to and bent with changes in laws, technology, and popular tastes would shape the following era of how people consume music.

      We are fast approaching one of those times again. Since the rise of Napster and peer-to-peer file-sharing networks in 1999, earning a living off of recorded music has been even more difficult, pushing artists to rely more heavily on tour and synchronization (sync) revenues. Despite the inability to completely replace the recording revenues formerly generated from traditional music purchases, streaming services have changed how people find, listen to, and pay for music.

      The availability of music via the internet and the rise in touring means fans are consuming more music than ever before in history.¹¹ In a recent episode of his podcast Musonomics, Larry Miller, a professor at New York University, discusses the 2019 International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s annual report on global music listening. Professor Miller reveals that music listening is up a bit from 2018 with respondents typically spending eighteen hours a week listening to music¹² and that 64 percent of all respondents access[ed] a music streaming service in the past month, up by about 7 percent over 2018.¹³

      Furthermore, the increase in touring and the pervasiveness of social media have created deeper connections between artists and fans than ever before, leading to potential new levels of cooperation between creator and consumer.

      A new music industry was born in the late 1990s to early 2000s from the adoption of services such as Napster and eventually Spotify, but key aspects, such as record labels and copyright laws, have not changed quickly enough in turn.

      Chocolate Chip Cookies

      My understanding of success in the music

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