Monetising Music

There has been a couple of interesting surveys and statistics over the last couple of days about the take up of digital media.

On the one hand there is the survey showing just how widespread and prevalent piracy within the music industry is.

On the other are the most recent figures released by the Publishers' Association showing digital sales of books soaring.

This highlights a number of points.

First is the speed at which the two industries have adopted digital technology.

The music industry has been dragged very into a very reluctant relationship with MP3s. When they first appeared, the industry didn't really pay much attention until they already had a strong-hold. Then, rather than embrace the technology, try to adopt it and find ways for it to work for the industry, they tried to stamp it out, instead releasing CDs that couldn't be ripped or that installed malicious code onto your computer. The problem is that innovation just doesn't go away, especially when it has a number of very appreciable conveniences over the old format.

Even when they did eventually adopt the digital format, they tried to do so in the most inconvenient manner for the consumer, adopting all sorts of digital rights managements and protects which made the digital unit equally as inaccessible as the physical formats. And they still tried to charge the same. Quite how it is justifiable to charge the same price for a digital album which doesn't have the same print, production, transportation, storage and retail costs is quite a mystery. Unfortunately the industry still didn't learn and took a very similar attitude of anti-engagement with streaming services. It can hardly be a surprise then that piracy has such a stronghold.

On the flipside are books. Books have readily embraced digital. The publishers have seen the development as a way to maximise profits - reducing costs such as transport and bookshop premiums; and decreasing the price to encourage customers to consume more. They have made it as easy as possible to get books into your hands. Not only do the digital formats, in the same way as digital music, mean you can carry a much greater volume in a significantly smaller and lighter medium; not only do they give you the convenience of downloading where and when you want rather than having to be in the vicinity of the shop; not only have they passed on the cost savings achieved by such ease of distribution; but they have also enhanced the secrecy of the reader, allowing you to read things that otherwise you would have no intention of reading. And they have made it as easy as possible too - you don't even need to buy a bespoke reader, because you can download an app onto your smartphone. And the figures show it: with books, piracy simply is not an issue. And, rather than people simply moving from the physical to the digital format, they are actually buying more.

Piracy with books hasn't had a look in, mostly because the publishers sought out digital formats very early on, well before piracy had tried to take a hold. They actively sought out ways to make the technology work for them, tactics to actively encourage the customer to adopt their technology. They made it easy - far easier than buying a book - and that is why it worked.

Now, don't get me wrong - piracy is theft. There is copyright in the music, in the lyrics, in the performance and the production. And this is a valuable investment of someone (in fact many people)'s time. If they make it available at a cost, then to take it without paying that cost is illegal - it is breach of copyright. No matter how much easier (or rather how much more convenient) it is to obtain from an unauthorised source, or your misguided 'moral' objection to “paying for students to pratt around with a guitar”, it is illegal. I do a lot of work in copyright and intellectual property, and believe me these days it is becoming far more valuable an asset than a lot of the physical property within a business.

However, one of the other differences that certainly the piracy article highlighted was the difference in the attitudes between the artists; and it very much questions the motivation behind being an 'artist'.

Some artists speak out on piracy, very actively calling pirates thieves. And it is true, both from the view of intellectual property, and as a worker: these are people who make their living from their music, they deserve to get paid for their music. Art is as much a contribution to society as pure industrial endeavours, and they are due just reward.

But a lot don't see it like that. Ed Sheeran - whose album was highlighted in the first report - has sold 1.2 million albums. That's a lot of albums. But almost six times as many albums have been shared illegally, downloaded with no financial consideration coming back to him. And yet he is very sanguine about it: “My gig tickets are like £18, and my albums £8, so ... it's all relative”. Which is nice if you are selling gig tickets.

But that attracts a different commerciality to the album - essentially acting as advertising for the concert rather than the art in itself. If you're making money from the gigs and the merchandise and therefore don't care about the album or how widely pirated it is all is well and good. Once upon a time the same used to be said of radio airplay, that it encouraged people out to buy the track; nowadays the royalty cheque from PRS for the airplay is sufficient to keep some long-gone bands in the mansions they bought in their heydays.

But then is it art? Surely the moment that the commerciality takes priority over the artistry, the integrity of the artist is lost?

Take public art, for example. I don't have to pay a fee to enjoy it. If the artist were true about the artistic merit, surely they would just want people to enjoy it? Some bands very much take that attitude: they deliberately release their tracks free to obtain as broad an awareness as possible. Certainly earlier on in your career (probably when you don't have the backing of a corporate record label who need to make a return to pay their staff, invest in risky bands, and provide a viable business investment) this is a more frequently used channel.

But does that devalue the art or the freely accessible music? It almost certainly means that we consume more - because it is free - but does it mean that we dilute the good stuff? By exposing ourselves to so much information do we ignore the detail and just concentrate on the quick, immediate, overall impression, rejecting an analysed critique in favour of the next whatever? Or by exposing ourselves to so much do we stumble across things we would never have remotely considered before? I suspect this is a point for a much more involved moot.

My favourite way of consuming music is to go and see the small, start-up bands doing gigs down the local pubs - gigs which are normally free. I then end up buying all the albums they have released from them at the gig. The same is true of comedy - I would rather go and see the free gig and contribute what I thought was appropriate to a bucket afterwards. I do believe I should contribute some financial reward for the enjoyment that their music has brought to me; rather than that reward be paid for by a council or a quango or some other arts body as is the case with public sculptures and galleries. Not that I don't go to public galleries - on the contrary, I regularly go to the openings, which (ironically) usually includes free gigs from local bands.

So what else is there. Well, at the moment the Zeitgeist is crowd-sourcing. You can't move for articles where journalists believe they are the first people to be telling you about it or naming the 'K' website. But again, is that sustainable? How long before Kickstarter becomes overwhelmed by artists thinking their the next big thing? How long before investors take just one too many gamble that never amounts to anything? How long till people get bored of the CurrentBigFad and move on to the NexterBiggerFaddier site? Remember Draw Something? No, I thought not.

Ultimately music, and books, have to be treated as an art; and it is the manner in which the art interacts with an individual and the individual back with the art that is the crucial relationship. The internet has not killed off art galleries - it has actually caused them to thrive as people want to see the work in person, to involve other people in the conversation. And just as you and your friends can discuss the qualities of the latest album release on your social media site; there really is nothing like going along, enjoying a gig with a pint and then babbling incessantly about how amazing it was afterwards. Believe me - just look at the explosion in the number of festivals there have been over the years.

Digital formats are to feed the need. They are accessible for when the gig or installation isn't. They are another revenue stream, whether directly or by 'advertising'; but they are never - and have never been - the only way (or even the major way) to make money from it.

And let's face it - if there was no financial reward, the artistic industry would simply be unsustainable, or filled with toffee-nosed kids who can afford to be artists because daddy made a shed-load of money as the lead singer in a rock band in the 70s.

Dying for the pub

Now, we've all heard about the death of the traditional British boozer, haven't we?

Every few months or so the tabloids print off the latest statistics about the number of pubs that have closed in the last X many number of months.

The most recent I was able to find was from CAMRA themselves who - back in April - found that 300 pubs had closed in 6 months. That's 12 pubs every single week, they tell us.

Shall I do the 'stats' bit?

So, there are around 650 parliamentary wards in the country. So that's one pub per ward per year.

Nottingham itself has around 300 pubs in the city centre alone, with 903 in the county in total. And that's just Nottinghamshire - in the country there are between 50,000 and 60,000 depending upon where you obtain your statistics. So it's hardly a headline.

But why are there so many pubs closing?

Over-supply is one problem.

In the village where I used to live there were originally three pubs. The village had a population of around 300 people. That is a massive over-supply, and therefore no surprise that over time two of the three pubs have become restaurants. Now, yes - it is a riverside village and in the summer month (yes, that isn't a typo) the bars were very popular with walkers, boaters and motorcyclists. But outside of that month they limped along, barely covering costs at times.

Similarly as I walk down the road on my way to the train station I pass three pubs that have closed down. Why? Because they are all right next to each other. And this is outside the 'city' envelope - they are on an arterial route in, but nowhere near the main social or accommodation conurbations. There are very few houses around. How on earth the small handful of houses that there were within the catchment of these three pubs sustained them for so long I will never know, but it is clear that the profits hadn't been substantial enough to undertake a refurbishment for many years.

And this is a second reason - change. The reason there are no houses around is that the areas behind the 'front row' on the route have become industrial and business premises. Whilst the area around has developed, the island enclave has stubbornly refused to adapt, and therefore survive.

For some pubs, that is part of their charm. The quaint, old boozer where you stick to the carpet. And, as ever, it is about knowing your customers. Whilst the city centre bar may benefit substantially from a massive refurbishment into a super stylish cocktail bar; in the suburbs or out in the sticks the money will not produce an effective return, and - worse still - risks alienating a sitting consumer base, particularly if the prices rise to reflect the 'exclusivity' that the new décor demands, either to cover the cost of the refurbishment, or to attract a whole new clientèle.

And yes, society has changed manyfold. Whereas before these tiny, cornerhouse pubs used to sustain themselves with a regular, daily consumer base; that consumer base has aged, dwindled and been eroded by other economic pressures.

Whilst the tendency of the industry is to bemoan higher costs, rising taxes and the like, they have to acknowledge that yes, to a degree people are drinking at home because it is cheaper; but more that the pub is an inherently social beast. If people want socialising, they will go out; however when finances are tight they will go out less. Believe me, I have seen this second-hand after a friend of mine lost his job and stopped going to the pub. He was craving going out - that is 'going out', not just 'a drink'. He didn't replace going out with drinking at home; he just did anything expensive a lot less.

To a degree there has been a movement towards more drinking at home, but rather than simply because of the rising taxes it is more about a wider change to the pubbing and clubbing landscape.

Whilst people were up in arms about 24 hour drinking and such like, the horror stories never actually occurred. But what did occur was a wider cultural change: people just went out a little later. Pubs and clubs actually were not that bothered about staying open 24 hours; they just wanted to stay open later. And whereas before if you wanted to carry on drinking after 11pm you had to do it in a club, these days a lot of bars (certainly on a Friday or Saturday night) are open until 1 or 2am. There's suddenly no desperate rush to get the pints in before getting kicked out at 11:30; suddenly you can be more relaxed. If anything, it has shifted the 'drinking at home' aspect from cracking open the cans when you got home at 11:30pm, to cracking them open whilst you have a more leisurely time getting ready to go out.

Where as once I would go out somewhere between 8 and 9, because of these changes, I don't go out until later. But that suits me better: I don't get home until 7pm.

And in the modern age where we commute further and for longer that suits. Whereas once the boozer was half-way between the factory or office and home, these days we are having to drive back, so stopping off is not only inconvenient, but it is unacceptable. And bear in mind that the catchment areas for workplaces these days are considerably greater, the 'local' pub is quite probably well off a large majority of the workers' way home.

And there has been a tendency to go out less during the week anyway, again fuelled by this change in the workforce. People have become very much more aware that they have to drive the following morning; therefore are more reluctant to drink much of an evening. And with the longer commutes and later arrivals, so time is an even more precious commodity, and the moments at home are all the more valuable.

Nottingham's gay scene is a classic example of all these things going wrong.

For a start there are too many bars to be sustained by the community. Unless there was a vast interest in travelling consumers - unless the scene established itself as a destination to which people should travel - there is simply not the customer-base for the number of bars that there are.

And then they are all sitting on top of each other; or alternatively too far scattered. It may sound contradictory, but where they all have the same customer base, are all competing in the same manner, to have them all so close to each other is counter-productive. But then if they are too far apart, people simply won't walk between them. One of the bars at the very periphery of the scene - the New Foresters - is suffering from this. As the scene gradually shifted towards the Lace Market, it has found it more and more difficult to encourage people to walk the half a mile up the road.

If you look at densely concentrated scenes, then the bars don't directly compete. Look to Manchester, or to Birmingham and you will see that each bar has its own customer base, its own unique selling point. One bar is for muscles, one is for bears, one is for cheap and dirty, one is for camp. Nottingham gay scene doesn't do that - all the bars seem to squabble over the same customers. It isn't the same for Nottingham pubs generally; elsewhere in the city there is a very healthy nightlife. But the gay scene does itself no justices.

No sooner does a new bar open up, trying to establish itself with a particular offer or evening, the existing bars vociferously attack, undercutting and undermining the new(ish) offering.

And for all of these reasons, the gay bars in Nottingham seem to shut down and reopen with all the best intentions on a frequent basis.

Swimming etiquette

So, we all know the 'rules' - no bombing, no running, no heavy petting (whatever that was; and who decided the difference between 'light' petting and 'heavy'?)

But anyway, having gone swimming last night, I have come up with a number of points of etiquette. They aren't strict rules, they just help everything go smoothly. There may be more to add in due course.

Be conscientious when joining a lane. Unless you are most definitely the fastest person in the lane (and not simply the most arrogant) don't start immediately in front of someone. Generally the best time to join the lane is in the middle of the biggest gap of swimmers. which brings me on to...

Always give precedence to people who are swimming. Don't assume that they are going to stop for a break at the end of a length - they have the right to carry on over and above any interruption. If they are in the 'red' section of the lane markers, let them come and go before even thinking about starting out.

Public swimming pools have to cope with a wide range of abilities. Even in pools where they distinguish between 'slow', 'medium and 'fast' lanes, there are still a range of speeds in those lanes, and the lane will naturally proceed at the pace of the slowest. Don't be angry about this. Remember - the slowest person in your lane may only be there because the next slowest lane is too full. And there's probably some speedy pillock who is annoyed at your slow breast-stroke.

There are four ways to deal with slower people in your lane (in decreasing order of preference)

1. take a break until there is a big enough gap that you will not quite catch up
2. swim at the same speed
3. build your own swimming pool
4. overtake

Which brings me on to...

Don't overtake unless it is safe. As the overtaker it is your responsibility to ensure that you have enough time and space to do it; do not rely on the other person 'letting you past'. Generally the best opportunity to overtake is at the ends of the pool assuming no-one is coming the other way. Swimming with three in a lane should mean overtaking is perfectly possible; though it should mean it is unnecessary. Conversely swimming with four to a lane will render it practically impossible to get a decent sized gap in which to overtake.

Don't clutter up the lane ends so that people can't turn and push off.

Keep to the sides of the lane. Usually one lane will need to have two directions - up-pool and then return. It isn't cool or funny to swim in the middle, or to kick people.

If you bump into each other, you both apologise. It's polite. It is probably both of your's faults anyway.

The name of the session will be a general indicator as to what you can expect. Anything with the word 'fun' or 'family' will not be for a serious swimmer. Apparently the term 'general swim' doesn't necessarily involve swimming, but a lot of people wading around in the shallow end having a general gossip. Quite why they want to spend £3.50 doing so is still a mystery to me; however with 'lane swimming' you know where you are.

If you want to swim when it is quieter, go first thing in the morning. Do not be surprised when it is busy as hell:

1. immediately after work
2. during school holidays (parents need a break from the kids)
3. immediately after some big sporting event, such as the Olympics
4. for the three or four weeks after New Year when everyone is in the get fit fad.

Don't treat swimming as having a bath. Personal hygiene is still necessary despite the fact you are submerged.

Generally don't be a pillock.

Tonight too soon

So, last night was 'that' night.

You know, 'the' night when you get home in the dark for the first time.

Now, granted last night was because I went swimming, but that means when I get back tonight I will have just one hour of light to erect some trellis.

And the kids are back at school too. That means the next time they are off will be Halloween half-term, and then it's Christmas.

How disappointing is that? Probably made all the worse by still waiting for the summer that never came. September really is the last gasp of summer.

But it really is the nights drawing in which is particularly devastating.

Last night the sun set around 19:45 and by the time I got home just after 8pm it was too dark to do anything outside. By the end of September the sun will be setting an hour earlier meaning I will be getting home in the dark. Whilst not quite at the maximum rate of change yet, the setting is currently occurring 2:20 minutes earlier each night. The greatest rate of change is towards the end of September, where you are losing around 2:50 minutes per day of evening, and a similar amount in the mornings too.

And an even more scary thought - as well as that it gets worse still and there will be occasions when I even leave the office in the dark - is that we won't be seeing sunsets at this time again until April once the clocks spring forward again.

It's already somewhat hazy in a morning - I already have to have my bathroom light on to shave.

This obviously puts pressure on my weekends. It means that the top priority has to be getting the garden ready for the first frosts coming on; pruning back trees and hedges and abandoning all the various tasks and bits of weeding that I never quite got round to.

It doesn't, however, leave me with a life of luxury of a weekday evening as now my attentions are diverted to DIY tasks and such like.

But that will all be done in the dark very soon.

Shooting... yourself in the foot

So, I rewatched Shooting The Past by Steven Poliakovf over the weekend. My ironing needed doing.
But I enjoy reacquainting myself with these old programmes of which I have a hazy rose-tinted gloriously childishly fond memory.

So, how I remembered Shooting the Past: an amazing, intelligent, intricate winning of the Brainy, articulate and cunning Brits, over the dumb, consumerist, exploitative Americans. I remember a really subtle sub-plot, a very complex plot, a devastating turn-point and a lovely, unexpected resolve.

What did I stumble upon?

Now, I have to remember that it was filmed over 10 years ago, and wasn't a 'film' film, but a straight-to-tv film. Not only is it surprising how any film ages very, very quickly, but moreso how straight-to-tv films reflect the quirks of the ages, the fashion of the moment.

And it is always much easier to critique an item on the second appraisal - when you already know the story, you can concentrate on other aspects.

On the first occasion you are too heavily concentrating on what is being told, rather than how it is being told.

So what we have is actually a tiny smattering of incredibly extreme characters.

The Oswald character is reclusive, anonymous, crazy, frankly ridiculous.

Then there is the tiny, quiet, insipid, reclusive Nick - so young that he can't appreciate the photographic collection, and yet so quiet and unasuming he could get no other job.

Spig - a character as much defined by expectations from her name as from anything other. She is the red-haired, pierced exclusionary - silent and yet still subversive.

Then there is Veronica the tiny, quiet, unassuming woman, who - obviously - has a pivotal role in exposing the 'key' fact in a single moment. That appears to be the only reason she is there and is a bit of a cliche

The cold melodramtic antiheroic American who provides the "comfort" and "reappraisal" pieces as he is told the story; who fulfils the need for there to be a story and who provides the reason for the resolve in a very 'turnaround' and a 'he's not as bad as you think' conclusion. Well, there has to be a villan and a happy ending

And then there is Maralyn, the main character. The normal person. The person who grounds it: who makes you think you are her, if only because all the others are so unbelievable. Hence her being the main character and not some bit-part. She's the one that you are to empathise and associate with: you encourage her search for the truth, you demand her success.

The actual story is a half-decent one. It is one of those "ok, but could've been better" stories. But then I often think that. And  until I actually prepare my own I don't think I will be satisfied with any movie. And even then I won't be happy. I'm so ridiculously a perfectionist that perfection itself will not suffice, and my own movie would be far frrom heaven.

Essentially the full set-up, development and resolve could have been done within a nice two-hour film, even if a straight-to-tv film. There is so much superfluity, excess, and inexplicable content to fill it out to three hours; but the main problem isn't the 'filling' but the flatness of the characters, the simpicity of the story.

There are such extreme characters, engineered to provide what are almost winning monologues; to eulogise and silliquoise; to ramble the personal agenda of the writer's perspective on various topics (notably Americans lack of history and therefore lack of respect for it; and the consumerism rapant these days where even art is overridden by financial interests). Probably the most annoying thing was the crazy polarisms of the characters: it made the whole thing so unbelievable that even if the story had a moral it could so easily be dismissed as a charicature at best; and a flamboyant personal experiment otherwise.

The wrong legs

So, “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius had his outburst and has now apologised for it.

What was it about?

Well, his competitor's legs were too long.

Sorry?

Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to comment on the Paralympics unless anything particularly new cropped up - well, this is that.

Now, aside from the uncomfortable timing - within seconds of someone else winning and therefore coming across not just as sour grapes but properly casting a cloud and then raining all over the parade of a fellow competitor - for which Oscar has very properly and flatteringly apologised, there is still the question - how long should your blades be?

Or should you be allowed blades at all?

Ignoring the fact as to whether or not they actually were too long, and whether or not that caused any advantage; Oscar has himself lobbied for distinctions to be allowed: in the Olympics he was the only double amputee in the race; and that was only after the ban on bladed runners was overturned in 2008.

But can someone running with prosthetic legs legitimately compete against fully-legged competitors? Are the prosthetics an unfair advantage; or are they a hindrance?

To extrapolate Oscar's argument, should the Olympics have different categories of 100m depending on whether you are less that five foot five; five foot six to six foot; and over six foot? Once upon a time, height was considered a serious disadvantage - it took longer to get into a proper running style from the crouched position, and the wind resistance was increased, the body dynamics different. These days as running styles have developed, height is an advantage, with The Fastest Man on Earth - Usain Bolt - measuring up at six foot five; slightly faster than me and only ever-so-slightly taller.

The divisions in the Paralympics are already epic in their considerations. Within swimming there are 14 different categories; with S1-10 representing various physical impairments; S11-13 for visual impairments and S14 for intellectual disabilities. And in the majority of those categories there will be 50m, 100m 200m and 400m races in each of breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, free, medley and relay.

These are not strictly defined categories either - whereas one sportsman may be an S8 for one stroke, they may be an S9 for another. And the category placing can be the difference between a medal.

Indeed, Oscar is a T43 - double below-knee amputee - yet competes in the T44: single below the knee amputee.

That aside, should he have been allowed to run against the fully able-bodied? Did his blades give him an unfair advantage?

I am for inclusion. I think that people should be able to compete against anyone else. But it throws up the question of technology over and above disability.

With blades instead of legs did a mediocre Oscar perform exceptionally? Or was an otherwise world-beating Oscar hampered out of qualifying for the finals? Who is to know what advantage or not the blades provide unless the speeds of an able-bodied person are recorded before they then have to run in blades? They don't let wheelchair users race the 100m against runners; but then they are using an entirely different muscle group so although the title '100m' is the same, it is an entirely different sport.

But ditto technology generally. Would Ian Thorpe have been a gold medallist were it not for his now-banned full-body suit? Gone are the days of sprinters in garishly shiny, billowing shorts: these days the skin-tight, all-in-one seamless suit is omnipresent, and not just because of fashion.

Indeed, the reason that world records are being constantly smashed is as much down to technological development and improvement as much to individual speed. The last time the Olympics were in London in 1948 the track was cinder and starting blocks non-existent.

And it asks the question just how far can technology go? At what point does a chemically-balanced nutritional supplement become a performance-enhancing drug? We've already seen that the full-body swimsuit has since been banned; but that is just a dynamic technology - it isn't a biochemical manipulation. And they haven't banned shaving your body hair or smoothing yourself off in other ways.

Of course, it isn't just the Olympics where technology has had an impact. In football, goal-line technology has just been approved after a number of catastrophic decisions. But then prior to the introduction of the technology the playing field was always level anyway: all teams had to cope with human fallability and - given the law of averages and nothing incidious - as many rulings would go in the favour of the team as against.

And it isn't just sport either - look at photography. Digital manipulation is everywhere, but where is the line between simply cropping a photograph; and getting sacked from your job as a journalist for basically staging the whole thing. This is a subject for an entirely different post and is taking me far off on a tanget.

So, back to Oscar and I get his point - these are guys essentially competing with the same equipement; but there are rules as to how that equipement may be used (actually very technical rules) about the length of blades; and competitors compete within those rules. It is not a complaint about abuse of technology, but abuse of the rules.

Alan Oliveira is on record as saying that his blades were within the rules