john

Many thanks Lemonstar. It might not seem it but we did remove about 14 boards, have simplified navigation by better structuring it. It is an ongoing process, but we are improving focus. The site was always more than a critique site, but it did get too diverse. on the main site end we got rud Of devoted areas for separate instruments, and the boards that went with them. Now we have one performance board covering all instruments. We reduced the multiple music biz boards removing 4 of those. We also archived off a lot of old posts. Still there in the archive area. The only old topics in the live area are the still active ones. We tidy that up a couple of times a year on top of some automated stuff. There are plans to focus more on 3 aspects on the journey of songs, songwriters and artists. Writing songs. Recording and producing songs. Releasing songs. As we move forward we will propose some changes to streamline the boards. This includes structuring the boards for each focus in a similar way. The net effect will be less boards, easier to navigate... as I hope the changes while you have been away have improved to a degree. We have experimented with a couple of new features. One is more successful than the other. The less successful one we may re-purpose or remove. The general thrust is to simplify around our core topics, and to add resources to support those topics, cutting away dead wood. Over the last year we have lost a few members, but gained more. Overall experience has become far more positive. You can’t make an omelette without cracking some eggs. Just like any member, the site is on a journey, trying to improve. Member comments like yours are very important. While we can’t always implement everything everyone suggests, or do it immediately, it is influential on any decisions staff make. Cheers John

Hey 4nti gr4vity, welcome to the Songstuff family. Have you tried to fuse your passion for metal and electronic music?

Nicely told Dave. I have a spinal injury myself, neck and lower back, several operations blah blah, so I quite literally feel your pain. Or at least I get it. I you both get back to some normality as soon as possible and I look forward to hearing that Yairi when it comes back to you as a playable instrument once more.

Hey Jay Great to meet you! Welcome to the Songstuff family! Cheers John

Hey Lynn The trouble is, I believe... and please feel free to correct me is that all works whose owners want to defend their copyrights within the USA jurisdiction, have to be registered there. Okay it was always advisable for UK and other world copyright owners to do so if they were releasing works in the USA. The worldwide web means if your stuff is online, it is available in all jurisdictions unless on sites that specifically stop access from certain jurisdictions. So if you don’t register your works within the USA, there is no deterrent for people using your work and not reimbursing you, or altering your work without permission. As I say, I will be very happy if this is not the case. Cheers John

Hey gang If you antend any great gigs, please post some pics, plus a gig review. Try and include a link to the band’s website or Facebook profile etc, mention the venue and any other relevant info... even a google map link! It doesn’t matter if they are indie, mainstream, stadium gigs or your local bar.... just tell us what you thought, what you liked or didn’t like. Cheers John

Hi Please tell us about your upcoming song release. Please include links to your EPK and if you know, the buy or download link. Cheers John

Hey Geography Horse... welcome to the Songstuff family!

Awesomeness! Well done Mahesh.

Well, before you were afforded some protection. There were big limitations on how much and what kind of damages you could get. My understanding is that now you get zero protection, and if it isn’t done in a short time frame you can’t register it fullstop.

Hi and welcome Tyler! Don’t be too keen to get a manager. I know it requires some patience, but I have found it is often best to let managers find you. Instead of putting out the word that you are looking for a manager. Why? Anything that says you are looking for something from someone will weaken any negotiating position, and can impact just how much they think they need to do to keep you happy. Better to manager yourself initially, learn the ropes, and then put out the word that you manage yourself, you are busy and have opportunities, but if the right manager came along, with good connections, you might consider the right deal with the right person. If you have managed yourself you will have a much better idea what you are getting in return for the percentage you give them. Be wary of managers who just want to send you out gigging all the time and their idea of moving forward is to get you to put out a track with other artists they or their friends manage. Managers like that will happily send you round a circuit of gigs that took an hour of telephone calls to the venues they regularly work with, in return for 15%-25%. When you finish they send you round the same circuit. They throw in the odd new gig, or small festival performance to keep you sweet, and then get a bunch of artists to pay over the odds to release a compilation album with 10-20 artists, that they do virtually nothing with. Better to find a manager with great ideas and a good track record, good connections, a flare for creative business ideas, an irrepressible attitude and an inexhaustible work ethic. Lol there are some out there!

Dont fret Randy, the Copyright Office is part of the Library Of Congress: https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/copyright-office-library-of-congress

The bike has been on the cards a while now. Trump administration has instituted a mixed bacg of laws including compulsory registration of all songs with the library of congress... no matter where an artist lives. Of course it was wise if you wanted full protection and your songs were available in the USA, but compulsory is a big push. No registration, no protection. changing days, but aren’t they all?

Hey Mora, welcome to the Songstuff family!

You place text in quotes in reply to me giving the impression to a casual reader that I said them, when I didn’t. At no point did I mention good old days, wanting to go back anywhere, or theft... and at several points I mention the positives of where we are and where we could go, including technological advancement. I am not aware that anything I mentioned was factually incorrect. My post was not about wanting to live in a neverland of fluffy kittens, holding back a tide of change. It was about the cost of change and the explanation of key influences on that change and the direction they pushed it. Some of those costs were entirely unnecessary and only linked to the issue by the business needs of a few online companies. Like it or not the industry lost a lot of talented people and it was largely avoidable. Nobody stole anything? Nobody accused anybody of stealing, though in many spheres piracy might be considered theft to take someone’s livelihood, but most countries left copyright infringement as a civil matter, there was no criminal aspect to it. Of course there are possible criminal elements out with copyright law. That said, any jurisdiction could make arts infringements into criminal acts very easily. That said, pirates took and distributed what they wanted, when they wanted it, and they did not care about the consequences. The misinformation war legitimised their actions, and encouraged masses to do the same and feel no guilt for doing so. Saying all that doesn’t suggest going back anywhere. There was a very personal cost to hard working musicians that hoped to recover their costs using the primary method of making money from music at the time. In the case of on ex-member of staff who financed an album release to a pro standard, he had invested in professional session players, Engineers, studios, producers, marketers, artists etc... to create a professional standard product. It was up to him to decide to charge or give away his album. That decision was taken away from him. Yes, amateurs can now make much more professional sounding pieces, largely due to technical innovations. However, many experts are highly skilled. What they can do with the same tools is often better, precisely because they can afford to play/record their instruments etc all the time. They build an expertise, a skills base that far exceeds the skills base of most amateurs. You might disagree In the nature of music pros, but they are entitled to make a living from what they do, just as you are. We get to enjoy the fruits of their labour, the skills they have developed... until they leave the industry, To lose that set of skills, that level of skills is a tragedy. That aside, it is up to artist whether to charge or give away their songs. That the tech exists to easily sidestep all that is immaterial. You combine the two things as if they were inevitable. Low rates for YouTube Spotify etc are a completely different issue. They are businesses. They make a load of money from advertisers. They and others muddied the waters in several ways. As mentioned search engines prioritised info in a misinformation campaign. They used that to get public opinion on their side in their negotiation... and that most definitely was not set in stone. It also made it socially acceptable for large scale copying, also not set in stone. Prior to that, yes it happened, but it was by a small percentage. So if I get a car, a house, software, clothes... if I don’t love it I don’t need to pay for it? Ethically you seem to think it acceptable to only pay for what we ultimately loved based upon our conscience. I don’t see many industries surviving that combination. You might not “feel” people have fotgotten, direct music sales disagrees. Most have. Additionally many have migrated to streaming which pays a pittance. A negotiating strength for which was secured on the same misinformation. The Grateful Dead? The world was a very, very different place. At that point physical medium acted as a brake. If not they wouldn’t have been pro musicians. They couldn’t.t have afforded it in an era when tours were not profitable and were written off as promotional costs. Merchandise too was much more limited. My point originally was not that there are not benefits, or that change is not inevitable, but the way it happened was driven by the commercial needs of a few online companies. Your approach seems to be that the ends justify the means.... and I can’t disagree more.

Hi Easty, welcome to Songstuff

Hey Sarah, welcome to Songstuff. Good to have you with us!

According to Billboard, starting today, 20th September, Spotify is to allow independent artists to bypass distributors and upload directly to their streaming service via their Spotify For Artists account. Direct upload will initially be made available to a small group of a few hundred invited U.S.-based artists. Other artists can sign up for a mailing list, to be invited over the coming weeks.

Hey Tim, welcome to the Songstuff family! Have you been releasing your material, or have your songs been gathering dust on virtual shelves?

The Music Industry is more than just sales. It is people. That fact isn't often highlighted, so I thought I would write a quick post It probably comes as no great surprise that there's been a significant decline in professional recording studios, and employment in the music industry has decreased over 40% in the last decade. At the same time, innovations in technology have opened up massive possibilities for home music makers. Songstuff, at one point, had 3 of the then staff who had their own record labels or were partners in a record label, and one was a music publisher. Every single one of them went to the wall because of changes in the industry. Mainly due to music piracy, as it happens. Yes there was the impact of declining sales, but in accommodating Napster, YouTube and digital download services, and then later Spotify and other streaming services, the money to be made declined massively. The music pirates defence of their activities was that artists only got a small percentage of the cost per CD, and their piracy was a justified action against big bad record labels. It is therefor ironic that their action only served to kill a few thousand small independent record labels, and removed the ability to be a music professional for many artists. It was mainly genres outside pop that were killed off. The knock on of course was that many session musicians, studios, producers also left the industry... all that expertise gone. One of the staff here was a Jazz lyricist. 18 artists on his label roster. He was working 3 jobs (one of which was as a taxi driver) in a bid to keep the doors open long enough to ride out what was hoped to be a blip. Of course it wasn't a blip. Another member of staff was a 1/4 partner in a dance label that had more than 12 electronica artists on their roster... all of them lost their income. Much of this was due to an information war between the music industry and the download and streaming services sites. The interesting thing was that search listings (mainly Google as it was 90%+ of the search market at the time) were dominated by articles citing the cost to make a CD was 50 cents yet the price was $12-$15 per CD at the time. You really had to dig down past the first 10 pages of listing to find any Music Industry articles that highlight that the 50 cents was the cost of a blank disk getting pre-mastered music added to it when you order large volumes to be pressed. The price did not include the glass master, the on body printing, the printed booklet, the jewel case, the bar code, the cellophane wrap, the mastering the recording, the rehearsal, the gear, the distribution, the marketing and promotion, or the shop's profit. The really interesting thing was that there was a huge difference in the ability to find the information about both sides of the equation. To this day there are even many musicians who feel it is wrong to sell music, it should be free (all very well if they have a nice cozy job in another industry and aren't worried about feeding their family!)… and all that traces back to the misinformation from that information war. Probably of little significance... Google had bought YouTube and were faced with a massive bill for copyright violations. They were regularly in talks with the RIAA, BMI, ASCAP, PRS etc. As I say, it probably wasn't important at all. Just a coincidence. All that behind us, after several years, innovation and tools along with a variety of possibilities has made being a home based pro musician very, very possible. Our industry lost a lot of expertise. Now perhaps we have the possibility of more pro musicians, yes, but also the possibility of a lot of pro-standard amateur musicians. Never has it been easier to create near pro-standard or pro-standard music. That is an awesome thing. Hell, even what a beginning amateur with a creative mind can do has massive potential. What I think is massively untapped by musicians is... the market. There is a lot of ignorance on just what is possible. Even more ignorance on the lessons that can be learned from the existing music industry. In addressing that, there is so much promise and possibility, and that truly is exciting. Cheers John PS Keep an eye out for a load of upcoming articles, kits etc on Songstuff to help you to make the most of your talents.

Awesome stuff

Hi Gang I thought I would find out what you do when you release a song? Where do you post it? What do you do to promote it? Do you get it reviewed anywhere? What way do you have to contact your fans? Do you sell it through online store? Sell directly? Add it to streaming services? Give it away? Cheers John

Their gear is very good it must be said.

Awesome stuff Mahesh. You should be proud.

Higher and Higher - Jackie Wilson