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Guest Post by Chris Castle from Music Technology PolicyIf you read the New York Times Sunday Magazine (which probably means you’re over 40 or live inside of the Acela corridor), you may have noticed a story last week titled “The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t“. This piece is another of these “Sky is Rising” type things bankrolled by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, aka Google. I’m not accusing the author of being on anyone’s payroll (except perhaps the Times itself…more about that later), but I can’t help noticing the similarities.Here is the author’s thesis:But starting with [Lars] Ulrich’s [2000] testimony [in the Napster case and hearings], a new complaint has taken center stage, one that flips those older objections on their heads. The problem with the culture industry is no longer its rapacious pursuit of consumer dollars. The problem with the culture industry is that it’s not profitable enough. Thanks to its legal troubles, Napster itself ended up being much less important as a business than as an omen, a preview of coming destructions. Its short, troubled life signaled a fundamental rearrangement in the way we discover, consume and (most importantly) pay for creative work. In the 15 years since, many artists and commentators have come to believe that Ulrich’s promised apocalypse is now upon us — that the digital economy, in which information not only wants to be free but for all practical purposes is free, ultimately means that ‘‘the diverse voices of the artists will disappear,’’ because musicians and writers and filmmakers can no longer make a living.Not surprisingly, this thesis leads to the following conclusion:But just because creative workers deserve to make more money, it doesn’t mean that the economic or technological trends are undermining their livelihoods. If anything, the trends are making creative livelihoods more achievable. Contrary to Lars Ulrich’s fear in 2000, the ‘‘diverse voices of the artists’’ are still with us, and they seem to be multiplying. The song remains the same, and there are more of us singing it for a living.The thrust of the article is essentially just because there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that artists are hurting in the post-Napster era doesn’t mean that they are. And we can “prove” that by looking at government data sets.The author notes:The problem with the [Labor Department] data is that it doesn’t track self-employed workers, who are obviously a large part of the world of creative production. For that section of the culture industry, the best data sources are the United States Economic Census, which is conducted every five years, and a firm called Economic Modeling Specialists International, which tracks detailed job numbers for self-employed people in specific professions.You know, rather than cherry picking data, there’s another good way to find out about how self-employed artists are doing–why don’t you ask them? Case in point: The Austin Music Office commissioned a study that did just that. You can read Texas Monthly’s coverage on it. Somebody at the Times might want to read it–and the data collected from 4,000 respondents from the artist, music business worker and venue owner communities. The Census data drove the conclusion, and not the other way around. I don’t think it supports the conclusions in the Times–conclusions that were all derived from inside a library by the look of it.It’s interesting that the author starts with Napster and then largely restates and extends the narrative crafted by Napster’s litigation PR team. You know: Fire good, Napster bad.Because the thesis in the Times dances around a narrative that’s straight outta 1999: Blame the victim. It seems carefully crafted to lead to the desired conclusion apparently driven by a number of factors.1. Omit Any Reference to Brand Sponsored Piracy: The author’s basic argument about piracy is straight out of the CCIA playbook–yes, piracy is bad, but the artists make it up on live music. This substitution argument allows the author to sidestep the entire issue of who profits from piracy, who drives traffic to pirate sites, in fact, the whole income transfer that is essentially at work in online piracy across all copyright categories. And you know, some of the companies benefiting from piracy are the same people who sell advertising on the New York Times website and drive traffic to it.Even if the author wanted to avoid mentioning they who must not be named (Google), he could at least have noted the big box brands that benefit from advertising cheaply to pirate sites that attract the same demographic as do more costly and less populated music sites. I’m not really joking about not mentioning Google’s name–it only comes up once.2. Discuss Independent Bookstores with No Reference to Amazon: Here’s the treatment for independent bookstores:This would be even more troubling if independent bookstores — traditional champions of the literary novel and thoughtful nonfiction — were on life support. But contrary to all expectations, these stores have been thriving. After hitting a low in 2007, decimated not only by the Internet but also by the rise of big-box chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble, indie bookstores have been growing at a steady clip, with their number up 35 percent (from 1,651 in 2009 to 2,227 in 2015); by many reports, 2014 was their most financially successful year in recent memory. Indie bookstores account for only about 10 percent of overall book sales, but they have a vastly disproportionate impact on the sale of the creative midlist books that are so vital to the health of the culture.This is a carefully worded paragraph. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t see a cite for the number of independent bookstores. I also note that the name “Amazon” doesn’t appear, nor the fact that Borders filed for bankruptcy and Barnes & Noble has been running on fumes for years (most recent evidence is that Barnes & Noble reportedly stopped paying its Marketplace sellers this month).Related articles
