Former Beatle Paul McCartney has been talking about the problems he’s experienced with major labels, and has warned fans not to expect digitized versions of the Fab Four’s back catalogue in the near future. McCartney was speaking to Gigwise at the launch of his Fireman album in London, where he said: “I think the majors at the moment, I’m not dissing them, but I don’t think they really know what’s going on.”Despite his stature, McCartney talks about being treated as just one of many artists signed to EMI, saying: “They’ve got so many people on their books that like it or not, you’re just one of them, and it’s not that great a situation.” McCartney left EMI in 2006 and has released The Fireman album on longstanding indie label One Little Indian.
As for those much vaunted digitized Beatles songs, McCartney says: "It's stalled – there are a couple of sticking points between EMI and the Beatles. No change there then.” Part of the problem seems to be EMI’s neanderthal approach to the internet, which probably isn’t going to change any time soon. “I get that feeling that with the download culture they’re floundering a bit because they’ve had it their own way for so long,” he said. [Gigwise]
Paul is right of course. However, he may wish to consider thinking about researching his set of concepts and then offering EMI a group of guideline proposals. Maybe EMI is being a bit heavy-handed. They really need to "suss this one out," based on establishing an evolving criteria basis. This would have to take into account the artist's position in the music world, the artist's proposed target audience and the artist's prospects for market share. Also each artist's set of purposes and intents in musical expression have to be considered. Not all musical artists wish to distribute their music for the same reasons. On the other side for the agent of distribution, the considerations should include the current and changing nature and processes of the sharing technologies to avoid devaluing digital intellectual property rights. This should be done particularly as they relate to the originator of the works, not necessarily the owners of the copyrights who are stake-holders in the works as a marketable commodity. What happens these days is that many people no longer immediately recognize authors or copyright holders of works to have property rights which of course tend to disenfranchise their claims to royalties. People tend to forget that collecting royalties due them is one way many musicians still make a living. For those who no longer really require the monies for paying their bills, it enables them to turn around and re-invest the money by setting up options to give to charities or give back to their fans or help their communities. By imbuing copies of songs with inseparable ID tags, a first step towards maintaining the artist's claims for pending royalty payments is created. By setting up a tracking system to follow a song around without invoking copyright infringement but still imposing the legitimate amount of the royalty upon the user for the first through the fourth use in the same household, the onus of potential litigation is avoided.
Some musicians have avoided the payment for the digital sharing of music issue entirely by adopting a different model of gaining capital from being a musician. Some musicians offer new albums for download without asking for compensation. They profit from offering branded real world limited issue collectible merchandise to their fan base. They profit from endorsing brands of music equipment. Fans get "free" music and an item of artist-branded apparel or other collectible merchandise as a souvenir of their support for the artist. Fans still also pay for the privilege of attending the artist's performances. There are a variety of capital generating models that musical artists can embrace if they choose to take a fresh look at how musicians' can make a living and keep the fans coming back.