When an established actor, sets up a TV channel, can you expect him to run things differently? There is an expectation, on my part, that he will remember the hardships that went into getting to where he is today. He would have experienced first hand, what goes into making a show, the people, the story writers, the post production team. All that should amalgamate into an executive who values his employees, values the creative people who are contributing to the success of his channel, and he will reward them justly so that they may continue to contribute and excel. What happens when he doesn't keep an eye on things and people within his organization are withholding rightful payments? An aggrieved client may write a public opinion that this is wrong, and force them to pay up to avoid a media scandal. Should the reaction then be to announce that the client can expect no more business with the channel?
Our country lacks the amount of universities to cater to the amount of students graduating out of high school. So new universities are starting up all around. My wife recently almost signed up to one of them for a job as a lecturer. Why would a new university advertise faculties they haven't been able to staff at a point of time? Should this not be taken as an urge to earn a lot of money rather than to start small and establish a good base? Why would a university urge that salary should not be important since the person applying as a lecturer has a family that can support her? Taking all that into consideration, when signing up she found out that they also want her to teach something in another faculty. The grand total of subjects she would be teaching at the university, had she taken the job would have been 7.
Music, as with other fields in the arts, are areas where you are nothing without passion. Lets face it, parents don't push their children into the arts - there is no future there, not like becoming a doctor, or a banker. Musicians die of old age, and some of them through lack of treatment they could not afford. Since the birth of this country, I have felt that we've seen a decay in the quality of music, and cinema. I cannot claim to know much of the literary world, but a few friends who are passionate there have claimed similar. Its not that there aren't excellent people in those fields, but that the mediocre are crowding up the space by their ludicrous large numbers. Had we had proper nurturing of the arts by those who could, instead of a run for quick bucks through cheap thrills, I might have been in a different mood this morning.
"Piracy" is another thing that we hear of these days when the music industry comes in question. Labels have been under scrutiny from artists for not establishing intellectual property rights and being greedy with the income of music. Musician get a down payment of money for handing over al rights to their work to the label - that was the norm. The storm that was kicked up did well in some aspects, since now someone like Grameen Phone wants the labels to show that they have the rights to distribute the music in the form of 'welcome tunes' or ring tones, etc. I just signed such a paper yesterday to a song my band recorded. Labels have joined in the fight to stop piracy, and to them, its the fight to stop their sales from diminishing. We have so far, given away three singles to a series of compilations from the same label, so I have signed away the rights before, also, but the last time I was not there for the 'lecture' The 'lecture' is what the labels are telling kids who are forming bands and eager to release their songs and eventually make an album. Its goes like this:
"Tell your friends, not to download the songs! Buy the originals, stop piracy. Don't put up your singles on your websites! If you know the administrators of the forums where they put out these songs, try to get in touch with them. If they are downloading for free, its like 'stealing'!"
At that point I just smiled. There was one reason we are giving our singles away - we wanted these songs to be out there, for people to listen. We knew the risks, yet we complied. BUT, I have a feeling that the label was so short sighted, they didn't realize there could be other ways of doing this - mainly, taking a lesser cut to make the bands feel appreciated. A compilation CD is packed with singles from different bands. Considering the costs of putting out a CD here, the label will make enough with just the sales from the friends and family of each of the bands' members during the ecstasy of eid. More friends than family. The label is just paying up the recording costs of the songs, and then its the cost of pressing CDs and printing the sleeves. This is the 4th release in this series and the third time that its a double CD. I believe they have figured out the marginal cost/profit ratio here of releasing one CD vs. two. What they could've easily done in the third cycle, is to arrange some royalty for the bands' works, instead of buying it up and advocating against piracy. Oh, the irony! Its almost like they are counting on the bands to carry on a few years like this and then to get disheartened and disband along the way. Instead of establishing good faith between these fresh, passionate bands, they choose the old ways. Talking of intellectual property rights, I don't see much relevance here since most of the labels are unscrupulous businessmen who would just lie about album sales and you have a far worse fate than the old down payment.
I heard the chairman of a start up software company once say, "we want to make money, but if we wanted it to make it quickly, we could have gone into internet pornography or internet poker, but we wanted to do something that helps people, even if it takes time". That software company makes billions a year now creating software for a niche within the health sector in USA. The proper mindset is needed, a bit of humanity alongside the profit seeking. The lack of vision and greed I see, I blame it on our education system (not just schools and teachers, but parents too), which puts us in a race very early in life that helps shed values.
Our country lacks the amount of universities to cater to the amount of students graduating out of high school. So new universities are starting up all around. My wife recently almost signed up to one of them for a job as a lecturer. Why would a new university advertise faculties they haven't been able to staff at a point of time? Should this not be taken as an urge to earn a lot of money rather than to start small and establish a good base? Why would a university urge that salary should not be important since the person applying as a lecturer has a family that can support her? Taking all that into consideration, when signing up she found out that they also want her to teach something in another faculty. The grand total of subjects she would be teaching at the university, had she taken the job would have been 7.
Music, as with other fields in the arts, are areas where you are nothing without passion. Lets face it, parents don't push their children into the arts - there is no future there, not like becoming a doctor, or a banker. Musicians die of old age, and some of them through lack of treatment they could not afford. Since the birth of this country, I have felt that we've seen a decay in the quality of music, and cinema. I cannot claim to know much of the literary world, but a few friends who are passionate there have claimed similar. Its not that there aren't excellent people in those fields, but that the mediocre are crowding up the space by their ludicrous large numbers. Had we had proper nurturing of the arts by those who could, instead of a run for quick bucks through cheap thrills, I might have been in a different mood this morning.
"Piracy" is another thing that we hear of these days when the music industry comes in question. Labels have been under scrutiny from artists for not establishing intellectual property rights and being greedy with the income of music. Musician get a down payment of money for handing over al rights to their work to the label - that was the norm. The storm that was kicked up did well in some aspects, since now someone like Grameen Phone wants the labels to show that they have the rights to distribute the music in the form of 'welcome tunes' or ring tones, etc. I just signed such a paper yesterday to a song my band recorded. Labels have joined in the fight to stop piracy, and to them, its the fight to stop their sales from diminishing. We have so far, given away three singles to a series of compilations from the same label, so I have signed away the rights before, also, but the last time I was not there for the 'lecture' The 'lecture' is what the labels are telling kids who are forming bands and eager to release their songs and eventually make an album. Its goes like this:
"Tell your friends, not to download the songs! Buy the originals, stop piracy. Don't put up your singles on your websites! If you know the administrators of the forums where they put out these songs, try to get in touch with them. If they are downloading for free, its like 'stealing'!"
At that point I just smiled. There was one reason we are giving our singles away - we wanted these songs to be out there, for people to listen. We knew the risks, yet we complied. BUT, I have a feeling that the label was so short sighted, they didn't realize there could be other ways of doing this - mainly, taking a lesser cut to make the bands feel appreciated. A compilation CD is packed with singles from different bands. Considering the costs of putting out a CD here, the label will make enough with just the sales from the friends and family of each of the bands' members during the ecstasy of eid. More friends than family. The label is just paying up the recording costs of the songs, and then its the cost of pressing CDs and printing the sleeves. This is the 4th release in this series and the third time that its a double CD. I believe they have figured out the marginal cost/profit ratio here of releasing one CD vs. two. What they could've easily done in the third cycle, is to arrange some royalty for the bands' works, instead of buying it up and advocating against piracy. Oh, the irony! Its almost like they are counting on the bands to carry on a few years like this and then to get disheartened and disband along the way. Instead of establishing good faith between these fresh, passionate bands, they choose the old ways. Talking of intellectual property rights, I don't see much relevance here since most of the labels are unscrupulous businessmen who would just lie about album sales and you have a far worse fate than the old down payment.
I heard the chairman of a start up software company once say, "we want to make money, but if we wanted it to make it quickly, we could have gone into internet pornography or internet poker, but we wanted to do something that helps people, even if it takes time". That software company makes billions a year now creating software for a niche within the health sector in USA. The proper mindset is needed, a bit of humanity alongside the profit seeking. The lack of vision and greed I see, I blame it on our education system (not just schools and teachers, but parents too), which puts us in a race very early in life that helps shed values.
