I don’t have a right to earn money from my music.

Thanks for the comments, guys. I’m really interested to unwrap the problem and try to see it from as objective a point of view as possible. And that’s not easy.

Jon: You say I have the right to earn money from my music and I say I don’t. That seems like an insurmountable disagreement, but I suspect that each of us is using the word ‘right’ in a way that makes it useful to our own point of view, and that we actually disagree more on details than on general principles. I’m going to try to work out what those details are and get back to you.

Pedro: You’re right, this does apply to any creative life. My situation is very similar to yours: I give my music away for free, and because of that I get paid to play gigs, write songs, teach, etc. And like you, I don’t make my living from that (which obviously affects my attitude a lot).

Brennig: You’re welcome. I’m enjoying your stuff on http://oxfordbloggers.com btw.

Tommi: How come you’re not in contact with the people who might like your music? The way I see it, you have to be in contact with your audience whether it’s through old school marketing or the new school social media conversation. I can’t remember who, but somebody recently compared the profession of ‘songwriter’ to that of ‘tinker’ – still valid, but no longer relevant. As a lover of the Brill Building era songwriters that’s a depressing thought, but things change and we have to change with them.

Ralph: Good point about music videos. I don’t think musicians were given a chance to consider the validity of using freely broadcasted videos as promotion back in the day. Record companies did the marketing and bands had little or no input (and why would they?). Now the business process is transparent and everyone’s freaking out. ;)

More interesting and useful comments. We’re getting there.

The use of the word ‘right’ is still confusing the issue. The ‘right’ that Leisl and Jon talk about is (as Jon says) a legal right, but not a right to earning. It’s a property right. You own your creations (with all the usual caveats…), and you can exercise copyright over them. That means, in theory at least, that you can control their use by licensing them however you please and charging money if you like.

In practise, slapping a copyright symbol on a copy of a creation doesn’t allow you to control every single use of it. That’s always been the case, and has been discussed elsewhere.

Dubber says, “You don’t have a right to make money from your music – but you do have an opportunity to.” I agree, and I think that if we talk about ownership of our creations and the opportunity to exploit them for money, we’re all (roughly) on the same page.

Jon said, “People should legally have the right to earn money from anything they make.” Can we rephrase that? Maybe “people should legally have the opportunity to earn money from anything they make” (including trouble ;)?

We have the right to own stuff (a house, a shop, a song, a film). We have the tools and the opportunity to create value using the stuff we own. And now we have the tools and the opportunity to converse with interesting and intelligent people all over the place, so the glorious tale of the value we create can be told far and wide. And we can have cake.

You, unarguably, have both the legal and moral right to earn money from anything you created.

Having just written a lengthy response full of interesting quotes about the definitions of various rights, I’m going to delete that and start again by trying to state my position as simply and clearly as possible. It’s not easy, and I don’t expect to get it exactly right first time. The reason I wrote this post was to give myself an opportunity to explore what I and others think about this issue. It has worked. I’m exploring.

Here are some thoughts:

Filesharing has undermined the ‘sell plastic discs for profit’ model, much like recorded music undermined the ‘sell sheet music for profit’ model.

I am inclined to agree with Dubber that copyright is no longer fit for purpose and that a new system of copyright could be written which would once again incentivize creativity. As it stands, copyright in music is only usefully protecting the assets of record companies. It used to protect the right of songwriters to control the copies of their work, but it doesn’t any more.

I own my songs. If people like them, I can earn money from them. Sometimes I’m paid to write a song for somebody. Sometimes I’m paid for downloads of my songs. Mostly I license them under a Creative Commons license. I don’t give up the copyright, but I let people use them and share them in a controlled way. This is how I distribute my songs. It’s not my business model.

I earn money because of my music. I’m down in Devon this week because River Cottage paid me £300 to play at their Autumn Fair (plus free organic burgers and cider all weekend for three of us). They only know about my music because it’s out there. The Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall song is on YouTube. You can download the audio for free. I gave a card to everyone who talked to me after my sets, and told them that they could get the Hugh song on my website. They were all thrilled. They wanted to send it to their friends. A handful of them asked about booking me to play elsewhere. I’m earning money as a musician without having to flog copies of albums or play shitty unpaid gigs. I get a few emails a week offering me money to write a song, play a gig, talk to people or teach. Mostly I turn them down because I have a day job. I have time for a few, so I choose the fun ones.

I don’t earn a living from my music; neither do I think I’m entitled to. I suspect that if I wanted to, I could just about do it. It would be difficult, and almost none of the money would come from selling music. Most would come from playing at relevant and interesting events, helping other musicians with websites and social media stuff, playing sessions and licensing the odd track to TV. I imagine that would all be enough of a ballache to stop me wanting to write anything at all. ;)

There’s freshly cut organic bacon on the table. More anon.

Jon, Leisl,

I was falling into the trap of becoming emotionally involved with the argument (it’s very hard not to take this stuff personally when you’re talking about your own creations), so I decided to go back to the facts. My facts, not those I assume about anybody else. I’m glad it made some sense.

I’m going to sleep on this one, and try to write a follow-up post in the next couple of days. It would be massively useful for me (and hopefully for a few others) to be able to express these points succinctly and clearly. I’m starting to think that a statement of facts will work better than an opinion piece or a manifesto or a rant.

Thanks for your input (everyone).