Sweet sounds of fair trade |
| Tuesday, 13 May 2008 | ||
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What would fair trade look like in a musical context? At the least, some initial criteria might include:
Coldplay plays "In my head" at a fair trade benefit...they are enthusiastic supporters of OXFAM and fair trade! Why fair trade music?While anyone can sing in the shower, it is much more difficult to reach the ears of the mainstream listeners and to make money as a musician. A few companies control the "major labels" with their distribution, technical, and legal resources that control the flow of music to the market. Too often artists receive only a 1-2% of their CD (or other media) sales in the form of royalties. For all but the most established acts, it is impossible for individual artists to negotiate on a fair playing field with major labels. This harsh 2-98% revenue split may lead to poor musicians and poor music as commercial viability depends on sounding like the bleached blonde on the CD nextdoor. What's a fair share?A minimum amount per recording? A minimum amount per recording and a share of revenues? A higher percentage of royalties? 5%, 20%, 50%, 75%?
For food, the Fair Trade Labelling sets a minimum price for each commodity to ensure that farmers and communities can provide for their production and labour costs. Music is an art form and (arguably) harder to commodify. Like a commodity, people will buy music CDs, but there is no way to know which artist's music will sell well. A minimum price per recording could be great for artists, if it meant that more musicians would have the opportunity to record, but who would take the risk? (Perhaps, artists can share the risk - see sidebar). Perhaps, fairness could be achieved by giving a larger percentage of gross revenues to artists. 100% is unrealistic because of the costs of producing and distribution. 2% is ridiculously low. Royalties of 30-50% is a suggested range. Any final royalty rate must take into account the risk taken on by labels and distributors balanced with the profit requirements to compensate for the risk and the incomes of the artists. This range may change based on the availability of alternative and digital distribution and marketing channels. Artistic controlIn days of prepackaged pop-tunes and stars, the notion of artistic purity may seem almost retro, but the principle of fair trade suggests that the workers (musicians, writers) should be able to control their work. This ensures that artists produce their best music and a greater variety than produced in a record label "machine." Who owns the music?The question of copyright, sampling and digital rights is a legal issue that can get very technical. For the purposes of the fair trade discussion, the issue is who will control the use of and availability of music. Copyright seeks to balance public access with rewards to the producer. The longer the copyright the greater the reward to the producer, but this also means that it is harder for other artists to build upon earlier works. The length of copyright has grown over the years as a result of lobbying by major companies (i.e. Disney and Mickey Mouse). Alternative forms of copyright allow artists to receive recognition but permit certain uses of their material: Creative Commons, GNU General Public Licence. Folk songs or traditional music that have been around for centuries could potentially be recorded or written down and then copyrighted. This taking cultural property raises the issue of cultural appropriation. We don't even have to go to an exotic aboriginal tune: "Happy Birthday" is under (disputed) copyright and it cannot be performed or played in movies without paying a royalty to the owner. How can communities be compensated for the use of their cultural riches? Like traditional medicine and knowledge, we need to come up with ways to protect music. Learn More - About Fair Trade and Fair Music
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