[Note: I asked art.com if RL was getting any royalties for the poster I wanted to buy. No reply.]
I was searching for a reference artist image and this interesting e-commerce site came up. Essentially, I was offered a PRINT of my Roy Lichtenstein artwork for $49 on paper, unframed. All the way up to print-on-canvas and framed for $356, minus the $25 for giving them my email address. This is great. Is the estate of Lichtenstein getting royalties from the sale of his art?
Who Gets Paid for Art?
Today, art is no longer a thing created by artists. From collage art before it, and xerox art before that, art and its variations have been evolving for a long time. AI, however, might be putting the nail in the coffin of the ART I am thinking of, the idea of human-crafted images, songs, poems, stories. Art is a capture of the human soul in some creative format. Cool. That’s MY definition. The world’s definition is changing.
Is Taylor Swift an amazing musician? No. Is she an artist? Yes. Did her mega-mega system-breaking tour establish her as a musician? No. Sure, she plays the chords. C A G E D. She is an entertainer and a singer. The people “writing” with Taylor are the musicians, IMHFO. Let me explain. In the movie of her mega-show, the band was brought onto the stage at about 20 minutes. But we didn’t really need the musician actors, now did we? And yes, I believe she was amazing in her performance and guitar playing on the songs where you can hear her playing. But… And this is the big one for me, the entire show was devoid of musicians. It was ON TAPE as it is called.
And, fine, I’ll grant you that any of the wonderful and beautiful people that TayTay brought on as her band could’ve been artists and musicians in their own right. But they were not added to the Taylor global train for their musicianship. They were added to make it look like Taylor’s music is not written and performed by producers with robots, tape loops, and 808 samples of what we used to call drums. [I’m curious if Taylor’s versions of her albums contain real drummers or samplers and producers. And this is how it relates to music or musicianship.
Musicians other than megastars no longer make money off their recorded music. They only make money from touring and merch. Here, let’s have ChatGPT give us the story.
<GPT SAYS>
The amount of royalties a musical artist earns from 1,000,000 streams on Spotify can vary significantly based on several factors. As of my last update in April 2023, Spotify pays artists through a pro-rata payment system. Here’s a general breakdown:
- Average Payout per Stream: Spotify doesn’t pay a fixed rate per stream. Instead, the amount varies by country and whether the listener has a free or premium subscription. The average payout per stream is often reported to be between $0.003 and $0.005.
- Artist’s Share: The artist’s share of the total payout depends on their agreement with their record label, distributor, or aggregator. Artists signed to labels might receive a smaller percentage of the total revenue (often 20% to 50%), whereas independent artists using aggregators may keep a higher percentage (up to 100% minus the aggregator’s fee).
- Other Deductions: There might be additional deductions for taxes, publishing rights, and other fees.
To provide a rough estimate, if we assume an average rate of $0.004 per stream, then 1,000,000 streams would generate about $4,000 in total. However, the actual amount an artist receives can be significantly less than this total due to the factors mentioned above.
It’s important to remember that these figures are approximate and can change based on Spotify’s agreements and policies, as well as the artist’s individual contractual arrangements.
</GPT SAYS>
Okay, and to put this in a human perspective: I once made about $20 – $50 per month from Apple during the iTunes Store days. And I’m a person with a decent day job. My friends, here in Austin (the music capital of the world) made 80% of their living from royalties from their recorded music. These same musicians are starving to death right in front of me. I can only pay them to help me with my music when I’m flush with cash.
We saw this play out during the pandemic when most artists began charging for live streams of their shows. It was an amazing moment. The motivated played weekly for $20 – $50 bucks a show. Many did not. The people with fewer fans and resources to spin up a livestream went to work for UBER, Starbucks, and Amazon. That delivery guy that just dropped off your new tracksuit knockoff from Uniqlo is probably a wonderful keyboard player, trying to reset his life and expectations about what he would be doing to survive in the new world of “everything is free” or it’s made by mega-stars who don’t need to money or the exposure.
As an artist, in my 60’s, I have very few options for building an audience. I have a new album, I made during one of those flush periods before the pandemic hit. I supported one of my favorite musicians in Austin during a rough patch. Then the virus closed us all down. The money tap was turned off for my friend. Hell, we were all trying to understand if this was the END. So, Robert, my friend, the musician, was cut off. He did not have the ability or desire to livestream. So, he downsized. And downsized again.
We picked back up as the masks and vaccinations had begun to disable the virus. I hit him with another deposit of my (digital marketing earned) cash into his pocket. He still owes me $500 of services for the final few remixes of our album.
Okay, so here’s the ARTISIC question: Why would I ever release another song or collection of songs? What’s my motivation? It’s not money. It’s not love. It’s certainly not fame. So, think about this, why would I work so damn hard to put out another Buzzie record? I’m not going to go on the van tour. (1. I don’t have any fanbase; 2. I have a mortgage that must be paid each month or I’m headed back to renting or worse, apartment living.
ASIDE: Imagine being a drummer with no place to play drums. Live acoustic drums are loud. It’s only possible in a HOUSE or a practice studio, which costs more money. So, musicians don’t really have a way to JAM unless they have a house, or pay to rent rehearsal space.
Then, why would I put ($3000) money into promoting my music? I mean, the world has plenty of *music* right? And with artists like Taylor and Sheeran, we’ve got plenty of great songs and performances, right?
Just Shoot Me
There is no reason for me to write music, write poems, or publish this website. None. I won’t make money from it, at least.
Why do musicians want other people to hear their songs? Why would someone put time and money into writing and producing books of POETRY? (Poetry has never made money, btw.)
The #1 Reason I write is: I can’t not write and:
- I write, sing, speak as a way to transmit an idea.
- My songs are crafted over years not hours
- My music has live musicians playing their instruments
- My music has a producer and a music studio, where my friend Ron or Robert make their living
- My short stories and novel ideas are expressions of what I think it’s like to be human
- I am a writer
- I am an average musician
- I am a songwriter
- And most of all, for my musical ambitions, I am a singer
A watershed moment occurred a few years ago when Robert and I were involved in creating the first three tracks of the new Buzzie record. I was between houses and staying with a dear friend, also a writer. I played one of the songs for her. And while I don’t think she was trying to hurt me (I don’t even think she was conscious of how toxic and dismissive her question was) she shot me dead with this wonder of hers.
Have you ever thought about writing for someone else to sing your songs?
*xx* < me dead
It would’ve been the equivalent of me asking her about her young adult fiction book, “Have you ever thought about writing for readers with more than a 3rd-grade education?” I would never.
Now, let’s go back to ART in all its forms.
What Is ART?
To me art, actual art (not derivative art, copy/xerox art, collage art, prompt-driven art, or reproductions of famous art) is the human expression of an individual’s life. Some are happy and aspirational. Some are depressing and dark. All of them, however, are created by humans. And the reason artists create is to express an inexpressable idea. To share an idea that is only accessible or expressable through their art.
For me, poetry is a way to subvert my own logic and education to get back to some of the fascination I had in learning how to read. Then learning how to write. And now, even at 61, learning how to craft a well-imagined science fiction short story. I have a plan. I’m using short stories to reboot my writing for fiction, poetry, and abstract soul expression, like sci-fi. There’s a reason some people are drawn to sci-fi as an art form. Directors like Ridley Scott are trying to explore this question: where does the human soul go as we evolve with robots, space travel, and perhaps contact with an alien lifeform?
We would’ve never gotten Blade Runner and the modern sci-fi aesthetic, if Riddly Scott had not had a dream, fought with the studios for more money, and filmed a manic Asian-dominant rainy movie. Some of the themes he was addressing in the movie (and P K Dick in the novella: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)
- do robots have a soul?
- will robots rise to kill the human race?
- if Deckard doesn’t care that Rachel is a robot, and she doesn’t know, does it matter that she has no soul?
AI ART
(and much of today’s modern hit songs)
Does not have a soul. There is no human story and mystery when a robot reswizzles all the written expressions of James Joyce and respins Ulysses. Here’s the prompt for BARD: digest James Joyce’s Ulysses and *regenerate.* Would this AI novelization be good? I don’t know, my Conversations with Claude have surprised me often. But it would not have a soul. There would be no human behind the new expression. Maybe the ghost of Joyce would be emulated by the transformative process.
In the Taylor Swift mega-concert tour thing there was the ghost of a rockshow. It was a halftime performance of a rock show that lasted 2.5 hours. Is that the same as seeing Bruce Springsteen play a 3 hour set with his band? Maybe the singer part of Bruce is similar to Taylor, but the music and musicianship is not unlike the *regeneration* of art, or music, or prose, or … and here’s the one AI cannot do, poetry.
In Blade Runner and PK Dick’s story, the part we are trying to understand as human listeners, viewers, and readers is this: does our soul matter? Does god matter? Are we all alone, more like the replicants?
The human experience is complex. Our lives as tiny humans occasionally create people like me, who want to sing a song. Why I want to sing is another mystery. What I want to sing is songs that touch me. And I hope by owning them, singing them, I will get or understand a fraction of the artist’s transmission. If I’m touched by music, or prose, or art, it is because my soul is being lit by this other human’s expression.
If it is really good, for ME, then I begin to have an imaginary conversation with the writer, artist, or singer. My expression of this idea has begun with a book of poems I am writing at waltwhitman.ai. Mr. Whitman was one of my earliest YES moments as a writer, reader, and human. Song of myself, touched off my own song. And I am writing to attempt a similar fire-starter moment with you, or any reader or listener.
What’s in a poem? What is in a word? It’s my relationship to a word and how it glances off your relationship to a word from your own narrative that creates a YES moment. I am celebrating my love and connection of Walt Whitman. But I’m not using AI to do it. I am using the expensive .ai domain to honor and celebrate Whitman’s spirit and hopefully REACH a new audience of poetry readers.
Why?
That’s my own lifetime question to answer over the next 30 years if I’m fortunate. And it’s your lifetime question to ask yourself, what is art? Do I care if this musician gets a dollar or a 0.0004 royalty from my enjoyment of their hit single? Does it matter if Roy Lichtenstein is compensated by ART.COM for his image?
What’s your passion? What would you sing about? How do you express your life story? Are there things you want to leave behind, for your kids, your kid’s kids to learn from? My mom, who was a fabulous painter in her day, wanted to leave behind an expression of her love for gardening and flowers. And her art was some sort of celebration of her Christian upbringing. She was celebrating the wonder of God and Jesus in her paintings. In her gardens as well. She says it better than me here: Ada McElhenney – The Native Gardener Show.
Art is a human expression. What you express as a human says more about you. Taylor is a massive expression maker. Are her breakup love songs fulfilling for you? (My 21-year-old daughter, says 100%!) Me, at 61, I can appreciate Taylor, I can appreciate my daughter’s generation’s love for her music. And I can understand how breakups make powerful songs. Why? Because we’ve all (as humans) had our hearts broken.
And in Blade Runner, Rachel appears to be sad about her condition. Deckard decides to love and escape with her anyway. A human may LOVE a robot. Does Rachel love him back? Or is she simulating (regenerating) what love looks and sounds like in her data banks? She has software that has constructed a “feeling” or “mood” about her past “memories” that are more like a slideshow of a life.
We, as humans, are more than a slide show. My mom, in the video above, comes back to life in my brain. The neurochemicals fire and I can see how young and happy Ada McElhenney was. She gave me this virus of human-crafted art. God bless her.
