Hausegger Barbarossa & 3 Hymnen

[Ilja]

No, the new one is with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antony Hermus.

[Mark Thomas]

Has anyone spotted this recording as a download somewhere yet?

No, it's not out yet. In fact, cpo have only just released as a download the previous Hausegger disc of Wieland der Schmied, Aufklänge and Dionysische Fantasie.

[Ilja]

Yes, I spotted that on Spotify a while back. The inconsistency of CPO's streaming/download policy really drives me bonkers sometimes.

[adriano]

No wonder that sometimes they don't care... In the classical field, the streaming/downloading business is uninteresting. Labels have to pay a lot of money to streaming companies (a real mafia), then there are high royalties to pay to its stars, composer's rights etc. - so there is very little left over. The CD market still brings in a bit more, thanks to the (still) higher price of a CD, but there too, distributors are putting companies under pressure by demanding increasingly unfavourable conditions, such as "on commission" contracts etc. It may be a little bite more favourable in case of big star's repertoire, but denfinitely not as far as less-known repertoire is concerned.
Most smaller labels only work on a "on demand" basis anyway - and this since a long time. They make very small first pressings (300-500 copies or so), then, after seeing that more orders come in, they continue with lots of 50, or even less. Smaller pressing plants make intersting offers - and there are even labels who re-issue on CDRs instead of CDs. It really looks as if it would be the beginning of the end...

Last but not least: don't forget that for all this, it's we music-lover who are resposnsible, not the labels. It's the consumer who does not want to pay anymore for music - he does not realise what it costs to produce a good CD. Some criminals upload CDs on YouTube, so they are available for free! During years, my Marco Polo, Sterling and Guild CDs were are available on such platforms (my Brun Symphonies are available in the darknet!) - totally free of charge! I was able to get support from copyright companies and from the police to trace but few responsibles. One of them just started redoing the same a couple of weeks after we were able to convince him to cancel his uploadings.
Dear musiclover friends in this forum: just take a few minutes to reflect on this situation! A commercial - and available - CD should be paid by the music-lover who wants it. Another situation may be old broadcasts and live recordings (as long as they are not being issied on CD or video).

Just an example: My last year's settlement from the US Company (who is responsible for performance royalties from various online platforms) was US$ 0:02! This very sum has been transmitted to my bank accouint! This company explained me that they would consider me again after having reached a sum of US 100.00. They have my complete - and regualrly updated - discography. The responsibles there seem to have no notion at all of classical music... So that's downloads for you...

[Ilja]

Edit: my previous post went wrong and contained only a small portion of what I wanted to say. Below is the full post.

We could talk at lenght about the situation of classical music, but allow me to focus on the recording industry for now. I think we're confusing a number of things here. There is a fundamental difference between the streaming and download markets. In the first case, I do not own the music, just the right to stream it to my device. And I agree that the payment that flows to the artist is usually wholly insufficient. Moreover, in classical music the structure of the music usually does not help in a model that is oriented on other genres. On the other hand, if you think the renumeration is insufficient, don't use that channel to publish your music. The mass appeal of "unsung" classical music is not such that publishing on Spotify will gain you unexpected riches. We are lovers of what I would call a "boutique" genre (that makes the tendency to align prices with mass market genres all the more problematic, but that is another issue).


Downloads are different thing and basically the same as CDs, just without the physical unit of a CD plus booklet. That also saves cost: producing that physical unit, keeping stock, postage, distribution. In the case of cpo, a new CD is typically 20 euros, an older one anything from 8 to 15. Such price differentiation is unusual in downloads, which (in my experience) start and stay around 9-10 euros. So in general, a record company makes more money off a CD when the music is new, and more off a download if the music isn't. However, distribution and sales fees are wildly different (15-30% depending on circumstances), so it is difficult to generalize convincingly. One big advantage of downloads for a company is that it takes away a chunk of risk: the production of physical copies (even in small numbers), which may sell slowly or not at all, and have to be stored somewhere.


However, I do fundamentally disagree with you that it is "music-lover who is responsible, not the labels", and I don't think the example of the people that upload not only whole CDs, but entire catalogues to Youtube is a typical one for classical music lovers. Our responsibility is a shared one with the record companies. The labels have an obligation (and this is really their reason for being) of presenting music to the potential customer in a way that allows that customer to take notice of new material, choose whatever he or she likes, in whatever format he or she likes.


That doesn't mean they have to present all the options. I'm fine with cpo not distributing downloads at all, or them not streaming their music. I personally don't like it because I prefer not to have a physical CD if I can avoid it, but I can understand the economic rationale if they wouldn't. The problem is one both of consistency and transparency. Some cpo recordings are available digitally, some aren't. Some get released as downloads immediately, others only after years, or never. My guess is that there are rights issues at the bottom of this, but I wouldn't know because cpo is a very closed company.


Contrast that with Hyperion, whose digital policy is totally clear: CDs are 11 GBP, downloads (of varying quality) 9-14 GBP - and you can buy both through external channels and their own web site. But they also have the sense to communicate. Not only does that make it much easier for them to create a certain amount of anticipation for new recordings, the goodwill they created also helped them get out of trouble after the Sawkins debacle.


We have a shared responsibility towards the future of classical music, and we can take that up by buying CDs, downloads or QoBuz subscriptions. Heck, we can even write letters to Google in an attempt to stop the more predatory Youtube channels. But we are not responsible for record companies presenting their catalogue in a way that makes sense and as customers we have, in my view, a right to complain.

[adriano]

Thanks, Ilja, for this extended report - I was just reporting based on experiences of some companies I had contacted concerning digital rights of my Fritz Brun series, which has been discountinued by Guild. Now, since this problems has come to a more than satisfactory new solution, I am happy. But the situation about illegal downloads is really serious...

[Ilja]

That is a real problem. I know of some labels that have complained to Google/YouTube and had uploads successfully removed. However, that doesn't prevent people from starting another channel and uploading them immediately again. So long as YouTube can't be made liable, it remains a difficult fight.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I agree. It is absolutely disgraceful the amount of copyright music that is uploaded to YouTube. There should be legislation in place which fines YouTube HEAVILY if a piece of copyright material is not removed. And it should be their responsibility to police it. We all suffer through the lack of accountability of online media sites. And sites like Spotify are almost as bad. I know one company that spent over a year in getting Spotify to remove some tracks from its CDs which it was wrongly offering for sale owing to an error on the part of the company's distributor. The distributor did his best but Spotify just dragged their heels for ever. The only thing that will discipline these people is draconian fines.

[adriano]

We have, here in Zürich, a big Google branch. Now they just moved to new and the most expensive grounds of the city. The styling of their offices is luxurious; as a outsider you cannot even reach the information desk. No way of getting an appointment with one of their YouTube responsibles, they say that such persons are not here, but in the USA and that I should write them. In the past already I have written several times on this YouTube problem, but they did never answer.

[Gareth Vaughan]

How very dispiriting, Adriano. I'm so sorry - but not altogether surprised.

[Ilja]

Might be an idea to mount some kind of petition, though.

[TerraEpon]

Do note a lot of music on YT is actually uploaded by the publisher themselves (or at least, auto-uploaded by bot with approval)

And in fact not only will YT take down reported videos quite quickly, they will do so in a 'guilty until proven innocent' way, which means that, for instance, one person and send 100s of spurious claims over videos and get legit vids taken down....such as one Alex Mauer did recently: https://sirtaptap.com/2017/07/timeline-alex-mauer-dmca-debacle-starr-mazer-river-city/ (this seems to be a pretty good summery of what happened).

[Gareth Vaughan]

Doesn't bear out Adriano's experience.

[Ilja]

Do note a lot of music on YT is actually uploaded by the publisher themselves (or at least, auto-uploaded by bot with approval)

And in fact not only will YT take down reported videos quite quickly, they will do so in a 'guilty until proven innocent' way, which means that, for instance, one person and send 100s of spurious claims over videos and get legit vids taken down....such as one Alex Mauer did recently: https://sirtaptap.com/2017/07/timeline-alex-mauer-dmca-debacle-starr-mazer-river-city/ (this seems to be a pretty good summery of what happened).

"A lot" is rather an undefinable quantity, mind you. And I'd argue that none of the uploads by the most prominent channels (particularly "Kuhlau dilfeng #" and "Unsungcomposers") are done with the blessing of the copyright holders. The speed with which Youtube/Google reacts to complaints varies widely, and nothing is to stop you from starting immediately again after your channel is taken down - which often happens. I have spoken with people in the industry that have had material taken down only to see it re-appear days later. In some instances, the work was on YouTube almost as quickly as it had been released onto the market (e.g., the Damrosch Symphony).


That the reverse also happens cannot really serve as an excuse for violating valid copyright. On the contrary, both (and other) examples indicate how rather than investigate claims on their individual merit, Google invariably opts for the lazy way out, which leads to varying amounts of injustice - and damage.

[adriano]

Nothing against uploading excerpts for commercial purposes, but not complete CDs/Videos! Another example: years ago, by accident, I stumbled over a (20 minutes) Croatian TV production on YouTube: a film version (with dancers and mimes and the bass singing and playing) of a recording of my chamber group arrangement of Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" In the end titles neither it is mentioned that I am the arranger nor that the publisher is Max Eschig. Of course Eschig and I were never informed on this project. I complained over years, and it's still on YouTube - and the Croatian responsibles never reacted. Copyright societies now refuse to help since, in the meantime, the affair is over 10 years old.