Manipulating Statistics

or: Can We Blame Natural Disasters On Pirates Too?

tl;dr The Performing Rights Society (PRS) have announced that the total payments to UK artists fell one per cent in 2010. Then blames those awful music pirates.

And that's where you're supposed to stop thinking too hard, and just accept that pirates are evil and the people really getting hurt are the artists.

Except, brace yourselves, this argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny...

And I'm not talking about how a 1% drop during a deepening economic crisis and swelling unemployment is the sort of hit most companies and industries would just take on the chin and not be in the least bit surprised by as the current government proceeds to fuck us and the economy over, but that's worth mentioning (because, duh, if people have less money then they'll buy less music).

No, the real problem is with statements like this:

PRS For Music says it's mainly due to a slump in DVD and CD sales, but also the growth of legal downloads has slowed.

Yes, the growth of legal downloads has slowed. BUT IT'S STILL BLOODY-WELL GROWING. The year before, there were more singles sold here in the UK than ever before, and apparently that number is still growing. Sure, yes, it's slowed, but you've got to be running a business pretty fucking terribly if you sell more of something but make less money.

But then we start to get to the really messy logic. There's a quote from Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro, saying that early on in a band's career PRS royalty collection is their primary source of income, and then various bits of hand-wringing as we speculate how this will stop new artists from entering the music industry.

BULL. SHIT.

Let me just go for that last point first; people have always made music. Before there was a music industry, before there was any money to be made at it, people made music. People will always make music. The only artists who might possibly be put off are those who care more about the money than the art in the first place. Frankly, fuck them.

But we're not done yet. Because what Simon Neil was talking about there was one of PRS's key revenue streams; clubs, radio stations, TV, and any business that plays music that its customers can hear (including having a radio playing, or the hold-music on a telephone queue). Record sales are only a part of the total picture, so even if sales had declined (which, as I pointed out, they haven't), that shouldn't affect these other revenue streams. They're always going to play music on the radio.

So, why the dip in revenue? I'm going to point my finger at the cumulative effects of a million little financial ripples caused by the double-dip recession our shitty government have idiotically manufactured. But that's not a nice, clean, on-message answer, is it?

Nope, far easier to just say "Pirates" and hope no one like me comes along with a grasp of the basic economics of the industry.

And the thing is, I would have hoped that whoever was researching this story at Radio 1 Newsbeat would, given that they work for one of the biggest radio stations in the world, have at least enough wit to not equate CD sales with radio plays in some flawed attempt to attack downloaders. Especially when, if you read a bit further down in the article, these naughty pirates make up a notable segment of their audience.

I guess I was wrong to hope.

Seej 500

Yorkshire, UK, 28/3/2011