Accountability in Music • Page 614

charly bliss aren't a big operation but they're not a tiny band coming out of their parents basement either, i find it highly unlikely they personally had anything to do with this and am not surprised they didn't know of an issue until getting called out for it. doesnt mean its not worth bringing up and discussing, because yeah maybe artists/bands should have more of a say in the process for things like this and understand whats going on, but certain artists are less invested in their overall image/aesthetic and just let their label or management handle the art side of it and sign off on whatever is brought to them.

 

someone has said this in the past in another thread, i believe it might have been @Drew Beringer - but reading these tweets quoted and thinking about times when bands try to crowd source merch ideas/logos from fans for free, under the guise of 'contests', instead of just paying the people who are actually trying to make a career out of doing literally that, just is such a lame look. not saying thats what CB did here, but the artists points about people vastly underestimating how much artists actually make on stuff like this, just a huge bummer overall.

im glad that it at least looks like the band genuinely did not know about the business dealings and want very much to make it right.

 

this seems resolved, good reminder to pay artists.

 

I sort of have mixed feelings about the contests. For one thing, I genuinely believe the bands who do it think they are doing something fun for their fanbase. Beyond that, I think if fans understand that they won't be getting paid/will only get paid a nominal fee, and they're okay with that, it's not such a bad thing. Like, I saw a lot of people on Twitter ecstatic about the Paramore contest because they have no problem designing something just for the fun of it.

That being said, I've also seen artists discuss how design contests perpetuate the idea that art is something not worth fair pay. So, by running a design contest, bands unintentionally send a message that artists should be willing to spend their time and resources for little to no compensation. And that's completely fair and honestly a good reason to stop doing them.

 

I feel like if there's an issue, the band/artist should be contacted privately before making things public. By privately, I mean directly contacting member(s) of the band if their management or team is ignoring you.

Just me personally, but if someone had an issue with my manager such as not being paid for something and they never even tried to let me know about it, but instead went public with it, I'd probably avoid working with them in the future. But when I say that, I'm only referring to people you can realistically get in contact with. If it was a huge artist like Bieber or Beyonce, I'd understand going public.

 

interesting thread

 

i mean, her tweets do imply that there was plenty of communication back and forth which resulted in the negotiation of her payment and subsequent month delay in getting paid, so i don't think this is a situation of someone just putting a band on blast out of the blue.

 

Plus after saying the painting was “bad” and not pay full price they continued using the painting and subsequent photos on socials

 

“I have no insight on what happened but I’m also 100% correct on what happened despite what the artist said” ok

 

Looks like Speedy Ortiz is weighing in on the situation, speaking as a recording artist:

 

Why would she lie about what was said to her? She's clearly a fan and isn't doing this out of spite or anything (she says she's still a fan and going to see them live next month). I don't think assuming she is lying about them calling her work bad without any proof is necessary.

 

Definitely been on business calls where we've told a vendor we're not paying for something because it was "bad" or some equivalent.

 

First off this is just a weird thing to get hung up on but that’s on brand for this thread - there’s a reason I put it in quotes and that’s what Steph’s tweet said probably for brevity

regardless it was a post that has nothing to do with anything haha

 

Curious, what are people's thoughts on Paramore after them doing that artist contest, and now Hayley will be profiting off of Olivia Rodrigo's work? I love Hayley and the band but those two things leave me not knowing how to feel. I mean, a lot of that could just be the label's doing. Idk.

 

imo this is all discourse for the actual paramore thread and not an accountability thread.

 

We're literally in the midst of a conversation about musicians taking advantage of artists, so I'm not sure why it doesn't belong here?

 

If I were a band as big as Paramore, I'd pay the winner of any contest I did.

One thing I've noticed is people seem to think a lot of bands are involved in their day to day business, even small ones. A good amount literally leave everything to their manager, label, and publicist. They really want to focus on music and nothing else.

 

We are discussing legitimate accountability of an artist/management making things right during a case of known mistreatment. We arent speculating on what did or didnt happen or what should or shouldnt happen, which is where the paramore discussion would go. Thats all im saying.

 

I believe the conversation about that contest was talked about in here and Paramore thread when it occurred

 

I'm pretty sure Paramore said they don't give a shit and it wasn't the band's decision to sue. Most musicians seem to understand the truth that copyright law is bullshit, and even more so when it comes to music, and that all the platitudes about "great artists steal" or whatever are true. On the flip side, courts and juries don't understand music (and juries probably don't understand copyright law either), and the people that get paid to testify as experts in these cases are bullshit artists making arguments that could be similarly applied to thousands of songs. Adam Neely has a couple good vids about plagiarism cases and another one about a dude who who used a computer program to generate every conceivable melody made up of 8 quarter notes within two bars, with the goal of exposing the bullshit nature of musical copyright by trying to copyright all of them. That said if both artists involved in something like this are on major labels I have a hard time caring beyond the interesting legal aspects of it

No idea what the contest thing was

 

this is valid and those type of responses are completely unnecessary - Steph even posted today that she has no ill-will towards the band and continues to be a fan hah

 

The Paramore/Olivia Rodrigo thing probably had nothing to do with Hayley agreeing to it or not, it was likely all music executives and legal folks who made it happen. I’m not sure what there is to hold Hayley accountable for there.

The merch contest, correct me if I am wrong, was them asking for merch submissions for a contest where only the winner was compensated in any way. That sucks and from my memory the band was rightfully called out for it, but Paramore is a big enough operation that the blame for that likely lays on someone on their team, not Hayley herself.

tl;de - There are a lot of shitty people in the music industry, including those who rip off artists, but I don’t think Hayley Williams is someone that needs to be brought up here.

 

All fair and valid points!

 

Btw, interesting article on Rolling Stone about songwriting camps where writers are being encouraged to interpolate older songs:

In the article they state Hayley and Josh will pocket about $1.2M in royalties from Good 4 U.