Piracy In Southern Gospel Music

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www.southerngospelblog.com March 2007 Feature Article Piracy in Southern Gospel Music With insight from Daniel Ball, Scott Fowler, and Gerald Wolfe Daniel J. Mount This month's interview doesn't focus on one artist. Instead, we take a look at a problem that many artists confront—illegal sharing of their music. I contacted several Southern Gospel artists for their views on the issue, and I'll let them explain how illegal file sharing impacts them in their own words. I asked the artists if they thought that audio piracy was a major problem in Southern Gospel. All the artists who responded agreed that it was a problem, but they also concurred that it is not as big a problem in this genre as it is in other genres. Daniel Ball of the Ball Brothers…show more content…
Artists, or their respective record company, invest tens of thousands of dollars before a CD is ever produced. The studios, engineers, musicians, and producers are all paid "up front", before a recording is ever completed. Then, photographers and graphic artists are employed to put together a CD or DVD cover. After that, the recording goes through the "mastering" process, which adds additional cost to the production budget. All of that happens before ONE CD is sold. The manufacturing process is the last stop before the CDs or DVDs are ready to be sold. When all is said and done, tens of thousands of dollars have been spent, but nothing has been sold. The artist or record company now has product which can be sent to retail stores or sold on the artists' product table at their concerts. Honestly, most Gospel artists depend HEAVILY on their product sales to meet their budgets. Without the sales of CDs and DVDs, I don't know of too many artists who could stay on the road. I know we couldn't. He added that many songwriters depend on royalties for their livelihood, and they don't receive any royalties when their songs are illegally distributed. He said that even if there is no intent to steal, this is stealing. He said: If I borrow a person's car for a year without their permission and even though all I do is drive it... I don't sell it to anyone else, or rent it out... I just drive it... I think I would have a hard time convincing a judge, or anyone else, that I didn't steal the car. That same reasoning applies to illegal sharing or copying. The challenges presented by the era have forced artists to be innovative in coming up with ways to make the actual CD more valuable. Daniel Ball mentioned that one of the things the Ball Brothers has done is improving their CD inserts: “One thing that we are trying to do to combat that is offer a higher quality cover with more information on the inside. If a
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