Sold Out
Why is it that when an artist or musician achieves some degree of commercial success, they are said to have “sold out”? Musically, I’ve never been challenged by such a label although my band’s biggest single payday was when Apple used a song title of ours, “This Is My Stop” in a series of national ads to launch iTunes. It seemed both ironic and perfectly fitting that our largest monetary reward as a musical group was not in fact for one note of our music, but only for the rights to use the title of that song in a ad. Guess that says much about why I’m in IT sales rather than a professional drummer. But I digress.
I heard someone talking on the radio yesterday about how an artist had sold out because they sold the rights to one of their songs to be in a commercial. Especially given the revolution of how music is bought and sold in this digital age and artists’ changing revenue stream, seems to me its everyman for himself in generating the money to keep the music flowing.
The term ’starving artist’ somehow has an honorable connotation. I suppose its admirable to create your art regardless of commercial gain, but at some point there is a cost for materials or at least the time invested to create. The hobbyist is less affected by this but it sure seems to me good or great art should be rewarded - with praise, recognition, appreciation, and of course money to sustain the process.
Someone tell me why licensing your work for use in advertising, TV, movies, and promotions is so regularly frowned upon? I mean, isn’t that a dream scenario, for someone to make a living doing what they love to do, especially in the creative arts? I think those who can most certainly should.
January 21st, 2008 at 1:00 am
It seemed both ironic and perfectly fitting that our largest monetary reward as a musical group was not in fact for one note of our music. Thank you for bringing the nice post.