{My reply to one of those automated CD BABY round-robin emails… Entitled “what Artists want…” to me it was a red rag to a bull! Here, unedited, word for word, is my reply:
Dear CD Baby,
What artists REALLY want is better than this! SO much better than this! Tune Core, the Baby’s big US rival is now introducing RECURRING “subscriptions” — when an artist wants to release something new! What an utter scam!
Music lovers pay for their favourite Music Festival ticket each year. Every year, different artists — different lineup, concert. Totally justifiable therefore to pay a recurring charge.
But Tunecore want to charge their Artists a recurring fee/subscription in order to keep the same track or album available online for sale?!
And here’s where I start to get a bit pissed off! Because it’s supposed to be the fans, the public, whose purchase of an Artists’ material, that paid everybody’s salary.
But the industry being what it can be at its worst (lazy and avaricious!), their attitude is likely on that these bloody “fans” can be awkward, and moody, artistically fickle, financially unreliable… Much less hassle if we distributors invoice the one always turns up for work — the Artist! They can pay! Twice!
Now, as a newly — emerging Artist myself, I’m willing to pay my dues, so long as I’m getting a good deal. Bang for my buck!
No distributor — would mean no album. No album — would mean — no Artist having the obligatory selfie with Perez’ Hilton! And as Perez seems to be everybody’s favourite EVERYTHING, no Perez would mean — no party!
So a distrubution deal is vital. But as it is for the fan — so should it be for the Artist:
A Fan will pay for that new album once — only once — because they buy it for life! Otherwise you stream it, but I dont know about you, but that doesnt feel quite the same thing, does it? When you stream, you dont own, you lease the music.
So unless Tunecore are about to fold, so had to move everything to short-term contracts, you cannot — should not — seek to lazily increase your revenue as a distributor, by just charging the Artist twice. Coz you know what will happen? Your Artists will walk away.
As an emerging Artist, money is always critical, a real balancing act, until — ou onow — hopefully — things start to take off.
So I for one, want to be sure that every penny I pay the necessity that is the Distributor, is:
1. Money well spent, my music is out there, and my intellectual property safe.
2. Enforcing copyright protection( for which the artist is paying), with a vigorous and visible industry presence, policing for incidences of plagiarism,
3. Cases of copyright theft come up all the time. Most are unintentional ‘accidental subconscious homages.’ Others are a more serious cases involving intellectual copyright theft. And one such is happening to me right now.
4. I’ll do the potted version: Man Parrish was once quite a revolutionary force in later 20th Century progressive electro rock., who I met when researching for my song “Sei il mio Nomi.”
We became friends — by which I mean I had to massage a rather obviously fragile ego (sad, but no sadder than some of the declining ex opera stars I tried to manage over the years.) Parrish’s saving grace was that he could be entertaining, occasionally empathetic, even taught me a couple of things. So I asked him to mix “Sei il mio Nomi.” It was part vanity project, part marketing ploy— his was undoubtedly a better-known name than mine. And — again to be completely fair — he made an excellent job of it. In return I gave permission for him to create up to 2 remixes — so long as he honour the involvement of my friends and credit them accordingly.
Sei il mio Nomi (You’re My Nomi)
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/sei-il-mio-nomi-single/1447251286
About a week after the release, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day, 1st Dec 2018 — someone showed me some weird-looking links online.
And they were EVERYWHERE. Different names — not sure what the J stands for… Jailbird, perhaps…?
They’re so blatant, and arrogant, he sometimes didnt even bother to change the artwork, and just used MINE! I mean, I know he’s not had a hit in years — but I thought it sad he was such a spent creative force, even an album cover appeared beyond him…
However, his engorged sense of the “tragic-drammatic” “Marlene Dietrich-Schizo” “leave me alone, but make sure its all about me being alone..” was alive and kicking though I could see. You didnt live the kind of 80s that Parrish lived, without being able to to do your “Charles Manson” pose at the drop of a hat…
Now, you’ll have to forgive me if i sound a little acidic here, but that’s because as you can see from these screen grabs (there were hundreds) ALL claimed Parrish the composer, “performer” (he wouldnt recognise a Flugelhorn if it hit him in the face!), and copyright also property of Man Parrish, and the variations you see here.
My friends were completely ignored and insulted (a couple talking seriously to the Musicians’ Union about a suit against him), and our charitable single (Parrish’s suggestion no less) was long gone.
My name — as the rightful, legal copyright owner and composer- is as you can see, nowhere to be seen.
Since its release, MY original CHARITY SINGLE pledging every penny to charities supporting kids with HIV, has sold 1 copy.
1 single copy. Total for Charity = 29p.
Here’s where CD Baby start to mess up:
They also disstribute all Parrish’s back catalogue. They refused to give me — the composer — an exact figure, but conceded sales had been significant.
And initially, Mariska in CD Baby’s Legal Dpt was great. iTunes were horrified at the crude, cruel nature of his nehaviour. I mean, if you’re going to steal money intended for kids who have HIV, at least make an effort! How hard is it to make a sleeve record design these days?
Them — as you might notice above, as soon as we got the USA and EU links shut down, they started springing up on he other side of the world. I now have friends of my Chinese flatmate trying to remove all those illegal links.
The effect this is having on a career I only really threw myself into wholeheartedly about 3 years ago, when I released my fist single, is anyone’s guess.
Pretty much all my sales have dried up, and last week, someone (not intending unkindness) got in touch about my new single “In Memoriam” (which comes out this week), asking if Parrish had also written that for me…
I get it. You get older — your Muse dries up, stuff about a rough upbringing surfaced, and I watched him go through a rough time.
But I was NOT the cause of that abuse, I dont even think I’d been born by that point. And Parish KNOWS I have spent the last 16 years crawling my way back to life. Literally. A badly-handled HIV diagnosis in Italy, led to full Blown AIDS in 2005 and the end of a 20 career as an opera singer, managed by Lucianco Pavarotti. I started remxing while on chemo, and the hobby became an obsession (just as my singing had been), and I’m now at that crucial make or break stage. And because of envy, or admiration, or PTSD or even stuff about Klaus’ death he’s never perhaps even been aware of before…
There is no justification to mitigate wilfully trying to destroy a fledgling career that would never even threaten the one he used to enjoy. And he knows it.
And I have been unable to get CD Baby to take ANY form of proactive action.
I have been asking for help for 6 months. Yet to hear a word from ANYONE at management level.
And because of CD BABY’s indolence and laziness, sure enough, Parrish has begun uploading MY track again. So the Google bots go round dutifully hoovering up and regurgitating information that is both innaccurate and ilegally so, and which is killing my recording profile, credibility and reputation — before I’d even got going.
Contact with CD Baby is painful — because you can hear them trying to get you off the phone or chat.
They don’t understand this isn’t just some technical gremlin…
They don’t know that I FOUGHT to come back from the dead for this. I didnt care how long it would take. Just as long as the Universe gave me a a chance. Because alongside singing opera, this had been a dream of mine, from the first moment I ever heard a Trevor Horn Fairlight sample.
I try to not to think of the man who wrote the soundtrack to youth in any kind of paternal way — but it’s hard, as that’s the kind of emotional reaction I feel.
If only Mr Parrish could perhaps dig a little deeper and find it within himself to do what Trevor and his wonderful PA Suzanne Deller, (who’s read emails from me written in tears at 3am, and yet never once said “Please dont write anymore”) do — and that’s encourage.
Neil March, composer he advises on playlist entries for Tom Robinson’s BBC 6MUSIC Radio Show.
Neil’s patience and emapthy, gave me the confidence — after 16 years away from singing, to tell him a couple of weeks ago, that I wanted to do a gig for him next year.
And THAT’S all come from Neil (and others, Suzanne included) encouraging me to go and find as much of my voice as was left, and use it for my unique George Michael Tribute, “In Memoriam,” — that no, Mr Parrish had absolutely nothing to do with!
The DMCA, who are able to have links and other web “flotsam and jetsom” removed — is going to cost a fortune. Something like $200 PER WEBSITE!
If Man Parrish would STOP the chaos and damage he’s doing, that would be a start.
There are, however alternatives:
3 EASY STEPS CD BABY COULD TAKE TO RESOLVE THIS:
- Publicly remove all Man Parrish content, making it clear it was doing so out of SOLIDARITY with those of its Artists who are honest, AND because CD BABY is appalled that he continues to steal someone else’s music, and rob Children’s HIV Charities of donations. Once he had taken a moment to realise the damage and distress his actions are causing, returned all relevant material pertaining to MY SONG to me, and signed a letter guaranteeing he will never repeat this behaviour — his stuff can come back up. He’ll sell a few copies on a wave of “sympathetic sales.” But more important is we try to relaunch that track, “Sei il mio Nomi,” And with the record set straight — this time round I can make the size of charitable donation I was determined to make.
- THE removal of an entire ARTISTS’ catalogue, because they’ve been caught stealing another’s song, might seem extreme. But protecting intellectual copyright is the Artist’s only legal line of defence against scandals like this.
- Put this front a centre of a campaign reassuring Artists and Creators — if you wanna know who to trust your IC to — come to CD Baby. THESE are the examples of “positive policing” you should be showcasing in your marketing!!! Otherwise you’re marketing a policing organisation who never arrests anyone, much less sanctions them.
This is as much a MORAL, HUMAN and ARTISTIC imperative, as it is also CD BABY’s LEGAL obligation, set out in their ts and cs. Protection of Intellectual Copyright is what CD Baby does. So please — DO IT!
IF WE DON’T ACT, IT MEANS WE DON’T CARE (ENOUGH), AND ALL ART WILL ULTIMATELY SUFFER……
NO ONE FROM CD BABY HAS SO FAR BOTHERED TO CONTACT ME….
To anyone reading this who agrees, PLEASE write to cdbaby@cdbaby.com No action ID has yet been allocated — until they decide to take Parrish’s music down and force him to stop this sabotage.
To any and all whove taken the time to read this, heartfelt thanks xx
