the simple answer is that your motivations for being an artist need to change to be exclusively personal fulfillment. because that was true for the pre-AI world, as you essentially described, and its true-er for this current-AI world.
the real meme is about how artists have always been grasping for financial respect in every market condition ever, and yet nothing has changed. people were never going to commission you, they were never going to book you. While they do appreciate the content. But for the few that would ever actually try to commission something, they encountered friction after friction after friction and collectively artists have been disinterested in solving. Because they're starving and preoccupied with fighting for scraps and modicums of respect at all.
The world’s has now solved many of these frictions.
The frictions were:
1 hoping they found the right artist to begin with
2 hoping that artist is reliable and has any work ethic or structure in their life
3 not bruising that artists ego in however communication style is preferred
4 dealing with how completely segregated many artists are from contract negotiations and any aspect of the business world, but needing to secure rights properly
5 ego in securing rights properly without the artist overplaying their hand
6 waiting for the commission
7 revisions
8 circle back to 1
9 if you ever get past part 8, you have the issue of whether your new license can be used in an unforeseen way and medium in the future
getting burned in altruistic commissions of living artists is simply over now. all these frictions are solved with the free and immediate way.
> the simple answer is that your motivations for being an artist need to change to be exclusively personal fulfillment. because that was true for the pre-AI world, as you essentially described, and its true-er for this current-AI world.
> the real meme is about how artists have always been grasping for financial respect in every market condition ever, and yet nothing has changed. people were never going to commission you, they were never going to book you. While they do appreciate the content. But for the few that would ever actually try to commission something, they encountered friction after friction after friction and collectively artists have been disinterested in solving. Because they're starving and preoccupied with fighting for scraps and modicums of respect at all.
For anyone trying to make money off of music, they should have already been aware that most of the effort in making a living is the non-music work. Once your music reaches an acceptable level of quality it's more about finding and managing your fanbase, industry connections, getting booked at the right shows, promotion and marketing, maintaining professionalism, etc. than anything else. Which this particular AI doesn't help with.
An extreme example is Fred Again, who came out of nowhere and is now one of the biggest names in electronic music. His music isn't bad, but it's nothing revolutionary. As it turns out, though, he grew up in one of the richest neighborhoods in England, with Brian Eno as a neighbor, and went to the most expensive private school in London.
So no, AI music generation doesn't change anything here. It's similar to the startup mistake technical people make of focusing on picking the right tech stack instead of focusing on sales and finding product-market fit. The software/music is only about 10% of the challenge of making a successful business/career.
I did want to clarify that I was posting from an angle about those us who need music produced for our products, but were never going to commission it.
I think its important to understand that user story because a lot of artists don’t seem able to empathize with it. People are excited because they were never going to commission artists, and were also turned off from stock music licensing websites too.
>the simple answer is that your motivations for being an artist need to change to be exclusively personal fulfillment.
Mine are and the same goes for most of the artist I indicate. The point wasn't that they were in it for the money, although many dream of being able to at least one day pay the rent with it (or maybe just groceries).
The rest of your response makes sense (although I think much of it could be said for all of hiring someone to do work). Anyway, thank you for providing your perspective.
the real meme is about how artists have always been grasping for financial respect in every market condition ever, and yet nothing has changed. people were never going to commission you, they were never going to book you. While they do appreciate the content. But for the few that would ever actually try to commission something, they encountered friction after friction after friction and collectively artists have been disinterested in solving. Because they're starving and preoccupied with fighting for scraps and modicums of respect at all.
The world’s has now solved many of these frictions.
The frictions were:
1 hoping they found the right artist to begin with
2 hoping that artist is reliable and has any work ethic or structure in their life
3 not bruising that artists ego in however communication style is preferred
4 dealing with how completely segregated many artists are from contract negotiations and any aspect of the business world, but needing to secure rights properly
5 ego in securing rights properly without the artist overplaying their hand
6 waiting for the commission
7 revisions
8 circle back to 1
9 if you ever get past part 8, you have the issue of whether your new license can be used in an unforeseen way and medium in the future
getting burned in altruistic commissions of living artists is simply over now. all these frictions are solved with the free and immediate way.