Tag: Pandemic

Pandemic: @Music_Canada COVID Study Sets the Gold Standard for Reopening Data-Driven Policy

MusicCanada commissioned an outstanding survey by Abacus Data using serious data-driven methodology to credibly measure the Canadian public’s experience with the COVID shut down of live music and expectation for reopening.  Instead of glorified “Who’s Hot”-level casual polls you see cropping up here and there, The Locked-Down Blues: Canadians, Live Music and the Pandemic sets the gold standard for the kind of data-driven serious national opinion study that policy makers can actually use to plan how to get out of this corner.

The study measures many different factors, including the more intangible questions of what trust level fans will require before they come back to live music.  Regardless of what distancing or contamination standards are imposed, none of that matters much if the fans don’t trust it enough to come out to hear live music in cities like Toronto and Austin.

For example, the study found this reaction:

DESPITE WANTING TO GO, CANADIANS, EVEN THOSE WHO LOVE LIVE MUSIC, SAY THEY WILL BE RELUCTANT TO GO BACK TO LIVE MUSIC EVENTS BEFORE A VACCINE FOR COVID IS FOUND.

Even if they are permitted to go to live music events, many Canadians, including those who love live music the most, will be reluctant to return for some time.

We asked respondents how soon they will feel comfortable enough doing several activities, once physical distancing restrictions are lifted. In almost all cases, fewer than 40% said they would feel comfortable in a few months or less. For most, the time horizon was much longer with many saying they may never feel comfortable again.

For example, 43% said it would take six months or more before they would feel comfortable going to a music festival or a concert in a large venue. Another quarter said they may never feel comfortable going to those types of events again.

I find it hard to believe that there’s going to be an appreciable geographical distinction between Canada and any other country on these issues.  But this study provides a gold standard for other studies in other countries, all of which should be done and done using a robust and defendable methodology.

So let’s be clear–this study is giving you the hard truth.  It is not some Chamber of Commerce hoorah or conclusion-driven clap trap.  It also tells us that the idea that you can just turn the lights back on and people will flock to the clubs may be looking at the wrong ball.  It has serious implications for the entire music industry across all genres.

But–it especially has serious implications for cities like Austin.  Given that the City of Austin commissioned the Austin Music Census in 2015, another robust data-driven study that produced  unwelcome dire conclusions,  it is astonishing that the blinking red light in the Census was completely ignored.  Not only were Austin musicians poorer than the City seemed to think they were, the entire local ecosystem was essentially dependent on live music.  For example, streaming was a negligible source of revenue for Austin musicians–think maybe someone would have wanted to look into that issue as a matter of industrial strategy?  And is there anything about the “Live Music Capitol of the World” that gives you a clue that maybe you might want to start thinking about why all the eggs were in that basket?  As Mark Twain said, if you’re going put all your eggs in one basket, watch that basket.  Or at least don’t ignore it.

Since the City did such a thorough job of ignoring the Census for so long, I wonder if they’re going to be able to figure out how to solve the current crisis.  Or if maybe somebody actually would like Austin to turn into just another college town with a Google campus, self-driving cars busily scraping rider data while stacked up on I-35 and Uber Eats Your Soul.

We can be grateful to Music Canada for commissioning this study and getting it out at the perfect time for policy makers to have some meaningful data driven reality conducted in a manner that could stand up to peer review.  And show the world the gold standard for how to develop policies that actually solve a problem because you better know what the problem is you want to solve.

Here’s the survey:

Click to access Music-Canada-National-Survey-Interview-Schedule_Release.pdf

@overlordror: Moby Blasted for Firing the Entire Staff of His Vegan Restaurant — “My Health Care Has Been Canceled by a Multi-Millionaire.”

Little Pine closed on March 15th as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and forced store closures. But Little Pine employees have taken to social media to express their displeasure with how the situation has been handled. In a report from Eater, multiple employees say Moby is mostly unresponsive to questions about employment and issues like health insurance.

Employees say Moby only reached out to them once the social media blowback began. They say they were only told this week that the restaurant was going on “indefinite hiatus.” That’s more than a month after the restaurant closed officially, with no plans to adopt takeout or delivery. Healthcare coverage for all full-time employees was also canceled.

Read the post on Digital Music News

[ARW readers are familiar with the excellent work of Hugh Stephens and this post is no exception.  Mr. Stephens calls attention to the pincer attack on creators by the forces of evil  that sure bear a striking resemblance to the anti-artist yearnings of a certain ginormous advertising company based in Mountain View.]

 

As I write we are in the depths of the COVID pandemic. Each day brings new and more frightening predictions of what is to come, what we all need to do to “bend the curve”, and how it is affecting people globally from both a health and economic perspective. The pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime challenge….

[I]t is extremely disappointing to see special interest groups taking advantage of the COVID crisis to push their personal pre-COVID agendas. In the case of copyright, this consists of using the crisis to attack the fundamentals of copyright protection, namely the right of creators to control distribution of their work, and thereby to earn a return on the sweat equity they put into the creation in the first place.

In the case of copyright, the first shot was fired by the Internet Archive which declared that it would make its collection of 1.4 million copyright-protected books freely available through its online Open Library, using the COVID pandemic as the pretext. The Open Library’s self-professed goal is to make all works ever published available in digital format. To do this, it scans any works it can get its hands on, and inventories them in its digital library. While it has over 2.5 million public domain works in its catalogue, it is not too particular as to whether a work is in copyright or not; it’s all grist to the Open Library’s mill.

Read the post on Hugh Stevens’ blog: COVID is Not an Excuse to Throw the Accepted Rules Out the Window: Copyright as the Canary in the Coalmine. — Hugh Stephens Blog