Robert Fripp Quit Music Over Rights Fight

[Nekov]

Robert Fripp says his legal battle against Universal Music Group has rendered his musical career “an exercise in futility” – and that’s why he’s given it up.

The King Crimson mainman has been embroiled in a rights fight with the giant label for five years, leading to his abandonment of music-making, with no certainty he’ll return.

He’s furious over the way in which Universal has bought up a series of independent labels that own parts of his back-catalogue, and believes it’s led to the release of unauthorised and unaccounted works under his name.

He cites the example of rapper Kanye West’s single Power, based on Crimson’s classic track 21st Century Schizoid Man – which had been heard over a million times on YouTube before he was even asked whether the sample could be used.

Fripp tells FT.com: “I couldn’t concentrate on music, so I made the choice to give up my career as a musician in the frontline to deal with the business.”

He says the arrangement between artist and label has “moved from a symbiotic relationship to a parasitic relationship.”

His last live outings were in 2009 when he performed with wife Toyah Willcox’s band the Humans and toured with Theo Travis to support the duo’s Threads album. Last year saw the release of his collaboration with Jakko Jakszyk and Mel Collins, entitled A Scarcity Of Miracles. Since then he’s ended his involvement with creative projects.

Fripp says: “Going back to early King Crimson, the remarkable explosion of the creative impulse came from these young men who didn’t know what they were doing, yet were able to do it.

“What has changed in 40 years? It’s very simple: 40 years ago there was a market economy. Today there is a market society – today everything, including ethics, has a price.”

But that doesn’t mean Fripp’s fight is all about money. He says: “Music is a language in which we can express our struggle with what it is to be a human being. This is at the centre of what created King Crimson.

“Today I remain responsible for that. How can I lie to that? If I do, I cease to be human.”

Fripp’s own label DGMlive will release a 40th anniversary edition of King Crimson album Larks’ Tongues in Aspic on October 15. It will be available as a CD/DVD package, a double-CD pack and a 15-disc box set limited to 7000 units

https://www.progrockmag.com/news/robert-fripp-quit-music-over-rights-fight/

Fuck you music business 

[Orbert]

Wow.  I was just thinking recently that we haven't heard much from Fripp lately.  Now we know why.

[Sketchy]

It is a big shame, as I thought when I read the initial interview a few weeks back, but the man did great things, for which he will hopefully be remembered.

[Ben_Jamin]

Just paste this next time someone asks why record labels are dying out.

[ytserush]

Poor guy. It's not the first time he's had to do this. It's why he formed Discipline Global Mobile to begin with.

“What has changed in 40 years? It’s very simple: 40 years ago there was a market economy. Today there is a market society – today everything, including ethics, has a price.”

This is what I take from that.

[rumborak]

And yet a lot of bands successfully work the system.
Maybe a bit cynical, but Fripp's career isn't exactly on overdrive, is it? I find this "threat" of quitting music a bit hollow.

[adace]

That's pretty awful. Hope he can get these issues resolved. Just a thought, but maybe he can cut out the labels from the process and make a fan-funded album like Maudlin of the Well did.

[Orbert]

It does seem more like a hissy fit than anything else.  He doesn't like how the system works.  He's tried fighting it, but keeps losing.  So he quits making music altogether.  Yeah, that'll show 'em.

I think it's important to note that this has absolutely nothing to do with illegal downloading, which is a refreshing change, since it seems like that's all you hear about when there's some kind of gripe about the music industry.  It's not really even about compensation to artists from labels, although it is related.  It's about how Fripp feels that he and King Crimson aren't being properly protected with regards to rights to the music.  The Kanye West situation is a great example.  I've never listened to the guy's work, but I've seen enough of him in the media to know that he's a dick, and it doesn't surprise me at all that he'd sample a song and offer no compensation to the original artist.  Rappers have been doing that for 20 or 30 years now, and it's not going to change.

But... because it's not going to change, I don't really see the point in fighting it, certainly not quitting music altogether to devote all of one's time to fighting a fight he can't possibly win.  Shouting at clouds, tilting at windmills, etc.  But hey, if that's what he thinks he should be spending his time doing, then that's his deal.  He's always been very, very eccentric.

[yorost]

Honestly, his move comes off as pouty.  Get his fans upset, then direct them at who he's upset with.

[Ben_Jamin]

I view it,more him revealing more of how badly labels treat artists, well some of them.

He's just explaining why he hasn't done anything musically. Don't understanding why you think he's whining.

[Jaq]

I can't help but remember that Robert Fripp is the guy who broke up King Crimson, without notifying the other members, in order to prepare for the upcoming end of civilization.  This does feel a little bit like "I'm taking my ball and going home," to me.

[Nekov]

Martin Orford from IQ also quit music for similar reasons. However he does play live every once in a while

[black_biff_stadler]

At least his schedule's nice and wiiiiiiide open now so he can begin marketing his delicious frozen coffee drink, the Frippuccino.

[rumborak]

It also strikes me that in this day and age he could just make music and sell it straight on iTunes and the like. He may hate the new reality as much as he like, but it's also never been easier to sidestep the big labels than it has been now.

[Ben_Jamin]

It might be because he hasn't had the time to just sit down and write whenever we wants, instead he's fighting for his own music so he can have control of what its used for.

[Orbert]

Well, that's what he's saying in the original post.  He's been fighting the system for years, and losing, so he's made the decision to devote all of his time to the fight, but unfortunately this means he'll have no time to create new music.

He will not win this fight.  He will end up devoting countless hours, years of his life, toward a lost cause, and in the end only deny himself the pleasure of making music and his fans the pleasure of hearing it.

I'm just wondering why.  Does he really feel so strongly about this that he "must" fight?  Sometimes you keep fighting even when it seems a lost cause, because you know that you cannot give in to the injustice you see.  The fight against slavery, the fight for independence, etc.  Music is very important to Fripp, but is it so important that he'd rather fight about it than actually make music?  Doesn't that seem a little backwards or something?

[yorost]

When he says devoting all his hours to it doesn't that just mean 95% of his time will be stewing over it?  What will extra time accomplish?  The music industry isn't a video game boss.

[Super Dude]

Just paste this next time someone asks why record labels are dying out.

I dunno, Universal seems to be very not dying if they're buying up this much IP.

Edit: I'm saving that market society quote for P/R for sure.

[rumborak]

I just reread the OP, but there's just this overwhelming quixotic element I get from it.