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My understanding is that they are still using it because their deal with the record companies, who actually own the rights to the music, won't let them sell it without DRM. If some of the labels don't require DRM, then Apple should definitely not require it either, though.

Only the Big 4, and EMI is wavering. Apple sells other music from publishers who not only don't require DRM, but actually sell plain MP3s on other sites.

For example, Loreena McKennitt is available thru iTunes, in FairPlay wrapped evilness. However, head on over to her website and you can purchase her music direct, in MP3, AAC and even FLAC.

From the site: "What is the difference between these Loreena McKennitt downloads and those offered by other digital download companies such as iTunes?
A: Our files are Digital Rights Management free and are therefore compatible with most digital devices, playable on most audio programs and can be burned to CD."

but I'd much rather go to a symphony hall or a Loreena McKennitt concert.

Yeah, if only she would hold concerts! I haven't seen dates listed in ages!

> Loreena McKennitt (I suspect you may never have heard of her), who started off busking with her harp in Canadian shopping malls, now sells to the world from her website (http://www.quinlanroad.com/) Note that the site is available in 14 languages. She is successful enough that a few years ago a documentary on her showed her office where she employs about 4 or 5 people whose only job is to distribute the CDs that she makes.

That's one. Notice how few of these folks there are, compared to the number of people who can't turn a living off of being musicians? The numbers are strongly skewed against success in the music industry. In a field where there are a thousand others with the same talent as you, you need luck AND skill to be really successful. I counter your Loreena with a fellow I know who busted his butt for years trying to make a living as a musician. He has people that regularly travelled hundreds of miles to hear him play. He's one of the most talented guitarists I've ever seen. Everyone tells him to go big time. He's been offered record contracts. He didn't take the contracts because he didn't want to lose artistic control. Because he's unwilling to sign with a big record company, he gave up on making a living at it, because he needed to keep such a nasty schedule to make his 35K a year that he couldn't see his wife for half the year. He walked away for a bank job that pays more than he was making full time on the road. He wasn't even trying to be the center of the universe, but if skill was a factor more than luck he'd still be a professional musician.

Virg

But so what? Is that really important - to achieve huge market penetration?

To illustrate, compare a musician who has a contract with a large record company who gets (mayby) 5 or 10 cents per record with an independent band who sell and distribute their own product and make - say - $8 net per each of their records that they sell themselves from the bandstand or their web site.

To make an income of, say, $40 K per year using the above assumptions; with the recording company, you must sell 400,000 to 800,000 records. By yourself, you need sell only 5000 copies.

(I leave out the question of Hollywood bookkeeping.)

Loreena McKennitt (I suspect you may never have heard of her), who started off busking with her harp in Canadian shopping malls, now sells to the world from her website (http://www.quinlanroad.com/) Note that the site is available in 14 languages. She is successful enough that a few years ago a documentary on her showed her office where she employs about 4 or 5 people whose only job is to distribute the CDs that she makes.

Any yet, she doesn't appear on any play charts that I am aware of. I doubt that she has a huge market penetration, nor the name recognition of Bono, or Britney Spears, or even Frankie Lane.

You don't need to be the center of the universe to make a good living.

From Ms. Ian's reply: Fold one is that the record companies hold all the cards; if you want to be famous, you have to go the mainstream route. If you want huge success, you have to go the mainstream route. If you want worldwide success, you have to go the mainstream route. And until we see our first Internet & Live Shows Only artist sell a million CD's without a label deal, the major labels will be the only mainstream route available. Don't quote Grateful Dead statistics to me - they're the exception, not the rule.

Not so. Other artists besides the Grateful Dead have achieved worldwide success without selling their souls to the labels. The problem is, it takes serious talent.

The name that first comes to mind is Loreena McKennitt. For those who don't know, she's a harpist and a singer who primarily does Celtic/World music (that's an oversimplification -- listen to her stuff). She released her first two albums on her own label. They sold well enough that Warner Music offered her a deal. IIRC, she told them to get stuffed -- she was going to retain ownership of her music, period. Warner hemmed and hawed about it for awhile, and eventually signed a distribution-only deal with Loreena that saw her retain complete ownership rights, and the freedom to distribute her music on her own label's behalf.

The labels aren't stupid; they signed onto this deal because it made economic sense for them. It was obviously worthwhile for Warner: McKennitt's last studio album sold over 4 million copies worldwide. But the reason it made economic sense was that Loreena McKennitt's music was good enough that it created a serious buzz all on its own. She knew she didn't need the record labels; she was good enough that she could afford to hold out for a better deal. Perhaps she was just less greedy than some; I don't know (Ms. Ian's comments about each generation expecting more than their forebears seem relevant here). But Loreena now has worldwide recognition and ownership of her music.

The simple reason this happened is that McKennitt is a rare talent. That proven talent was in enough demand, sans label backing, that she could negotiate on a more even footing with a multinational like Warner.

But as Ms. Ian pointed out, this is pretty rare. Where does this leave the average artist when negotiating with a multinational label? Frankly, it leaves them right where I think they belong: with no negotiating power prior to having proven themselves. Think about it: why should the record companies take on all the risk and expense, and then hand over the majority of the fruits of their labours to the artist whom they created? I mean, do you really believe that Britney or your average boy band would even exist without the labels? These people are interchangeable -- they're commodities! They are the wholesale creation of their record labels. Anybody with a half-decent stage presence and half-decent voice can replace them. Likewise for damn near every major-label band in existence.

I suppose I see this as a merit system. The unsigned, semi-talented artist wants the whole enchilada -- fame, fortune, groupies. He/she can't earn that on his/her own merits, and so needs the manufactured hype of the record labels to acquire it. So this person makes a deal with the devil, so to speak -- signing away a lot of future considerations, in exchange for the label's best efforts to make them famous right now.

Contrast that with artists like McKennitt -- or for that matter, with Janis Ian who's now independent -- who was already making a living with her music because she was so very talented that her performances and music were just that memorable. Word of mouth did most of the rest.

Anyway: this is more rambling than I'd like it to be, because I'm posting on my lunch break so I don't have time to make this shorter, but I think you take my point: Janis Ian asserts that "record companies hold all the cards," but she's assuming an artist who's desperate for that worldwide fame. Such people do NOT have my sympathy if they sign their lives away to a record label for fame and fortune right now, rather than earn it like a handful of very talented musicians have done.

In saying this, I don't mean to imply that there aren't talented musicians out there that have a hard time making a living. My father was one -- an entertainer for 30 years. But I think what I am saying is that there are enough people out there of comparable talent that their relative value is a lot less than they think. It seems to me only appropriate that only the really exceptional talents can get onto the worldwide radar screen, so to speak, without having an enormous hype machine behind them that (justifiably, in my view) expects the lion's share of the profits in return.

You stupid fuck:

Loreena McKennitt and her private record label Quinlan Road

To quote Eric Cartman: "Suck my balls."

Yeah, yeah, I have just been trolled. And you have a nice day asshole.


Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them

One of my favourite artists is also a real Canadian success story - she faced down the major labels, founded her own company, manages, produces and markets her own music. The artist is Loreena McKennitt and her company is Quinlan Road. I heartily commend her music anyone who likes Celtic-style music.
How do I know she's independent? I quote from her company information page

Quinlan Road is a fully independent record label and management office founded in 1985. It is run and wholly owned by its only artist, Loreena McKennitt. Quinlan Road has two offices, located in Stratford, Ontario, Canada and in London, England.
Loreena McKennitt's Quinlan Road recordings are distributed by a number of different distributors, large and small, around the world. However, we are committed to working as directly as possible with small, independent retailers - including non-traditional, alternative outlets - to ensure access to our recordings. If you are a record retailer and have any difficulty in obtaining Quinlan Road titles, or if you have any questions about our distribution arrangements in your area, please contact us directly and we will do our best to provide prompt assistance.
Matt

One of my favourite artists is also a real Canadian success story - she faced down the major labels, founded her own company, manages, produces and markets her own music. The artist is Loreena McKennitt and her company is Quinlan Road. I heartily commend her music anyone who likes Celtic-style music.
How do I know she's independent? I quote from her company information page

Quinlan Road is a fully independent record label and management office founded in 1985. It is run and wholly owned by its only artist, Loreena McKennitt. Quinlan Road has two offices, located in Stratford, Ontario, Canada and in London, England.
Loreena McKennitt's Quinlan Road recordings are distributed by a number of different distributors, large and small, around the world. However, we are committed to working as directly as possible with small, independent retailers - including non-traditional, alternative outlets - to ensure access to our recordings. If you are a record retailer and have any difficulty in obtaining Quinlan Road titles, or if you have any questions about our distribution arrangements in your area, please contact us directly and we will do our best to provide prompt assistance.
Matt

As other people have pointed out, Ani DiFranco's label is independent. Also, if you're into Celtic music, Loreena McKennit's label, Quinlan Road is independent as well...

To people who recommend looking for overseas labels, I must note that a lot of foreign music is distributed through RIAA-affiliated labels. For example, Deutsche Grammophon, a German classical music label, distributes in the US through Universal Classics.

All that said, I think that boycotting the RIAA because it's trying to shut down a pure piracy operation like Napster is ludicrous... The RIAA deserves a boycott for pushing Britney Spears, 'NSync, and the Backstreet Boys to the top...

As a challenge, name one single artist you have heard of who has been completely self-promoted (without the benefit of an agent promoting him).

Anyone remember "Mummer's Dance" a few years back? Loreena McKennit and her self-run recording label Quinlan Road had some success promoting herself; 3 million copies of "The Book of Secrets" sold (a bit shy of your 12M mark, but still a lot of CDs), music in a couple soundtracks, etc. From interviews, its clear she's accomplished this for the sake of artistic control, but it was a lot of work over a lot years; the aforementioned album was her sixth...

OTOH, this is still pretty rare, and it does require a lot of determination and business sense on the part of the artist, which is too bad; it would be nice if, when all the dust settles from this, someone figures out a way that artists can focus on their art without getting screwed (by their agents, publishers, or their consumers)...

Until a couple weeks ago I hadn't ever used Napster at all, so I decided to download it and see what it's all about. One of the things I did on there was do a search for "Celtic" and it came up with Loreena McKennitt, which I listened to and decided I really loved her songs. I decided I wanted to buy one of her CDs for myself, and also thought that my friend would like one for her birthday. So I went to the music store and was COMPLETELY disgusted with the price of the CDs

Unlike 99% of artists on Napster, Loreena McKennitt created a record label to publish her music: Quinlan Road. However as far as I know they have a distribution deal with Warner Bros. So I'd guess the high prices on her CDs are a result of not being able to negotiate volume discounts in the same way as more major artists' labels can do. But kudos to Ms. McKennitt for going it alone; you can even download short previews of nearly all her songs `legit' if you want from her site. Not sure whether they'd fancy going in for full online distribution, but then I'm a rabid fan and have to get the box anyway :-)

Until a couple weeks ago I hadn't ever used Napster at all, so I decided to download it and see what it's all about. One of the things I did on there was do a search for "Celtic" and it came up with Loreena McKennitt, which I listened to and decided I really loved her songs. I decided I wanted to buy one of her CDs for myself, and also thought that my friend would like one for her birthday. So I went to the music store and was COMPLETELY disgusted with the price of the CDs

Unlike 99% of artists on Napster, Loreena McKennitt created a record label to publish her music: Quinlan Road. However as far as I know they have a distribution deal with Warner Bros. So I'd guess the high prices on her CDs are a result of not being able to negotiate volume discounts in the same way as more major artists' labels can do. But kudos to Ms. McKennitt for going it alone; you can even download short previews of nearly all her songs `legit' if you want from her site. Not sure whether they'd fancy going in for full online distribution, but then I'm a rabid fan and have to get the box anyway :-)

Nuff said.