The Music Business and the Internet

Lots of people sent in links to stories about the music industry holding a press conference and claiming that people are copying music rather than buying it (see their press release if you like). But there are some alternative points of view too: a study at the University of Buffalo claims that music sharing may cut down on superstars and promote new music. The New Republic has a story about a band that released their album on the Net six months before CDs were available, and is now wondering whether fans will buy more, less, or about the same number of aluminum and plastic circles. And a nice chart I saw a few days ago compares CD sales vs. price over the last several years and suggests that price-fixing by the recording industry may play a part in slowing sales.

Comments

Re:supporting the bands

[punchdrunk]

Unfortunately it seems that more and more record companies are preventing bands from selling cds at their shows because of this.

Re: Overpriced?

[Black Parrot]

> The recording companies has costs. ... gifts to radiostations and mtv to get their music played ...

AKA "payola", long illegal in the USA, still done under a pretense of it being something else.

In addition to being illegal, payola is commonly believed to be the major cause of crap being played on the radio.

Add in the problem of having one company own nearly every radio station in the USA, and switching stations between formats at the drop of a hat if they think it will earn them a dollar more next year, and you start getting a picture of an industry that's very, very sick.

Re:New Business Model Needed

[cryptochrome]

All I can say, is I'm getting sick of these government officials being on the side of large businesses simply because they are large campaign contributers. I have a nice new law for you. If you accept money from a corporation or individual, you may not vote on any issues directly relating to that corporation or individual's well being. In other words, if the RIAA 'donates' $100k toward your campaign, and you accept it, you aren't allowed to vote on any bill, or push any legislation, that has to do with digital rights management, music copyright, or anything else the RIAA gets their fingers into. I guess you better stick to water purification and eco-system issues.

Won't work. Bills are passed through the age old tactic of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours". Every bill passed is chock-full of riders that have little or nothing to do with the original proposal. Even in states like Texas where the law explicitly states bills should address one issue only, voting favors are exchanged all the time. All any politician would have to do is take the perks from the lobbyists, lean on a few buddies in private to push the bill, and return the favor later. Real reform would rest on eliminating or restricting the money altogether, which is actually much harder than it sounds.

Wonderlick

[Anonymous Coward]

used to be Too Much Joy. they have a new album coming out this month which they released initially for free over the internet and recorded using donations via paypal:

http://www.sayhername.com/index.php

http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2002-03-27/music. ht ml/1/index.html