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Ideas for a Recording Industry Alternative?
icewalker asks: "There has been a lot of news (here, here, and here) lately about music, copy protection, and other related issues. What I find interesting is that there are literally thousands of free bands out there that are more than worthy of listening too. Free as in they have not sold their souls (not to mention music rights) away to the devils of the music industry. But how does one get to listen to these pioneers of music? The solution could be sites like mp3.com (until the mp3 royalties are forced). But what people want is a locals only site that streams, guess what, the music from free local bands only. Not just for your community but local bands from all over the US (and the world). We need a site that collects these bands and we need a streamer that plays them. No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves. Make it so that the artists can hopefully sell their own CD's or single songs from the same site. Anyway, mix and bake at multiple bit rates and you have a solution to the copy protected CD (I haven't bought one yet from an Indie Band). The big guys go down because they can't compete with free, better than great music on the web with a low cost distribution. So, where is this utopia? Oh! And dump the necessary registration required to listen (are you listening mp3.com?)."
Any system that allows consumers to purchase songs one song at a time (at a low one-song price), rather than as expensive packages (like CDs) that contain unwanted songs at a high price, will go a long way toward helping small artists get recognition.
Do the artists have to sign some contract to help support the service provided to them?
Isn't this where the music industry started?
Anything you say will be held against you.
Campaigns against general purpose PC's are the best way to control intellectual property. You can instead sell a device that only plays what you allow it to play, which no-one can hack into. Then you allow the device to download from certain sites on the internet, store music in a popular format like OGG, and put in so many features that the user is perfectly happy to give up the ability to play illegal copies in lieu of the features.
I had to smile as I read this, because it sounded exactly like I did a few years ago. I decided to try and "discover" some obscure bands that were better than the tripe being played on the radio.
It's the conventional wisdom that we hear so much and that we'd all like to believe--mainstream, big-label music sucks, and all the interesting stuff is being done by small, independent artists--but the fact is that it just isn't true. Independent artists tend to be extremely lo-fi, very unpolished, and more often than not, just plain unoriginal. You definitely can't dance to it. Yes, a lot of mainstream music is shit. But that doesn't mean that everything else is worth hearing. There is a small handful of independent artists who have created enough of a following to find success without losing their artistic integrity, but 99% of them are just the folks who couldn't cut it. The music just isn't there.
Fortunately, we do have big-label artists worth hearing. Eminem is always perceptive and interesting, and Tori Amos is dependably good. Most big music stores let you listen to CDs before you buy, so just head over to the New Releases and poke around until you find that happy medium: a big-name, mainstream musician that you like.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
mp3.com has a lot of bands in various levels of quality. How do I find one that I like? Sure CowboyNeal could make a site with his picks, but what if I don't like his kind of music.
.Mac subscription would give me a service like this).
I think the problem of matching a band with an audience that likes their music is the key problem for internet music distribution to solve. If a band that 99% of the people on the net hate can reach the 1% of people that likes their music, they can still be a success. And this 1% of people will be very happy to finally find a band that they like.
So far my strategy for find music that I like is to find a local band that I like, then do a google search for any positive reviews for the band I already like... then I look and I see what else the reviewer recommends and go try their music out. This has let me find a few great bands that will probably never get played on the radio: (Breech, OO-Soul, and Powder) This works, but it takes a long time to find new music.
I'd love to have a site where I can easily find more bands and buy their mp3's to download directly into my iTunes. And maybe even have their shows added to my iCal. (I wish my
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
This could be a change for file-sharing developers to enhance existing p2p networks, by not only integrating p2p radio, but also links to these bands websites. The end result would be a p2p file sharing network, decentralized streaming radio, and a fully integrated system for people to pay, read "tip" the artists they enjoy listening too.
Planet P - Liberation through technology.
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Just to show that there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the music industry works now, let's make an analogy between the music industry and the startup Venture Capitalist business. I think this analogy makes sense because that's precisely one of the roles the record labels are supposed to fill: that of a producer. People come to you with (business plans/demo tapes), and you invest money in those you like.
:
So, if your VC was like a record label
- The VC would own 99% of the stock of the company
- The VC would fill all the roles in the startup company, except for the actual product engineering (i.e. music writing/recording). The VC acts as CEO, VP of bizdev, VP of marketing and VP of sales.
- The VC determines at what price your 'product' sell, when and where, if ever.
- You can never get additional funding from any other investors for like, seven years.
- The VC has the right to call it quits at any time.
- You may no quit. Ever. If you do, consider a career change.
Hmm, don't like the conditions. Well, you can't just keep driving up Sand Hill Road. All the contracts are the same!
DZM.
But what about some colaborative filtering , P2P system? Imagine hooking it up with Gnutella so that you can not only download music, but add in your ratings.
Then groups of people with simlar taste find the good stuff they all like.
This sort of happens with your friends, and via USENET groups. I'm much more likely to listen to a recomendation of a fellow news group reader, than a commercial. Of course the stuff I listen to(jazz guitar for example) is hardly ever heard on the radio or MTV....
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Cdbaby isn't a bad choice I hear. They focus on international distribution of indie bands not the localized system that the post is discusssing but they are definitely more amenable to fans than the RIAA.
I really thought that winamp was on to something when they made it easy to publish playlists onto a website that could be viewed by everyone. What was missing was a reasonable way to listen to these playlists, besides going out and trying to download all of the songs. I can think of no better way to discover new music than to find some other individuals who have similar tastes and see what they have found.
The Washington Post has an excellent mp3 section focusing on local bands. If you're a DC band you can Post your MP3s there. T&C seem pretty generous - you retain copyright, and just let WP distribute your songs. And anyone who has Chuck Brown available is worth doing business with, definitely.
sulli
RTFJ.
The Jamband/Grassroots scene is one viable alternative. The scene, which has its roots in bands such as the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band, the jamband/grassroots scene is based on the principles of "tour lots, play well, allow tape trading".
Bands like Phish, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer (three rather different artists) have become very popular primarily because of tape trading and putting on a good live show which varies night to night.
Some sites of particular interest are Homegrown Music Network and Jambase, the latter of which has a huge database of members interested in and willing to promote the bands it serves. Bands seeking to promote shows in certain cities pay Jambase to allow them access to all the members in certain zip codes, cities and states. These fans get promotional material to spread around their area, thus gaining more interest in the concert.
Another great site is archive.org's etree archive which has full concerts of lots of bands (from big names such as Dave Matthews to the unknowns like the Motet) in lossless SHN format.
Of course, the limitations of this scene is that it's basically all wrinkly old hippies noodling away on covers of Grateful Dead songs, but there are innovators such as the New Deal and Disco Biscuits, who play live, improvised trance/breakbeat house. Or Howie Day, a singer-songwriter playing Radiohead influenced songs using loops and samples to create a unique sound. OAR play (somewhat turgid) reggae-rock, and Illinois' Umphrey's McGee present us with an alternate universe of "What if Phish listened to Pink Floyd and Genesis rather than the Grateful Dead?". There's something for [mostly] everyone.
A very possible solution of the problem of filtering out the 'dross' would be to use moderation techniques much like we do here on slashdot.
The "music distribution site" could allow users to post "reviews" and give point ratings to individual bands/songs. A fairly powerful mechanism for locating and suggesting music that you will probably like could be made by informing the site which bands you already know you like, and then you can be given "try this" selections based on bands that were given high ratings by users who also rated your selections high.
You could try new genres of music by first listening to the highest rated stuff, and then filtering with options like "I agree with this reviewer, what else does this same reviewer recommend?"
More powerful options would let you ignore ratings by reviewers that you disagree with - and/or even meta-moderate people's reviews.
It shouldn't be too difficult to build the system in such a way that shows the preferences of "the masses", but also lets you see the music preferences of "like minded" persons.
Eventually you could have associated with your profile a list of "music mentors" - users who's ratings you consider great, and who will act as your "peers" in suggesting new music.
This seems like the ideal solution to me...
They were very much a big label act when they came out in '69 with "In the Court of the Crimson King" on A&M Records (I think). Greg Palmer and Peter Fripp hit the big time with this album. Ian McDonald and Sinfield seemed to become minor celebrities.
Without the big label, you wouldn't heard of these guys.
But back then, the labels were a little more open to experiment with their acts. Nowadays, the artists tend to be polished and corporate. The acts don't seem to *grow*. They're hip this year and then they disappear.
Maybe that's the problem. It seems back then, an artist didn't have to go platinum every time they put out a record. Today, poor old Brittany's 2nd album didn't do as well as the first (how could it?), and now she's washed up before she's old enough to drink.
Personally, I blame MTV, but I don't think most people know what that means anymore.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I'm with you. It seems that this type of site would have major bandwith costs. How would they recover such costs... let's review:
I'll take this to mean 'free' as in will allow their music to be distributed for free.
Easy: Ogg Vorbis
Does this seem contradictory to anyone else? Only want local bands, but want all bands? I guess I can see something like an Amazon.com system. If you like this band, you might also like... but then we get into the expense issue again.
Onced again, Ogg Vorbis
In this, I might see a solution, that solution being charging some sort of a percent of sales. It would then be in the sites interest to promote the most selling bands in the most selling areas. But isn't this a variant of the RIAA group?
I have a problem with this... the music isn't free! It costs in terms of time, bandwith, advertising, and a whole host of other issues. It -might- be free to then end user to download, but it is definitely not free.
Ok, allowing some one to browse a site with no reg. I'm in, that's easy enough to do.
*they need help from linux coders to help make this happen on open source os.
What if you had a streamed version of a song that people could listen to and rate, coupled with a hi-fi version people could buy?
;)
Track songs based on ratings and sales. Your agent is the market - if a buncha people are buying a song, (or at least listening through the whole thing and rating it well) it must be good.
That's the real inefficiency in the record company - they invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing "talent", then see if the market agrees. Problem is the market rarely agrees, so the few successes have to support the numerous failures. You pay $18 for a good CD because of the 100's of crappy CDs sitting next to it that no one is buying.
And yes, I did just fork over my $9 to GoDaddy for the domain name.
paintball
The general idea of this is really good.
.... click happens that I wish I had on record.
.... well how about a rating system like slashdot or even better, simpler.... flash your rack perhaps instead called "Sound Your Tune"
Musicians/talent is a dime a dozen...
The music industry spends alot of money on promotion of bands that have yet to prove themselves. This results in less return for artist unless they hit it really big. The money lost has to come from somewhere.
There may be alot of "just can't cut it" talent but as someone who grew up helping band, watching many come and go as breakup and get together happens, not to mention open jam sessions and night club curcuit bands, there is those times when the right combination of talent, equiptment,
Sooo To reduce record industry cost and lost to failures, while increasing returns to artist that do generate worthwhile returns, instead of subsidizing the failures....
We have the internet to help artist and groups establish their success or failure prior to record industry signings.
If you hit a high enough level of success and popularity on the internet then as an artist or group you would have a bit more barganing power with the competition to sign you.... Like sports?
While on the record industry side, this prequalification for success will reduce cost of loses.
And we who listen... we get to hear alot of
The real key is to get out of the house, go to shows, and buy the bands' CDs. The problem with record labels, websites, or whatver, even if they're free, is that they can't help but filter out a lot of stuff you'd like. There's no way to expect someone else to find this stuff for you, and hand it to you. It's like getting an education or learning a craft -- at some point you have to participate actively. If you want someone else to find this stuff for you and feed it to you, you'll get what you deserve. If you really cared about music, you'd be going to local shows, checking out what's new, and seeing local and travelling bands when they're in town. Do them a favor -- instead of blowing all your money at the bar, buy a CD, or maybe a T-shirt. That way, the money goes right to the source. The CDs are usually burned on a band member's computer, and T-shirts printed on their kitchen tables. Most unsigned bands tour at great personal expense -- what they make at a show hardly covers the gas money, let alone food, hotels, van repairs, or that big one, the cost of not working for several weeks. Show some appreciation. Get off your fat geek ass, get out of the house, and participate in life. Who knows, you might even meet some girls...
Our approach has been one in which we blatantly give away our music. Any user can download complete songs off our website. All of our music is available from our first, crappy recordings to our new and still crappy recordings. We focus our money making operation on live Gigs. Heck we give away free CDRs of our music to people who ask for it, and it says so on the website.
/. theme of Microsoft(tm) vs. the world. Quality will always stand over quantity even if the majority of persons out there don't even know where to look for quality because quantity has blinded their sight.
One thing which has really struck me with the (hopefully) emminent demise of the recording industry, as we know it, will be the return to local, community based live venues for musical groups. The playing field has begun to level itself, and I don't think there needs to be a necessary effort to control it. In fact it's the control that huge conglomerates have attempted to gain that has crushed the industry in the first place.
As a band we plan to dive head-first into the free music scene. Seeing as though we are first and foremost a live band, our recordings are nowhere near as exciting as a live performance. But when push comes to shove, if you want to carry around some bellyrash in your portable mp3 player, you are more than welcome to without our express written consent.
One way in which the recording industry has everyone trapped is no different that the consistent
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