Slashdot Mirror
Music Biz Predicts 6% Decline in '03
jonerik writes "According to this article from Reuters, music industry executives gathering this weekend for the global music industry conference Midem in southern France are being told that a 6% industry-wide decline in sales is being predicted for 2003; not as bad as last year's 9% decline, but bad enough since '02 and '03 come on top of a five percent dip in 2001 and a 1.4 percent fall in 2000. As a result, talk of consolidation is rampant at the conference, with the most likely scenario being a buyout of EMI by BMG-Bertelsmann. Critics, however, are skeptical that the labels' problems will necessarily be solved by simply bulking up. 'The politics at the major labels hasn't changed. The guy who puts his neck out on the line could get fired. Whereas the guy who keeps his head down is safe, and he gets to keep his BMW for another year,' said Paul Myers, founder of Wippit.com, a subscription download site."
Economy slumps
Music sucks
Downturn...must be piracy.
This slowdown of sales has everything to do with P2P and nothing whatsoever to do with a slowing global economy. (Should I use the "R" Word?)
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Seems like...
1. Sign shitty artists
2. Sell shitt CD's
3. Piss on consumers rights
4. ??? (anything but restructuring)
5. Lose profit
Wait...that doesn't work
...and sales go down. Did these people take basic economics? The soft economy no doubt helped. Of course, the industry blames piracy...
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
Maybe if they stopped hyping pretty-looking but talentless actors and concentrated on people who could actually perform music in some way, we might actually be interested in buying it.
And, as an aside, many of us are so jaded from the recent crap, that we're unwilling to buy music basing our decision solely on the two (three if you're lucky) songs that get played on the radio. I want to hear a majority of the album before I buy it. Oh, sorry, that would require me to STEAL the music first. Oh well, no CDs for me.
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
What's 6% of a bazillion, anyways?
Of course in this economy, lots of industries would give their first born for a mere 6% decline.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
is the fact that they put out less CD's than they have in previous years..
begun, the flame war has..
Is that they are going to reduce the number of published artists by 24% and jack up the prices by 18% and blame the resulting 6% 'loss' on Kazaa.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I just have this image of a skeksi-hitler-esque record exec screaming up on some podium for consolidation while all the other fat waddley record exec's (like skeksis from the dark crystal) nod up and down vigorously while looking around at eachother. Then the hitler-esque record exec standing there with a smug self important look on his face.
Maybe if they stopped cramming out so many remix CDs (Reanimation, Limp Bizkit New Old Songs), stopped charging so friggin' much (20$ a disc), and actually made them worthwhile as opposed to one or two good tracks, they will actually have a productive year.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
... the stock market analysts would be clamouring for layoffs and restructuring. Period. No lobbying for laws or paying off your local congresscritter
Lets see, we'd expect to see the following:
1)A 5% reduction in operational expenses
2)A 10% reduction in global workforce, with a minimum of 3% coming locally
3)Announcements of 'diversification' by hiring some recognizably named 'diversification' consultant, who ought to leave after 5 months and make many speeches talking about how the environment wasn't conducive to change and (4 months later) will say it was a success
4)A number of consultants to help improve product flow
and finally
5)Several new products in time for a major tradeshow
Oh wait, this isn't 'industry', I forgot their lawyers make the money by paying off congress.....
I got the world's smallest violin to play the world's saddest song, just for them ---- .
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
That even if the collective music industry cut CD prices in half and allowed mp3-format downloads for $0.05/song, I wouldn't buy their products.
When the xxAA's tried to get their lackey Mr. Hollings to plug the "analog hole", they poisoned the well. Nothing less than Chapter 11 filings by the major record labels will please me at this point. They have permanently lost a customer.
I work in IT. If I have to choose between the IT and media distribution industries, I'll pick IT. Every time.
In a completely unrelated story, a 43-year old man was startled today to find out that shooting himself in the foot does, in fact, hurt.
People don't want to pay $20 for a CD of a new artist. Consumers are for the most part fed up with the BS they feed us about piracy hurting their bottom line. Stop complaining, and do something about it already! Either throw Kazza users in jail, or conform to the economy like good little capitalists, and reduce the cost to meet the demand.
Reducing the cost of CDs will have a 2 fold effect:
1. More people will choose legal CDs over piracy [gives music companies more money].
2. The black market will be hurt because there will be fewer pirates to downloading and selling [eliminate the pirate competition].
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
They keep complaining about piracy of music through things like kazaa, but the only way they have tried to combat it is through stuff like spreading worms on the p2p networks.
I dont think they reallise that there are no satisfactorary ways of actually legallly paying for and downloading tracks. Most of the ones I have seen are poor. If a decent scheme was started, im sure at least some people would be willing to pay.
When is the cost of the average CD actually going to go down to what music used to cost?? I realize that there is inflation, but CDs were expensive at about $15 in the late 80s, and now CD player and discman prices have dropped dramatically over the years while the price of CDs has remained more or less constant.
Maybe if they would actually consider pricing CDs at an average of about $9-10 people would by a lot more. I know I would (honest!).
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
I predict that the music business will have a 0% change in their business model.
I'll wager that both of our predictions are correct.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Well, the impending/current loss of profits hasn't stopped them from holding their global conference in the south of france.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
Why don't ./ users organize a voting blo?
Like a third party. except it doesn't necessarily field any ego-bloated candidate like you know who. During elections, we vote/organize for republican or democrat candidate depending on which candidate would or has voted on our concerns.
It can be particularly important for tie breaker elections. But in general it's a good way of making ./ views heard by politicians.
One concern is fraud. But since this is not real voting, it should be no big deal.
Produce crap == crappy sales
Almost all the new music I buy is directly from musicians at their concerts now.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
I wonder if they are crying wolf by using the dollars inflation rate? Like with the CD-Burners, only now the dollar is worth 6% less than it was at sometime in the past. Even if they plan to sell the same amount of product for the same price they still lose. You can never tell with the new math that they have created.
Our thriving and innovative music industry is about to be dealt a death blow! Please, donate to the RIAA so that we can support the lobby to extend copyright to life + 350 years, and make extend the punishment for DMCA violations to life + 350 years! Help feed starving artists!
We don't need no water. Let the motherfuckers burn.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
is pandora's box, and their diminshing expense business model almost ensures a continuing growth/profit downturn.
QUESTION - How can you depend on a smaller subset of crappy music to support a more diverse and growing audience and still make a greater profit, with out Andersen Accounting 101....
ANSWER - you can't unless you can claim the losses due to an illegal act and get aid or a system slanted in your favor...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
This has been discussed before, read more:
http://www.nypost.com/business/66512.htm
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
That argument is hardly gone. If anything it was short sighted because CD burners weren't as plentiful in 1999 as they are now. If people could download and burn music legally by paying a distribution system that pays the artists, then there would of course be more music bought using the P2P model + CDs, than just CDs alone.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The music industry's karma is catching up with them!
Soon, they will die the death of 1,000 cuts!
Either that, or their patron, Satan, will do something to take care of them again....
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Raise ticket prices at concerts, that will get us our lost revenue back. Noone can pirate the concert going experience!
The music cartel has been providing me ongoing disincentives to buy their products for well over two decades now. For the most part, I listen to what I've already bought, and I amuse myself less and less with what's coming out of the old school entertainment industries, and more and more with what I can do on my own.
If they consolidate any more, or continue to come up with new ways to drive away customers, they'll pretty much remain the same industry I have come to hate and loath.
*looks around* And the difference will be? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Really. Why should I care what happens to them? Until they radically change their way of doing business, my money can be best spent on other things.
The music industry is too greedy, they charge too much for shitty music, The record companies control the Radio Stations, and what gets played. So how cany artists who refuse to be signed with labels that are memebers of the MPAA? Alternative Record Labels, such as Fat Wreck Chords, BYO, Epitaph and Jello Biafra's Alternitve Tentacles records, dont get the exposure, because they do it for the music not for turning a profit, I mean yea I like some mainstream bands but the Majority of music in my MP3 collection is of artists/groups that people havent heard of. so here is how we turn this around(Pay attention Hillary Rosen) 1. Bring down the prices, make it so the bands who bring in the money are self supporting, dont give them millions of dollars in advances, for that huge world tour, Social Distortion, is a fully self supporting tour act, and they are on a small label and are one of the most recognized bands in the Punk Scene. If people like these bands they will make money, which will make you money on CD sales, dont market a huge band that is going to flop 2. 15 dollars for a CD? come on now. how can Epitaph Records charge 4.00 for the Punk o Rama Series or Fat Wreck chords on the Fat Music Series, they come out with a new one every year too! AMAZING. you know what? I would pay 10 bucks for a CD. 3. Lay off the P2P file sharing networks, they have done you alot of good, unless you ask Lars "Stop Stealing my Music Bitch" Ulrich of Metallica. Music sales were up, and you were making more money. I mean this is simple economics people, if it turns a profit let it continue. Repeal the DMCA, Kid Rock or Jay-Z or any of the guys from Metalica arent going to die of starvation if their music sales are up because of p2p sharing. These are just my Thoughts!
---
The problem is that everyone seems to respond to the growth of filesharing technologies differently. Personally -- and I know this goes for a lot of other people too -- filesharing has caused an increase in the amount of music we buy. For some people, though, it has no discernible effect, and some people explicitly forgo buying music due to the availability of free MP3s.
I would buy alot more CDs and DVDs if they were marked at half or a quarter of the price. Meaning that I would spend more money if they were cheaper. But with all this nonsense about this being all about protecting the artists, the big labels are just bringing in the money.
What's the result then? I'm now much more inclined to go to a P2P system (I don't but I might start doing it) and downloading the music I want. I pay for concerts, and I know that money goes to the artists. When I buy a CD I'm thinking that this overpriced little round thingie that costs 17 cents to make is going to fund the record labels' lousy service to music and not the artists.
To top all this, I get kicked in the back with crippled CDs that try to prevent me from turning my music into MP3's that I can put in a playlist in my computer. And then they ask why I'm not buying so many CDs? Whatever...
Pedro Côrte-Real.
I know that the music industry is going to blame MP3's for this, so I'm going to give my opinion as to why it IS the fault of MP3's.
There are a lot of small bands out there that are really good, and they only tend to produce mp3's until they get out into the big time. I do have big bands on my hard drive, But I don't listen to them anymore, because those little bands are so great.
This wonderful system of music compression let me discover them, and THAT'S why I don't buy CD's anymore.
- To sample the music you might want to purchase.
- To make backups of your music.
- To copy your music to a portable digital device.
- To create your own mix of music.
- To play CD's on your computer even though they support the 'Compact Disc' logo.
- To compress your music down to one CD so you don't have to carry tons of CDs around.
Yeah, I'm surprised about the decline. Everything people does to make music more fun is labeled 'piracy'.
Seriously: The industry itself is to blame for this. With each new step they take to "prevent copying", they get negative intention in the press, and among potential buyers.
Not only because this kind of "copy protection" is known to damage hardware, but because it prevents fair use.
When they also come down on file swapping networks as hard as they've done their share to get an eternally bad rumour for being non-polite greedy bastards.
In a world with 100 geeks who knew what MP3 was, nobody would notice. In a world where MP3 has become a commonly used verb, everybody notices.
So, instead of trying to give you less for more, perhaps the industry should try to give you more for less: I'd gladly buy a non-copy-protected CD with MP3 versions of all the tunes, but I flat out refuse to buy anything that contains Cactus Data Shield or equivalents.
http://virtuelvis.com/
... everyone already owns at least one copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller album!
---
Great minds run in great circles.
> Golly! It looks like that particular argument is now dead and gone.
Hardly. As has been mentioned before, some independent industry analysts were actually surprised that the drop in sales was only as much as it was. They did the calculations of new artists signed, albums released, and all the other factors that go into the total sales equation, and estimated sales to be actually less than they ended up being. Some concluded that music sharing might have accounted for that.
Do you honestly think anyone in the music industry is concerned about quality more than they're concerned about profit?
Britney sells albums like fucking crazy.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
I hope these jerks all lose their jobs. They have no clue what they're doing, but the blame me for their problems.
I steal music. Lots of it. For certain artists that I really enjoy I only use my own rips. Most of the time I rip from a friends copy, but right now I'm looking for an older Jay-Z cd that nobody I know owns. I've been debating buying it for a few days now but I can't stand supporting Hillary and her boys. The cd costs more today than when it was new. Shouldn't it cost less?
Moderation: -1 Troll, -1 Redundant.
So, let's say I want to buy Pink Floyd's Animals. Or Paul Lansky's Fantasies and Tableaux. Or Nirvana's Nevermind. Believe it or not, (gasp) I can't preview the entire album online for free!
What if the CD's not in stock? That's usually the case for the kind of music I listen to, and to get it in stock you have to order it and pay a deposit. The only way for me to preview an album is to download "illegal MP3z" of it.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
The record labels must be wearing blindfolds. The pirating technology hasn't changed that much since 2000 when Napster ate it, meaning we still download songs and burn them. So what keeps sales declining more and more every year? Well, pretty much everything that everyone has posted before me, prices too high, not signing new (good) talent, pushing rehashed crap that we're sick of, etc, etc. All I want to know is when will it stop?
-- Jack
if you look at the big "money makers" for the music industry... Nsync, britney spears, christina, Backstreet boys...
... and as we all realized from before it was just a fad... and this is the fading of the fad.. It's not "soft economy" or "bad planning" or "RIAA" or "piracy" ... it's the simple fact that the record companies have nothing to really follow up with the incredible success of people like britney spears... including britney spears herself whose album sold half as many as the previous one.
these guys were a fresh thing and they "Boomed" the music industry. I mean these artists were selling record number of albums left and right
I think the music industry is becoming irrelevent. They have massively overproduced and they are about to pay the supply/demand price for it. There's more music available at the local mall store than I have time to listen to in my lifetime - and thats just what's in stock on CD and cassette.
I'd much rather see a live performance than pay for a recording anyway. I'd also like to actually be able to know the performer instead of being one of a zillion nameless fans. That's why as I grow older, I like trendy less, and whatever I can see in person at a local bar or small venue much better.
Music sharing and so on isn't the enemy -- for centuries, sharing is the way music perpetuated -- from one performer to the next to the next... I find it ironic that the music industry blames the fuel for creativity for it's decline...
-- $G
So, as everybody mentions, they feel like using this as an opportunity to hit P2P networks. But really, they get what they get - if you don't invest money in new, fresh artists, don't be surprised when sales are flat.
It's just like any other industry, and they've cut the equivalent of R&D. Well, when your market is in durable goods (you don't sell someone the same CD over and over, though it seems like it), and you have no innovation, guess what? Your sales will suck! Quit blaming MP3's, guys!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The more the major labels have to downsize and consolidate the more that specialized independent labels will be accessible to the mainstream.
I hear a lot of stuff like "boycott the RIAA - stop buying CD's" on slashdot. What about labels that are unaffiliated with the RIAA? Almost all of the music I have bought in the last 10 years is from independent labels - not only because I don't like the business practices of the major labels but because the music on independent labels is BETTER. Smaller labels are generally interested in good music over money (there's not really much money in it).
Of course this is a pretty wide generalization - there's a lot of shit on independent labels too. But almost everything I hear on the radio is shit.
"How can I find music without major labels shoving it down my throat", you ask? Read reviews! Try www.pitchforkmedia.com. There's a shitload there. Then download a couple tracks of something that sounds interesting off Limewire or whatever and see if you like it. If you do, go buy it.
Anyway, the point of this rant: The major labels loosing money and downsizing will not make it any harder to hear music - smaller labels will fill any void that appears. And that is good.
Eating is for wimps.
Well, sure you can get bootlegs but people will always go to see their favorite artists in person. As I'm sure you saw Rush the latest time they came around. Did you spend $75 a ticket like I did? I remember paying $23 about 10 years ago. This of course, doesn't help if the artists are no longer touring/living ;)
No wonder the music industry's in a downturn; it's got the same insanely cheap short-termism that pervades companies and governments these days. These people don't care about keeping customers in the long term; they just want money now, now, now even if it means that in fifteen, five, two years time they'll be living in a cardboard box. They don't realise that by chasing cash rabidly in the short term they'll lose customers, perhaps permanently. It's no wonder that on the local and BBC radio they like playing so much borderline alternative music these days; all of the recently produced mainstream music sounds mostly the same. There's no variety.
That's the thing. There's nothing wrong with producing fluff. However, if you're producing nothing but fluff, charging £17.99 for it, then stopping people from even copying the fluff for personal use, then there's something very wrong.
And what's their solution to the problem?
A merger. For goodness sake, how is that going to solve their problem? They'll be able to merge profits? Wow! As if they didn't have enough cash to buy their own laws already. A merger just means that the music industry will become yet more homogenised and yet more people will be turned off from what the 'superstars' are producing. People will buy less and pirate more.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
But.
The RIAA just screams out as one of those old school steel companies that refused to get with the program, refused to change its technology, refused to acknowledge that its power would ebb unless it changed the way it did business. If nothing else, Ayn Rand understood that entrenched bureaucracies tend to feed entrenched "industriopolies" ...
These RIAA people are pathetic. I mean, good lord, if I complained this much when I was a kid, I'd get whacked on the head with a frying pan. If I complained like this in class today, my professor would tell me "life's tough, you've got to move faster than everybody else." And rightly so.
But, as I've said before, the problem isn't with the RIAA and MPAA. They damn well have the right to demand protection for their industry. They probably have a fiduciary duty (at least in the short term) to do it.
It's us - the media-buying lemmings - who allow them to stick around and not fade off into mediocrity.
Example: 1991, Gulf War. Saddam huffed and puffed that the streets were going to run red with American blood. Six weeks later, he was routed in one of the most remarkable (set aside any political differences you have with the Gulf War -- it was a military marvel) military victories in history.
So why does anybody pay attention to the RIAA? Why does anyone take them seriously? They're just a bunch of whiners. Very rich, very powerful whiners. Whiners whose power absolutely depends on you giving them credibility.
If we whine and moan about how they whine and moan, eventually we'll all just be whining and moaning, and the only thing that'll be left is Britney-clones strutting their boobies to prepubescent boys who have waaaay too much access to mom's credit card. That, my friends, has got to stop.
I challenge every single one of you to write a letter to your Congressman (or woman), Senator, President, Prime Minister, Member of Parliament, Dictator, Central Committee Member, or guru and tell them "We don't care about the RIAA. We don't buy their product." Don't talk about it. Just do it.
Arg. And, yes, I just compared the RIAA to Saddam's Iraq. Oh, and I'm also going to be sued by Nike now. Crap.
"Two words that shouldn't fit together: Music Industry
Ever wonder why the Foo Fighters sound just (almost) like Nirvana when that x-Nirvana drummer wasn't even with the band and didn't really much write songs when he did? Answer: it paid to write songs like Nirvana. Or, more specifically, the record company paid the FF's to sound just like Nirvana knowing that's what would sell to the stupid shit kids out there riding along on yesterday's pop-cool-whatever.
I can just see some record company execs schmoozin' that drummer and telling him that he could still have a fine future in the industry if he could just write songs like no-more-head-Kurt did: "Would you be interested in forming a new band like Nirvana, drummer?" Reply, "Well, ya. Uh, I could try... How much would you pay us?" "We could make it VERY worth your while if it sounds like Nirvana and the kids see you as the band reborn."
Some jack-off from that 90's Clash wanna-be band whatever-they're-called was defending himself recently about "the state of punk in the 90's" sort of thing in Alternative Press and saying that it can be about money and getting down on people who are giving him trouble for being commercially successful. Well, I say fuck these fair weather pop-punk bands pretending to be rebels and acting like they're breaking new ground. I mean, I have a 9-5 job at an ISP in Salt Lake City, Utah and I have pink hair and although my boss is liberal and customers make comments sometimes, most everybody likes it like it's fun, which it is. I bring up this example to simply point out that pink hair 20 years ago would be a statement and likely cause trouble and now slack, somehow-I-keep-a-job types like myself can have pink hair and keep a job-obviously things have changed. Hell, even extremists like Marilyn Manson hardly cause a stir outside of places like Utah and Florida.
I'm applauding this lack of concern for appearance and simply want to point out that punk music is not rebellion anymore-some of it is still damn good, but it is music and not some fucking costume party for pseudo rebels.
Back to my RANT that making music into an "industry" is not a good thing overall-one mostly gets copy-cat bands like the Foo Fighters and all those Epitaph bands, on a good day but more likely Alanis Mourisette female-singer -with-heart-on-shoulder pop radio hell.
This is not to say that one can blame record companies when I just heard on the news this morning that the most popular radio station in NYC is playing 80's disco music!!!! Nietzsche's notion of the masses as cattle clambering along seems quite fitting at moments like this. But anyway, what are people buying when they pay for an album? What do they hope to get from some LL Cool J song?
This idea of "music-as-industry" really gets me bad because I have to listen to this shit when I'm in someone's car or flipping through the radio station's in my honey's car since her tape player doesn't work. This is hellish. Where is the surprise in any of this shit? Where is the soul in it? how can anyone feel any emotion besides hatred when listening to this? I'm no Rocket Scientist *sob* but why can't music have some soul again? Are people so brainless and exhausted that most anything will do? Are people so lazy that they'll let radio and record producers choose what they will like and hear?
I see people gobbling up the feces over and over again and then see stacks of some "big" band's music at the used music store less than a year later. So many bands are liked and hip for no apparent reason-take Rocket From the Crypt. Their music is boring and lame and lifeless and unoriginal and yet Sympathy For the Record Industry (cool name) bothers to waste cool record art and vinyl on these San Diego kitch bitches. I keep hearing people talk about their wearing bowling shirts on stage like that's a good reason to buy and enjoy their albums and concerts. What am I missing here? And then Blacktop comes to town a year ago and less than a dozen people are out to see them.
Now I'm thinking about films and getting pissed about that too. Ever hear of "quote-whores"? I'll RANT about it sometime.
If you agree, don't be getting too full of yourselves too quickly. Most of you liked disco in the late 70's/early 80's--or would have if you had been around and old enough."
godlessmotherfucker.com
Sales are down because the labels can't sell much more of the stuff from the 50s to the late 70s. There is so much that's unavailable due to inability to gain licensing rights and clearances.
The Star Formerly Known As Prince called himself that because his record label wouldn't let him use his own name. Hell, the Carpenters from the 70s still have a huge following and all their video stuff is still in demand, but it can't be sold because clearance can't be obtained. Now who the hell would fight over them?
Same with the Partridge Family. There was a recent TV special, but their original recordings weren't replayed, it was easier to get more studio musicians to rerecord them.
I hope the industry chokes on that Supreme Court ruling.
If all /.ers vow to only download their music this year, I bet we can get up to an 11% decline in the year 2003! Who's with me? Let's goooooooooooooooo!
Sorry, got caught up in the moment....
He's going to invade Iraq to save us from all this piracy!
The Beatles wouldn't be signed today. Well, maybe baby-face Paul would if he ditched the three homelier guys.
The Rolling Stones wouldn't get past the odd bar gig.
Janis Joplin? Joe Cocker? Anyone from CSNY? Ha. No hope in hell.
They don't sell audio, they sell image now.
The majority don't want to buy 'good music', they want to affirm some sort of image they associate with. That's why it's boiled down to a handful of cookie-cutter stereotypes: Hardcore Gangsta Rapper(tm), Edgy Club Kid(tm), Hard Rockin Mallcore Punk(tm)
Big corporate concerns cater to the majority - that's what they and their boardrooms and feasibility studies and market focus groups are good for.
Only little independent labels would take a chance on an unknown, gamble on the 5% who are actually interested in music (it's background noise to most).
Shame the government allows the biggies to systematically crush the smaller labels - doubly so since the smaller labels sell a different product (music) to a different audience (music lovers).
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...that they are driving BMWs. Music is an art, not a business. The poeple involved shouldn't be concerned with money. What they should be concerned with right now is the low quality of music out there....oh and MAYBE the fact that the ECONOMY IS SHIT RIGHT NOW. Just my opinion in this whole mess.
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
Haven't folks argued here since Napster came out that P2P systems resulted in people buying more music once they 'sampled' what they wanted? It sure the hell does! I bought Ben Folds, PJ Harvey, and Harry Connick Jr. from what I heard from downloading. I definitely would never have purchased those CD's without my friendly neighborhood file sharing program since music like that never gets any exposure on radio. Yet after hearing the lastest Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Busta Rhymes, and Pink a zillion time on the radio and TV, I didn't by any of those CD's. Now do you understand why music sales are slipping?
watch mtv or turn on the radio lately?
music sales down 6%
music crappiness up 100%
you do the math.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
I just thought of a way to save the music industry. They could diversify and start releasing pr0n videos rather than regular music videos.
Have you seen the latest Christina Aguilera videos? (Specifically - Dirrty)
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
What a shitpile of "artists" that was, they can't blame it all on P2P!
Is the industry really producing poorer music?
There is a big reason the music industry targets teenagers. People that go to college and start paying bills grow cynical about the status quo, including music. Not necessarily the music industry, but of course that's where people target their cynicism because the industry profits from listener's failure to find a musical style they're consistantly happy with (which is impossible).
People in high school don't really think about the music industry as being evil. They listen to what's popular, just like most wear what's popular, etc. Even if it's not 'popular', it's finding a niche, whether it be computers and academics, social life and sports, or drama/science fiction/goth. People in different clique's have a musical style targeted at them, and they take it mostly without thinking. They may complain about CDs being expensive, but they don't complain about quality or immoral lobbying.
As you get older, you think that it's not important to fit into a clique with your musical choices. Instead you try to find things that you like, both musically and morally. It's only natural that with your more mature, broader perspective on the world that you become cynical.
In conclusion, say all you want about the industry pissing you off and quality deteriorating. Everyone outside of high school says that, they did 20 years ago, they will 20 years from now. It's natural to purchase music less as you get older. Therefore it's not logical to expound your own buying experience with the revenues of the music industry.
When you're 50 and you never buy new music, the music industry will still be around and raking in even more money than it does now. Not that it's right, but that's how it is.
my blog
We've got a 6% drop in 2003, a 9% drop in 2002, a 5% drop in 2001, and a 1.4% drop in 2000. This means that for this year, sales will probably be about (0.94*0.91*0.95*0.986) times that of 1999. Let's work this out...
Wow. That means that 2003 sales will be only 79% of that from just four years ago. When you lose over a fifth of your market in four years, you'd understandably be worried.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Is there a simple reason for this? It would be nice if the CD was $9.99 everywhere but my question still stands.
MTV has, finally - after flirting with the idea for years - officallly announced they will cut back to about 10 videos a week. It recieved a mention in TV Guide's Cheers and Jeers last week or the week before (I'm sure someone could find out).
From now on, they will select these very few videos, and then air them constantly.
The point? Such rigid control over the playlists, plus the dramatic scaling back of the numbers of new songs viewers and listeners are exposed to has killed MTV, VH1 and radio. If you don't like the NuMetal, Rap, PerlJamClone and TeenyBop tracks this week, you are out of luck. There will be nothing new for you to see. You will not be exposed to any new artists, new genres....nothing beyond what you already know.
So once you have all the U2, Radiohead, Bijork, They Might Be Giants, etc albums you got into, what else is there?
A lot.
But how the hell are you supposed to find out?
Play MP3.com roulette?
Good luck filtering out the crap from the music with some substance with the little guidance you can get. I lost track of the number of times someone reccomended a band to me that ended up being just another bottom-of-the-barrel garage band (not to dis garage bands in general, just the REALLY lame ones.)
MTV, VH1, etc have always shown lots of shit, but they also managed to dig up a few gems along the way. Playing video after video from bands that hardly sold anything, didn't have a good marketing budget and didn't fit into one group, live up to anyone's vision of what they "should" be, and what kind of music they "should make. The programmers were responsible for sustaining bands until they reached immense heights.
U2 albums didn't really start to sell well until their 4th album - "The Unforgettable Fire" - which had 1 top 40 hit. Before then, they never really had that much success on retail shelves -despite having a huge tour following.
MTV played them anywyay.
When their second album didn't do very well, they kept playing them.
When they went off in odd directions with their music they kept U2 videos in heavy roation. Didn't matter what rigid category they did or did not fit into.
It was music, and it was interesting.
Sometimes it sold well, sometimes not nearly as well as before.
But the videos kept playing.
That's over now. MTV has given up because they found the 14-year-olds love all their crappy non-music shows, and the single, 90 minute or so block of time when they do show videos (Total Request Live). These viewers are the most fiercely loyal. So MTV has decided to cater to them, and only them.
This demographic didn't tune in as much when a block of videos came on that didn't cater to only their tastes.
So MTV axed the very thing they are based on.
Radio isn't much better.
So now, it's down to 10 songs a week - mostly the same ones from last week - in a few, narrowly defined styles. Most of which will not appeal to a broad audience.
And the millions of listeners who have far fewer places to turn will find themselves uninterested in buying music. There simply isn't anything new being introduced to them.
And the music industry will see the downturn, and blame it soley on file-swapping.
And they will wonder why they can't find any new "hit" artists.
They will ignore the fact they simply don't have the paitence to nurture a band, but simply expect it to go Top 10 with its first album. A group that fails to do so will be dropped. And any group in the running will have no control over their music anyway, so the expectation that they will get any better is moot - considering they have no ability to grow as artists.
These people want 4 new U2s every year.
But, like many other groups before and since - the key to success was artistic control by the band, and relentless exposure - regardless of sales.
They didn't hit the Top 10 until album #5.
And few ever will again..
Nobody will wait that long anymore.
Ho about you put out some good music for a change. Them maybe people will buy it.
Not everyone deserves a 320i
I was under the impression that the cost of producing a CD *has* in fact gone down.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Are they really predicting decline? Does this mean they can no longer claim to have unmet projected increases? Or are these actually overlayed negative adjustments to projected increases, which can then once again be blamed only on piracy, rather than suck?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Well with the other recent numbers that they have pushed upon us I refuse to take anything they say at face value. Perhaps the realheadline reads something like
Music Biz Predicts 6% Decline in '03.
6 = -35
That should get them enough to buy a few more congresscritters.
bmg buying emi is a bad thing.
please realize this.
emi has these great programs for breakthrough artists, where they 'do' stick their necks out for some good stuff, and sell cheap discs with quality music.
bmg is an evil megacorporation. jive records is the virus that infects the music industry today.
bmg does not need to start aquiring other labels.
and last i heard, they were in financial straights.
you can't have everything, where would you put it?
Few, if any, movies do $360M at the box office. I don't even think TT has done that (yet).
My guess for the cost differential isn't that movies make all their money at the box office, but that the music industry is spending too much on music videos and trying to subsidize it via the purchase of CDs. Videos are basically a giveaway (yes, you can buy them, but most people consume them for free on TV).
I'd wager the music industry actually makes decent money on audio, if you could subtract the cost of videos out of their finances.
I believe that parallels can be drawn between the comments in The Mentor's manifesto about phone phreaking and all this RIAA bullshat:
Slightly revised: "We make use of a product without paying for what would be dirt cheap if it wasn't controlled by profiteering gluttons."
Payola has boomed via "independent promoters" in recent years, and in turn the quality of music on the radio has gone down. Specifically, the relative quality to the people listening, since they no longer have any say at all in what gets played. There used to be a kind of representative government in the person of the DJ. Not just talking about requests, either. Was a time a DJ could play what he wanted, then it was "play what you want but during these hours play this list", now it's just "play this list but not necessarily in this order." As a result I haven't listened to radio in like 5 years.
More ranting: MTV no longer shows videos or even shows about videos anymore it seems, so my main source of new music is MP3s. And now they want to take that away!
Naw, if people were just *buying* more CDs, I am sure they would stock more. I don't think that GiantRetailCo stocks a certain item only because it has a better value proposition for a customer (and of course you are correct- they do offer more value). But DVDs are hotter than a pistol right now with people snapping up players (fastest adoption of an electronic media format *ever*), and frankly, the people that market movies are way smarter than the ones that market music.
BTW- did anyone read the latest Wired (print) on the music biz? If thier predictions were correct they'd be lucky to get only 6% decline. But then, take Wired predictions with a grain of salt, and have a laugh reading this chestnut:
http://www.wired.com/wired/5.07/longboom.html
You know, between 1986 and 1992, when I was in High School and going into my "entry level" computer job, I purchased nearly 400 CDs.
I kind of got fed up with the music industry's attitude, even back then. Did you know that CDs say that "unauthorized *LENDING*" is prohibited? I hated feeling like I was an evil person because I was making compilation tapes *FOR MY OWN USE*. I hated their attitude that they had to milk us for all that they could.
So, I did something about it. I boycotted them. In the last decade I have hardly gotten 100 CDs. Despite the fact that during this time I was making 10x more money than when I was buying more CDs. Probably half of the CDs I've bought since 1992 have been independants or smaller labels or the artists themselves.
A full 10% of CDs I purchsed just to give away (a small band a friend was involved in, I purchased a whole box to give to friends).
Back in the '80s, I'd buy anything that caught my ear. Now I'll only buy something if I've heard several songs from the disc and still like them after a year of listening to them.
How long does the entertainment industry think they can treat their customers like dirt, and expect them to still keep coming back?
I'm sure that internally the RIAA realizes that some of the spending is down because of the economy. If they don't, they're bigger fools than I expected. But their public face keeps making me feel worse and worse that I don't want DRM, I want my music in MP3 format, and I want to keep multiple copies (laptop, player, server), even though I don't use *ANY* of the file-sharing systems.
So, my boycott stays.
At least with 500-ish CDs, it's hard to get bored listening to the same stuff over and over.
Sean
If music crappiness is up 100%, MTV's crappiness must be up 1000.
-- Chris Martin, System Administrator
It's because the music industry has nothing but artists that suck and you refuse to buy any of it, right? If you believe that, all you're doing is proving that you're NOT the target market they're looking to sell to and they won't listen to you anyway!
...and the reason repeated on /. like a broken record (pun intended), I want to purchase music online in a NON-DRM'ed format. Now please excuse me while I cast "Wingardeum Leviosa" on some swine.
Of course, if you're someone who has problems with "target markets" and feel the recording industry should sign and promote every single artist they find until they put themselves into chapter 11, you don't understand the basis of for-profit business. They want to sign the artists that are going to have the biggest mass appeal so they can produce the biggest profit. If that's not your cup of tea, the major labels simply just accept the fact that you're NOT their customer and realize you'll buy your music from independant artists.
Karma be damned, I'm going to voice my opinion on this matter. I enjoy mainstream entertainment, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm one of the customers the RIAA should listen to because if their distrobution methods were improved, I would buy more of their products!
Since I DO enjoy the music produced by RIAA-signed artists, why am I not purchasing more of it?
I refuse to buy a copy protected disc resembling a CD. My portable music player is an MP3 player, if I can't convert the album I've purchased the rights to listen to the format I want, I'm not buying it. The Florida sun heats the interior of my car to CD-destroying tempatures. If I cannot copy the CD and keep the original in a safe place, I refuse to buy it.
Sometimes I don't enjoy all the tracks on an album, sometimes there's just one hit song I want. The RIAA does not want to sell me music by-the-track. Pity, I would like to buy it.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I hear people complaining about $18-$20 cd prices, and I have to ask, where the hell are you guys shopping? Are you seriously buying cds from stores like Sam Goody or the Virgin stores?
I can find nearly any cd for $13 or less, which I don't find to be outrageous.
Assuming that more and more music will be sold online, aren't sales bound to drop, as cost savings are passed on to the consumer? Selling music online frees the labels of all these inventory costs, producing cds, etc.
So with these revolutionary changes in distribution methods, it would be more meaningful to look at profits as an indicator how the industry fares.
I guess what goes around comes around. These marketing genius types killed digital audio tape back when all most people did was copy compilations of their own stuff and borrow a couple from friends. But really - who the hell cares if the crap getting pushed now sells or not. Probably the only way some of it gets ANY distribution is piracy. Looks to me like P2P is probably doing them a favor.
... it was reported that less people are spending $20 for a CD on which there are only two songs worth listening to.
Oh, well, that's the yes-men for ya. Hey, speaking of piracy, whatever happened about that supposed worm from GOBBLER?
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Let's see what we can do to make it ten precent, shall we? I want to see how many record company execs we can make lose their wives or girlfriends because they're only making half a million a year now.
This is not my sandwich.
In case you haven't noticed, Napster is dead and gone. That was the easiest and most reliable way to sample music (even sample kiosks in music stores tend to be broken) -- being able to browse through others' favorite songs led me to buy more CDs -- I haven't bought many CDs since the death of Napster...
"But it's just more
Lock-jawed pop-stars
Thicker than pig-shit
Nothing to convey...
So scared to show intelligence
It might smear
Their very career.
This world
I am afraid
Is designed for crashing bores"
Funny thing is, this is from a song sung in concert in 2002 by a VERY famous artist, who holds the record for the FASTEST sellout of the Hollywood Bowl in history, breaking the record previously held by the Beatles. A great artist who remains UNSIGNED by a major record label.
That comment about shooting oneselves in the foot seems so perfect to describe the inanity of the recording industry today.
In just a few easy steps.
1. Return to a focus on music, as opposed to entertainment or product. Make a distinction once and for all that flash in the pan pop stars like Britney Spears or New Kids on the Block are not musicians, but entertainers. These groups are not so much recording artists as stage performers who also happen to have released an album. Considering relitivly short run longivity of these entertainers, keep promoting them the same way you've been doing for years: It works.
Now take the other side of the industry, the actual musicians; The folks who play their own instriments, the ones who formed a band together on their own and are creative and inovative forces are derived internally, not in a focus group. Employ A&R scouts and record executives with arts or music degrees, not business degrees. When deciding which bands to sign, make judgements based on individual merit instead of compliance to a winning formula.
In other words, promote and press music that is good, as opposed to an anaylist's predicted expectation for sales. In the end, this will provide quite a bit of profits as long as you:
2. Cut massive promotion costs. There is absolutly no reason why you should have to spend ~$5 million to promote an untested band. $1 million rock videos which are never viewed can be made just as effective as $50,000 videos in the hand of a novice filmaker who is allowed to innovate. Plastering the walls of every music store in America with posters will do nothing if nobody has heard of, or likes your band. Use low cost promotion methods, such as the Internet or word of mouth (hey, if the band is good, this does work). You can ultimatly generate low or no cost promotion with your best and most succesfull promotional outlet, radio, if you:
3. Stop orginized payola. Don't roll out a new untested band nationwide--they may fail! Allow individual radio stations and individual DJs the freedom to make programming decisions. If it's good, and the folks calling in keep asking for it, it will get played and eventually gain national attention. If it stinks, the DJs will soon drop it. When you allow programming decisions to fall into the hands of the folks who actually enjoy the music and talk on the phone every day and every hour with the people who will actually buy the music, you'll have a much better chance of knowing what music the people will actually buy then if you make those decisions in the board room.
Yes, this method is not as much a 'sure bet' as your current system, but then again, you will no longer blow millions on every new band which is essentially a crap shoot.
4. Finally, Value price recordings. ~$18 for a CD is simply too much money. Plain and simple. Consider a price point closer to the consumers willingness to pay. Make smaller recording runs for unknown or untested bands. As price per unit goes down, pass at least some of that savings to the consumer. Also, consider reviving the single. If you find yourself with a band that has a hit but an otherwise woefully uninspired album, charging $1.95 for a CD with just the one hit on it gives you more profit and allows the customer the ability to get the music he wants without making the often unprofitable (for you) decision to eschew the entire purchase.
As a personal note, you also might get me back as a customer if you stop calling me a theif or a terrorist because I've downloaded music off the Internet. Until recently I would purchase a few new CDs every month, but your public contempt for me has just frustrated me so much that I won't support your industry. You may think what I do is immoral, but you might want to consider this: If we make money in the long run, the custoemr is still always right.
The Internet is generally stupid
I expect both formats to go over like a led zepplin. When audio professionals are arguing about whether these formats sound significantly better, and when people are perfectly happy with inferior-sounding mp3s, I do not think the public wants a better sounding format.
I think the public wants better music and lower prices. Personally, I want the little guy to become more important; I am sick of a hierarchy which makes a very few famous musicians Gods and the rest peons.
I really think the record companies lost it when the internet boom happened. Their reaction to piracy by strong-arm tactics with legislators backfired. While this worked in the early 1990s with the HRRA, when the media controlled the communication channels, such techniques do not fly when communication channels are open.
I think people will continue to enjoy music in large numbers; I currently am enjoying a Mexican group called Kabah. I just do not think the current distribution model makes as much sense any more.
Let me restate that I think pirating mp3s is wrong; it is immoral to download a song without the copyright owner's permission.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
They're too economic focused, hence there problem. It took Bruce Springstein 4 albums to get a hit. But now you don't get a 2nd chance, let alone a third. If they weren't so god damn money grubbing (Yes, I realize they're a corporation and are trying to make money) then they would realize that these one-hit, paper cut-out bands are only a quick fix but in the long run you'll have no lasting potential.
This reminds me of what happened to, I believe, Louis XIII. France was going bannkrupt, so instead of annual fees for high positions, they had a person to make one large payment to keep that job in their legacy. And yes, in the short eye (his lifetime), they were pulled out of their lack of cash. But it came back later to haunt on screw over his predecessors.
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
I think its worth noting that in the last year more interesting new music was heard on Mitsubishi and Sprite commercials than on the radio. New, great music comes out all of the time, but there's zero interest in promoting it. Not on MTV, not on the radio, not anywhere. The only way I find out about new music is by reading the alternative press or through word of mouth.
The record industry is an industry of parasites. Their business model is based on relentlessly screwing both the producer of their product (the artists) and the customer. The executives themselves, as in most industries, produce nothing and contribute little. Anyone who's ever worked in a big corporate office can attest to this: the highest level of management spends most of their time schmoozing and going to catered "meetings". Their jobs are the least at risk, they work the shortest hours, and yet they make the most money by several orders of magnitude. I think that C. Brown from Leaders of the New School said it best in "Scenario":
"We're all making pennies on our records, so who makes the paper?
The man in Manhattan laughing in the skyscraper."
I really want to buy CDs. I often stumble across a new track or two of music from (Kazaa|Morpheus|Limewire) and find that I really like the band. When I check the price of the CD and find it's hovering around $20 I'm instantly turned off.
How can _anyone_ afford to build a reasonable CD collection at these prices? Frickin' special-edition DVDs "WITH EXTRA FEATURES" cost less than CDs!
Is the music industry TRYING to diminish sales so they can draw a weak link between diminished sales and file sharing? Are they purposely shooting themselves in the foot so they can figure out a way to litigate file sharing out of existance? (which by my calculations is not possible with today's technology.)
You would think they'd want to increase sales--but driving the prices of CDs up (and dropping the number of releases) isn't going to help. I can only surmise they're doing it intentionally.
here
"I analyzed the RIAA's market data, in particular, the 2001 year-end statistics...First off, unit shipments and revenue were both down. What a focus on total revenue hides is that the per unit revenue rose almost 7%...That puts in familiar economic territory, where a price increase leads to a decline in quantity purchased."
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Bad music is a matter of opinion and opinions vary. I think the it's the tastes of people that have changed. Given the current economy, I doubt most people wanna hear lyrics about the "bling bling" lifestyle of the artist.
heheh, and here I thought it was a great mystery. :)
Heh. If they'd done the same for say, 1930, it'd be a different story. Things are bad, and they got a _lot_ worse in the next 15-20 years. Then they got better. Then they got worse. Etc.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Real bands do it for the fans not the money, so i dont feel bad and plus, look at all the new fans that come to their concerts.
I've often wondered if the downturn in CD sales is not at all due to piracy, but simply to boomers aging and not being particularly interested in new music. By now, boomers have already replaced their old 60's and 70's vinyl records with CDs, and so aren't buying any more. Gen X and younger are a smaller number of people, they have no vinyl to replace, and so ongoing sales will be smaller.
- apologies to someone else
XML causes global warming.
Note to Music Biz -
Keep fucking your customers and it'll go down 100%
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I don't know what Americans do, but here in Norway, mp3 is commonly used as a verb.
"Hey, I just mp3ed that song"
http://virtuelvis.com/
There's a huge, ever growing part of the "music industry" these days that is NOT a part of the RIAA, and is not being accounted for in those statistics, as far as I know.
We are not spending less on music than in the past. It's just that many bands have eliminated the middleman (major labels, RIAA). The whole "jam" scene, which now has engulfed many of the music fans that used to buy tons of RIAA CDs (like me), has effectively eliminated the middleman. And it's not just "jam", it's many jazz, funk, and otherwise non-mainstream artists that are doing this.
Most of these bands have their own record labels now, and do almost all of their CD sales at live shows or directly from their own websites. Some of them are quite popular, like Ween for instance. They used to be on Elektra (major label), but their next album will be sold in the fashion I described.
If you were in touch with this large, growing scene as am I, I think you would agree that a lot of money is being spent on CDs and not being accounted for in these statistics. And that amount is growing quickly year after year.
Someone with a Slashdot account who agrees with me here, please repost this and get it noticed!
"2. The black market will be hurt because there will be fewer pirates to downloading and selling [eliminate the pirate competition]."
This statement stems from the fact that the music industry, through it's mouthpiece and flakjacket the RIAA, has perpetuated the myth that anyone with a computer and a broadband connection is a thief putting "artists" (read: Britney Spears, read: N' Sync) in the poor house. It neglects to include the vision of rich record execs taking multi-million dollar per year salaries and travelling with these so-called "artists" at the "artists'" expense.
If I make music, and a Kazaa user copies the bits that encode the music, and then a record executive flies around the world charging his/her airfare, hotel, meals, and other expenses to me, who's the thief taking money out of my pocket?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Yeah, well, the economy is bad and my portfolio went down more than 6%... it was Kazaa! Make them give me money! ... dummies.
I'm sorry, but this just gets my goat. The record industry insists that they're loosing business and it's just horrid what P2P is doing to them, and it's all piracy's fault.
Find me another mutli-billiion dollar a year industry that's NOT hurting in this day and age and I'll give you a cookie. On top of that, they're a non-essential industry! They should be hurting more than anybody else out there right now!
Okay, lets assume this is horrible to the record industry. The industry is just decimated by P2P right now for arguments sake -- who the hell do you know of right now that's been laid off by them and is hurting economically because of it? Anybody?
Lets step back into the world of -real- products with value right now. They're hurting... badly. I've seen Steelcase (a fortune 500 company recently) cut back their staff by large marks because of the economy. People aren't pirating office equipemnt, it's just a bad economy. There's rumors of a automotive parts manufacturer shutting down here too -- and that's not because of piracy. People still drive cars, and beleive it or not, they usually buy them. Yet, still, they're hurting. People are getting laid of from real jobs in real industries, yet these SOBs have the gaul to say that their sales are slumping and beleive that it's somebody else's problem that it's happening.
Bull... fucking...shit. Welcome to the real world, fellas. When people who make products people actually need are out of work you can sure as hell bet people that make things that noboby really needs are going to be hurting for money.
one word: GOOD!
Maybe this way artists will get off their lazy asses and actually do work and perform! The days when you released a shitty album, sat back, relaxed, and watched the cash roll in, are over! Now they'll need to actually work and preform for their fans and really *earn* all that money.
[alk]
Duh, they're politicing again. They want Joe Consumer to feel bad for them. It's about the fight for "public opinion" in the [controlled-by-them] mainstream media.
Maybe this says something about the viability of recorded music in comparison with filmed entertainment and interactive entertainment. How long can a medium that has been around as long as recorded music ever hope to maintain a lofty position in the face of much more addictive and immersive media that incorporate music, visual stimulation and in the case of games, interactivity?
I'm not saying that nobody wants to listen to recorded music, but perhaps its time we realized that all of these arguments about who gets the money, how the music gets distributed, and so on are missing the point that while consumers will still shell out big bucks to go to a live concert, they are no longer willing to spend as much disposable income on recorded music. It has become a commodity in the minds of consumers, whether the recording industry realizes it or not.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Seriously, these companies are only worth a couple hundred million. If 10% of the napster users during the height paid $20 they'd probably be able to buy one whole.
Not that it would ever happen, but I'd be willing to bet that if all the anti-music industry types pooled their disposable income we could buy the industry wholesale.
Ah well.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If profits are less negative than they were last year, then profits increased. If piracy increased or stayed the same, then the recording industry is full of shit. Did piracy increase or decrease? How do we tell? Did YOU personally download more/less/the same as last year?
Q: Why are they called Compact Disks?
A: Because they are Disk-shaped, and because we have made a compact with the devil.
Lol!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Only if the analog sound is perfectly recorded and stored. Analog media has a 'sample rate' and 'bit-depth' just like digital media, created by the physical characteristics of the media.
For example, if you were storing music on a record with the needle traveling along the disc at one meter per second, and the needle track resolution was 100 microns, it would be equivalent to a 10khz sampled digital recording. If the needle's pitch was one millimeter, then it would be equivalent to a digital recording with just a 3.3219 bit depth (log 10, base 2), regardless of how fast the needle was spinning.
Making smaller and smaller tracks and more precise analog media is difficult. Just look at how much money is spent on building CPU fabrication plants and stuff. To improve digital sound all you need to do is crank up the sample rate (more then 32bit samples are a waste).
By the way, you can easily create digital media now that can produce far better sound then could ever be played back with normal speakers, recorded with regular microphones, or even heard by human ears.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
+5? That comment is seriously underrated. One of the funniest thing I've seen on slashdot in a while :P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
On second thought... forget I said any of that. With fewer chumps to eat the depreciation I'd have to look that much harder to find the used CDs I want. :-)
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
kdgibson wrote:
> That's the thing, they aren't going to change. The
> industry will eventually lose the support of the big labels
> because they'll go bankrupt.
The big labels are the industry. When they go, their bad old industry and its ways of doing things will go with them. But the music will live on...
> to find music because no labels will be around to push
> new music to radio stations, mtv, etc.
That is all the old way of doing business, the dinosaur going extinct because he forgot to grow feathers and take flying lessons. The Internet is a big part of the future of music. P2P and internet radio (once the current fee system under the RIAA is tossed) will take over the promotion, and dramatically reduce the cost. New technology is already making inexpensive (relatively speaking) and easy to use basement studios a reality. The future will put the artists in the drivers seat, where they belong.
> I care, just because I love music, but I don't care because
> I disagree with how labels run business.
The labels came to power because they had access to technology and contacts that the artists didn't. But music wasn't always that way. Humanity has always had its shamanic drummers and religious choirs, bards and minstrels, folk singers and street performers. Music has always been a part of human expression and culture, the mirror of the human heart.
It's time to put things back the way they should be. Time for anyone with a voice (or skill with an instrument) and a will to be able to put down their virtual hat on the web, and share the music that lives in their hearts with anyone who will listen.
> Win lose situation...
Yeah, music wins, the artists win, everybody wins. Except those bad old greedy labels; they lose.
Me, I love to sing. Heck, I feel the need to right now...
Bells are ringing: Mothra, Mothra! Every heart is calling: Mothra, Mothra!
Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have gotta pay! New Kirk calling Mothra, we need you today!
I think someone just going to collage during the Grunge era in the early 90's wouldn't have felt that way, unless they really loved Michael Jackson and Stryper. Since they were on the 'rise' of the music industries 'innovative' wave.
I'm sure you've heard of the music industries cycles, poppy BS for a while, then they get innovative stuff for a while, then more poppy bullshit. Except right now we should be on the falling end of the poppy bullshit, but where is the new stuff? Where's the nirvana of the 21st century? Where's the Perl Jam, where's the Smashing Pumpkins!?
They're not around. Instead, we get poppy bullshit wrapped in a 'indi' wrapper, moronic stuff like Avril Levine. (Holy Christ, I can't stand her... Sooo fake, I mean what self-respecting angsty teen would ever write such bland lyrics?). Not to mention shat like Linkin Park, which is just a 'refocused' boy band. Papa Roach, and, god forbid, CREED.
So, music really is getting much worse. Personally, I hope the music industry chokes on it's own shit and dies.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Have you heard what they are putting on the radio lately? It is mostly crap. i don't understand why the big music companies and Clear Channel think they can hose me and call the crap they are playing good music. In the past month I've bought 4 cds, two at concerts that I atteneded and bought from the band and two from indie labels. Bad music plus their stand on digital media makes me steer clear of the large labels. If you create a product that is so good that I can't help but buy it your sales will go up. Keep publishing crap and I will pick and choose what I like and download it.
MTV has, finally - after flirting with the idea for years - officallly announced they will cut back to about 10 videos a week. It recieved a mention in TV Guide's Cheers and Jeers last week or the week before (I'm sure someone could find out).
From now on, they will select these very few videos, and then air them constantly.
You mean MTV is actualy going to play Music videos now!? This is great!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm not sure about the sprite ads, but I do remember those Dirty Vegas tracks from the Mitsubishi eclips ads.
It didn't hurt that the band had an amazing video for the song, did you ever see it? Probably one of hte greatest music videos of all time.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The music industry is trying to put the blame fair and square on the proliferation of P2P networks in particular, and file swapping in general, wheras it is a plain and simple fact that the established music industries' output with regard to original music has declined by -more- than their sales have in the same period of time. File sharing is having a negligable effect on their bottom line, but they are using it as their own scapegoat for their lack of progress in developing music. If the big music players win on this issue it will be a loss for ground roots development of new music, which the big players ignore over manufactured bands.
I wonder why No one thinks this loss shouldn't be higher given that most of us are disgusted by the recent practices of the Recording Industry. Maybe the Customer is telling them something.
Or have prices gone up? Tonight I went to the mall to buy 4-5 CDs. I was looking forward to this for a while, as I've been in England for several months and didn't want to pay crazy euro-prices. When I figured out that 5 CDs was going to cost me the better part of $200CDN, I walked out of the store. I remember when $25CDN was the most any non-import single LP CD would cost. Now it's up to as high as $38, with $28, $29 being common. None of my selection was priced under $20!!! Granted, this was the only store I checked, but with prices like that (and 15% tax on top) I don't think I'll be back to check again soon.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
One major change, which doesn't require too many subjective evaluations to notice, is that the music companies have made a shift away from developing artists to a regime where they're more about developing songs. There's always been a certain amount of this throughout the past few decades, but it's taken on a particularly feverish industrial pitch in the last several years.
The end result is that listeners seem to be less attached to the artists that they listen to, and buying the album or becoming part of a following is less important; with the exception of a very small number of artists, all you need is that band's one or three major hits. Then you can forget all about them because chances are they'll just fade away.
This change really took off right around the time that it became easy to simply swap and collect songs in a convenient and reasonably high-quality (ie non-casette) format, with the Internet and p2p making it easy to share with millions of people all over the world. Instant disaster.
I work for the state. Budget problems last year. Governer is deciding to
a) no raises for state employees
b) raise alchohol/cig taxes (doesn't affect me much)
c) raise property taxes
So I'm getting a double-whammy at least. For some reason, spending my money on something that is formula generated and over produced just doesn't seem to fit into my top 20 lists of things to do with my little bit left over.
But I'm sure it'll all get blamed on piracy and heaven knows what else.
RIAA Representative: Reply to this message with collection details. Thanks!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Who give a shit if RIAA or the record companies die. Music will always be there and will be downlodable or you'll be able to order it from the artists site. By the way for about three years now Ive been buying my cd from used cd stores. from $1.99 to $10 for newer cd's you cant go wrong. So once again I say let those greedy fuckers die.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
my view on this .... is #1 we're 17 days into 2003.... why not just say that we're gonna be 8% down in 2006. #2 A whole lot of people I know are struggling to feed their families.... they aren't worried about buying a cd or whatever. and #3... even if it is because of p2p.... if they would put more than 1 or 2 good songs on a cd maybe people would buy the cd. I have a $5 a song rule... if a cd has 3 songs I like and costs $15 I'll buy it.... but if it's $15 and only has one song I like.... what's the point??? I have to agree with a lot of the older posts in related articles.... they just need a new way to market the stuff. anyway.... screw em.... they're mad because they lost a couple mill out of thier billion dollar industry..... the way jobs and such go now.... I damn near cry when I drop a quarter.... deal with it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I really felt old for the first time in my life awhile back when I saw that video. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. I couldn't believe that they got away with making that and showing in on television in the middle of the day, nor could I understand what she was thinking when she agreed to make that video. (Not that I didn't find her to be incredibly skanky before that...)
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
Several new albums are priced at around $9.50. I can't remember for sure, but 30 Seconds to Mars is definitely one. I believe that the new Queens of the Stone Age is too, but I'm just guessing here.
Could the industry be using these select albums to gather some data on the effects of price drops? I'm praying, but experience with those bastards tells me otherwise...
GOOD :/
... its right from the artist.
If I buy cd's
I refuse to support the RIAA gestapo.
..to battling piracy.
No one will to pay 16-20 Dollars for a new CD.
Its time for the fat cats in the music industry to lower the CD prices to 10-12 dollars. No CD is worth $20. I can buy a DVD for this price.
Please don't tell me that prices can't be lowered. They can. New CD prices are inflated AT LEAST 8-10 dollars by the record execs and stores (even more if the store is Tower Records).
Until inflated CD prices go down to where they were 5-10 years ago, piracy will remain.
Dolemite
________________________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
Only 6%?!? That's pretty damn good given the circumstances.
They must be doing something right, despite what the rest of
slashdot thinks. Kudos to them. I guess letting business
graduates run the show instead of arts majors actually works.
Maybe other industries should be taking notes.
I agree that I might not have been purchasing as many CD's as I would have. However, I'm probably buying better music than I would have. Maybe that's why the major record labels are pissed. All their artists suck, and people can tell before they go out and buy the cd (gasp!). That's my theory.
I belong to the ______ generation.
Unless the US starts buying and investing a lot more, its heading for a depression.... what arrogance to assume it doesn't affect them...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Wired Magazine is reporting that CD sales slipped 11% in the 4th quarter of 2002. What makes the record companies think they can reverse this trend?
After all, they haven't been too successful to date, dishing out the same old stale, derivative, and uninspired music that they've been pushing for the past 2-4 years.
Chip H.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
After several major labels announcing that as of 2003 EVERY release will be copy protected.. I personally think they deserve everything they get and I'd expect at least 20% decrease in sales as soon as people start catching on to this! If they insist on stealing my consumer rights they should expect me to steal their music! I/O
Amen to the whole price argument...Go to your average new + used music shop and you'll see twice as many people in the used section than in the new section. If they could buy new for prices they currently pay for used (usually $8-$10) then I'm sure the pattern would flip-flop. (As the new section would usually have popular CDs in stock, whereas used sections are really hit-and-miss.)
;^)
As for me, I'll keep buying used, I can't stomach paying > $10 for most any music. (And I have >1,600 CD's.) Imagine (especially you record company exec schmucks) if I bought most of those new instead of used?!?
Then again, I'm sure the record co's would much rather squash the used CD market. Too bad that cat's out of the bag!
As an aside, anyone see the irony of the latest Boston CD berating "Corporate America" and being priced ~$18 at Borders? (Esp. as it's a risky "comeback album", you'd think they'd want exposure instead of $$$$$.)
going on, but the RIAA is pulling figures out their colon regarding piracy. They claim billion dollar losses, claim that EVERY blank cd is for pirate uses, claim that every mp3 unless proven otherwise, despite our constitution forbiding it, is stolen. Ever since cassettes came out the RIAA has been claiming the sky is failing, well chicken little is getting old, but enough $$'s will BUY some legislative love in the Good 'Ol USofA these days....
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?