Slashdot Mirror
A Music Industry Case Study
spmkk writes "The NY Daily News has an uplifting look at the fate of a (hypothetical) 4-piece band "making it big" in today's RIAA-driven music industry. The condensed version: A band that sells 500,000 records for $8,490,000 gross ends up (after a few iterations of the new math) with $161,909 in their pocket. Split four ways, that's a whopping $40,477.25 each for a record that probably took close to a year to produce. And this is for a record that goes gold (as per the article, only 128 of some 30,000 records released in 2002 were so privileged). And I bet you wanted to be a rock star when you were a kid..."
You can read her manifesto about this at http://www.holemusic.com/speech/
It's more in depth than this article and comes from someone who has been there, a good read..
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Oh bother.
In a 2000 speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference. It shows how a million dollar advance and a million copies sold can equal zero dollars.
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Already done.
Go see live music. If you live in a city larger than 50,000 people, there should be a few bars that get live music. Go see them. If you like them, buy their music. No record company required. No inernet piracy required. Just good music.
Thanks to the joys of deregulated radio...
Clear Channel owns the air time.
Clear Channel owns the play lists.
Clear Channel owns the concert venues.
Clear Channel owns the concert promotion.
Clear Channel owns the ticketing companies.
So, unless you want to play in a bus shelter, unadvertised, playing songs that no one has ever heard of, guess who makes all the money?
Why do you think all those radio stations that sound exactly the same as each other have exactly the same bland "Front Row Seats!" competitions, the same bland "Sold Out Seats!" competitions and the same bland DJs who're supposedly on "Hard Rock" stations giving out tickets to go and see Britney Spears with them at the same three venues as every other gig you ever hear about? Clear Channel owns the entire chain from start to finish, nationwide. Even when there is a chink in their defence, the artists all know damn well that if they dodge Clear Channel in one city, they'll be blacklisted from every other one across the nation.
Everyone criticises the RIAA on slashdot. After all, they're the evil monopolies, making all the money at the artists' expense. The problem is, to get their product out, they have to deal with a monopoly. I'm not defending them but they're also not making money hand over fist either - not because of piracy but because Clear Channel squeezes every last penny out of music, shoe-horning it in to an easy to sell, nationwide generic sludge. Bad as the RIAA are, perhaps it's worth going after the real culprits.
This is one of the best breakdowns I have ever seen and it is the one that I point all of my friends to when they ask (along with Salon's Courney Love Does The Math).
But I don't understand why everyone gets so bent about Hillary Rosen and focuses all their attention on her. She's just a prostitute. The industry will ALWAYS have a prostitute. It almost seems like the Slashdot et al crowd is almost in collusion with the RIAA in this blatant misdirection. Is she scum? Yeah. But who cares? So is Valenti but he's a salesman, not the guy driving the vehicle.
It isn't anything you said, I'm just ranting.
My
Limekiller