Slashdot Mirror
Indies Blossoming Despite RIAA
Shadow Wrought writes "We have all read the numerous RIAA articles on Slashdot, not to mention scores of other articles that discuss the industry's purported demise. An article at the Christian Science Monitor calls this assumption into question by pointing to the success that Indie Labels are beginning to enjoy. An interesting read and one that provides pretty good support against the RIAA's argument that a quartet of college students is responsible for their troubles."
Of course, one these "indie" labels get big enough, they won't be "indie" anymore. Just wait for the day when the new management (RIAA friendly) takes over, and suddenly, the era of the successful indie labels is over. But wait, you're saying this could be a cycle? One of those things that happens over and over? wow...
sorry, i'm just a jaded lil kid.
all it takes is one major success to make a label "big" from there, its just a question of whether or not they have the guts to stick to their creed or sell out.
and we all know how tempting it is to sell out...
Thanks to CD burners costing dirt these days, you can find individual bands all over the net who are publishing on their own. CDBaby.com offers a storefront and listening booth for hundreds of these bands. Dig around a little and listen with an open mind. You will find something you like.
If they still offer it, try and get your hands on one of the sampler discs (100 MP3 tunes from different bands, broken down by genre) and see if you don't find a dozen albums you want.
There's a HUGE amount of good stuff here, and the bulk of the cash goes to the band. You pay less than you pay for most mainstream commercial music, and sometimes the band even writes directly to ask what you thought of the disc afterward. Virtually all of the bands are accessible and love it when you write them to chat as well.
After the band, the rest of the cash goes to the guys you see on the CDBaby website. NO RIAA GOUGING HERE. No subsidizing bastard lawyer cabals. They even run OpenBSD and Apache. It's ALL good! :-)
No, I don't work for them, I'm just a very happy customer. I've bought over a hundred discs, and I don't miss pouring through the old over-hyped and mass-produced sludge to find the rare gem one bit!
Can you tell I like CDBaby?
These days, just spinning yourself as an 'independent' label gives PR dividends.
How many 'independent' labels are members of the RIAA? If you look at their membership list (someone give me a link, please), you'll see more than just the 'mega-biggies'.
I'd be willing to bet that many indies buy onto the RIAA's DRM position. Many artists do, for that matter. So why do we assume that a label is non-RIAA compatible if it's indie?
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)
The record companies claimed that cassette tapes allowed easy "pirating" of music and evil thieves weren't buying records anymore.
However, sales climbed back up in the 80s, despite the fact that cassette tapes weren't outlawed. Jenkins theorizes that it was actually "personality-free" disco that convinced people to stop buying records. He then draws parallels between disco and today's "teen-pop".
Both are intellectually underachieving, cookie-cutter styles that have made stars of performers not known primarily for their skills as singers, songwriters, or musicians.
It's an insightful article. Definitely worth a read.
Personally, I was never a big music listener, but the RIAA has pretty much turned me off every buying a CD again.
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
Normally I do not watch MTV, but it was on and one new musician's story caught my attention. A guy by the name of Cody Chesnutt, who has a bit of oldschool R&B sound and flair, was being featured. He created his first album all by himself in his bedroom studio, and released his two-CD set called "The Headphone Masterpiece" in a limited amount on his own. The CD sold out everywhere, and major record lables were courting him to release his CD on a much bigger scale... Cody turned them all down.
:)
His CD is only available via his website (codychesnutt.com) and he is going it alone to make a stand against the music industry. I can appreciate this man's efforts, and it parallels a lot of what we in the OSS community are up against. If you're wondering, I have no ties to this guy at all... I just heard about him a couple hours ago, but I wish him nothing but the best... and his song "Look Good In Leather" is pretty damn catchy as well
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
F'r'instance, I bet that every time a fan A makes his/her friend B a copy of an Alison Krauss album, B buys, on average, 2 more Alison Krauss albums. (Yes, she's that good; she's nothing like the "country" music you hear on a generic Clear Channel country radio station.) Alison Krauss has been making records for 17 years, since she was 15 years old. If you are Alison Krauss or her record label (Rounder), you are interested in building a fan base for the next thirty-odd years of her career, not trying to squeeze every dollar out of 15 minutes of fame. The odd fan burning a CD for a pal is just giving her and Rounder free advertising. Anything other than a warehouse cranking out hundreds of copies really isn't going to be a problem.
On the other hand, if you have a record company built on promoting one-hit wonders, and someone burns a CD of your current artist's album -- well, it's likely that there won't be 2 more albums to buy by that artist. (Not to be mean: Britney Spears is charming in her way and nice to look at, but I really can't imagine that she is going to record 10 albums in her career.)
The upshot is that major labels pushing top-40 singles benefit a lot from cracking down on copyright infringement; indy labels and serious musicians, not so much.
"when you spend lots of money producing an intellectual property, then some retard comes along and copies it to a million of his friends for free, should he be held responsible for committing some (perhaps new variety of) theft?
"
Well there's really not enough information to answer this question, but I'll take a stab at it. No. Simply put, I trust that most people are honest. I'm going to treat them that way. If somebody makes my content available, and somebody else picks it up, then I instantly have exposure that I didn't have previously. $20 is a lot to spend if you don't like something that you can't return.
I don't think most of the people who would acquire my content for free would pay for it in the first place. At least then I'd have my foot in the door. If they don't like it, they're not going to download anymore. No harm done. I didn't get my $20, but at the same time they didn't get satisfactory service. If they do like it enough that they'd download it (bored perhaps?) but not enough to pay for it, then it means my prices are too high or my content just isn't good enough for them. Sorry, but I can't make everybody like anything I make. So no harm done either, especially when their acquisition of my content didn't cost me anything personally. All that's left are the people who download it simply because they don't want to pay for it. Should they be thrown in jail? I don't feel strongly they should. I can't imagine I would have gotten money from them if I had some perfect protection mechanism. At least that way there's the benefit of them sharing it with other people and getting their interest in it. Again, no losses or damage done to me here.
If it reached a point where more people were acquiring my content than paying for it, then I think that's more of a reflection of my price tag or quality than I do of people needing the law to hammer them down. It means that I need to provide more or provide cheaper. That's easy, create an incentive for people to buy it. "Buy this DVD, and you get a statue of the main character for free." Etc. Or, make more content that'd be hard to send with it. "This DVD also contains a High Definition 1080p version of the content" (like in the earlier article about MS and Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition.) Maybe they don't want the media, maybe they want an electronic version they can store on the hard drive? Well in that case I should provide it instead of causing them to seek other methods to doing it.
For the record, I'm an artist. That's what I do for a living. Copyright's very important to me, but jail time for somebody downloading or distributing a copy of my work is ridiculous. I'd rather just figure out a way to work with them on it. If they're willing to redistribute my work, then maybe there's a deal that can be made there. "At least advertise my deal for purchasing stuff."
The only time I'd be really worried about somebody redistributing my stuff is if they're making money off it illegally. That's really what copyright law is for. It's not about suing America's future.
"Derp de derp."