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Time to Face the Music
Mortimer.CA writes "The Toronto Star has an article up about the ailing recording industry with some possible scenarios for solving the problem(s). Choice quotation: 'We must ask ourselves what Elvis would do to stop the theft of music via the Internet, now so widespread and so brazen that it makes the Baghdad looters look like trick-or-treaters.'"
Give me a service which has nearly all the songs p2p networks has (ie the big 4 labels and all the smaller ones) for betwen £5 and £10 per month for nonDRM's downloads (ie in mp3 or ogg format) either in unlimited ammount of downloads or limited - 50 songs per month??? and i will pay now
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
-the record companies will stop promoting anything that might be experimental and push the brittanies and N'sync's in their quest for dollars.
/end cristal ball
-by not signing new bands to restrictive and costly (to the bands) contracts, more players in the indie scene will appear, more artists will take control of their own destiny
-CD's and mp3's will become promotional material available on artists' websites (already happening now) for the real money making venture - touring! (which is definately the place to hear your favourite bands)
Clear Channel and Ticket Master will be the corporate pimps in this new business model
One would almost think market economies would tend to lower the price of items as distribution costs fall. Last time I looked, the cost of CDs were rising. (That was a while ago...because I never even bother looking at CDs any more.)
The pirating is just a side show. The real problem is that distribution and production costs have fallen through the floor and the industry has not responded to the market dynamics. Instead they cling to copyright laws and monopolistic tactics to maintain artificially inflated costs of their goods.
If you really asked the musicians...most would love the idea of a dollar CD. A dime a song.
The CRIA's complaint is that someone is robbing the plunder house.
BTW What's this noise about antiquities? Try pumping an antiquity in your Surburban and see where it gets you.
Jeez, get a sense of proportion. The lawlessness in Baghdad is causing human suffering, death, and may yet lead to a real war. The lawlessness in the IP market is leading to lower revenues -- maybe. Only someone who's at the center of their own moral universe would try to compare the two!
Why is there so much discussion over this so-called "theft" we're experiencing on a massive scale? Regardless of what you think, sales aren't declining because "music sucks" or because the RIAA is recieving some karmic death-blow.
The music industry is starting to have problems because their method of distribution is outdated. The problem: digital music has become a huge online phenomenon, people want "formless" content that they can transfer to any media they see fit (hard drive, cd, memory stick) and the RIAA has so far been unable to provide consumers with that product.
The solution: consumers take matters into their own hands, downloading mp3's and then burning, ripping, copying, etc. The reason this has become such a huge deal is that the RIAA as a sort of oligopoly is having trouble coming to grips with the notion that the public will dictate the distribution methods and prices on its own terms. Like the "black market" writeup on K5 a month or two ago, we're seeing a system completely devoid of that which the public wants - on-line distribution at a signifigantly cheaper price than that of a CD (keep in mind blank media already benefits the RIAA).
Until the RIAA stops thrashing about in this all-out effort to dictate to the public exactly how, when, and for how much (no matter how inflated the price) they can get content, they're going to continue to have problems.
No morality, no ethics, just the facts. 'Nuff said.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
The bad news is that sales of CDs are in a freefall, representing a $250 million loss over the last two years.
OK, so we agree sales are falling. Is it any wonder? Having heard the fifth cover version of "Spirit in the Sky" earlier and myriads of other "artists" releasing other people's work, I begin to wonder if the media have woken up to exactly who is the thief here.
Wake up call: There is a global recession, or something that very much looks like one. The music industry is being hit by a downturn in spending in general, just like everyone else. Not only that but they are exacerbating the problem by the broadside by turning out crap, stuff we've heard time and time again, manufactured groups and cover versions that shame the originals. Why are they making less money? Doesn't take a rocket scientist, does it?
Why wasn't there all this hue and cry when twin tape decks appeared on the market? Because they weren't as visible as the publicly accessible Internet. Album and song sharing is not a new, 'net age problem. It happened all the time pre-Internet. Anyone who says they haven't copied a tape or recorded from the chart show on the radio is either very young or a liar. The only reason this is gaining public airtime is simply because the 'net, being free speech epitomised, is an easy target for any group of totalitarians, the RIAA included.
Yes, BTW, I buy my music, when there's anything worth buying. I always have done. The problem is, the interval between my purchases has increased. This is not influenced by finances or that I can download from the 'net. Simply put, the amount of quality music available has declined. Not only that but the implication that I am a criminal simply because I am tech savvy and trying to blame me and worse, imposing a tax on me due to their own faliures and shortcomings doesn't exactly endear the music industry to me, making me think a little more carefully about what I purchase since my purchases may support this idiocy.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
And try to be nice for once instead of just flaming. Face it, this guy is just a journalist reguritating stuff he heard, and even then, he said a lot of stuff that most of us can agree with:
Radio is boring and homogenized, and it is hurting CD sales.
Labels should be more artist friendly
Michael Green's 2002 Grammy speech was annoying and pointless. (Even Janis Ian ripped on it.)
Decent recording can be done with reasonable studio costs (He even mentioned the new White Stripes album only costing $10,000 :-) )
Indie labels treat artists better than majors
Labels are a) greedy and b) want control of listeners
This guy is already halfway in our camp. Don't flame him, just educate him a little. In response to his claim that "sales of CDs are in a freefall", point to the recent Christian Science Monitor article we all read that said many indie labels have profits increasing 50-100% a year. Show him that the CDBaby sales figures keep getting better while the RIAA whiles that sales are disappearing.
He talked about musicians
Give him the names of acts you know about that get no radio play but who still can make money selling music and touring without a contract.In short, instead of yelling at him, give Peter Goddard a few more data points to use in his next article. This guy's views are not that different from most of the people here.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too