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Record Labels Unveil Greed 2.0
theodp writes "Unsatisfied with $2.49 ringtones and as much as 70 cents of each 99 cent iTunes download, Newsweek reports that record labels want a bigger cut of digital music profits. One example: If you type in 'Madonna' - a Warner act - at the Google Video site, and the results are accompanied by ads, Warner wants a share of those ad dollars." Even more ridiculous demands than those put forth in previous stories.
So, studio time myth is busted. Marketing though is where the RIAA and Labels could help you....
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
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You're confusing the RIAA with organizations such as ASCAP or BMI, among others that do the actual protecting.
The problem for todays new pop stars is that they really aren't musicians in the first place. They rely on the up front $$ that the record companies throw into marketing them, paying for talent coaches and producing the hell out of their music so their cd's sound good.
That said, I agree that online distribution is a boon for independent musicians that are in fact actual artists.
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Yes, you are right. And this is just one thing that is contributing to the mediocrity of popular music. But I'm actually glad to see this. The record companies keep claiming they are protecting royalties for artists, but I don't think there's anyone out there who believes that. Anybody who watches the music business knows artists are making money, but that the big guys are making more. Napster triggered a fear reaction, and now the RIAA is getting carried away with trying to overreact to everything and not just protect their revenue and old business models, but they've gotten so carried away they are overreaching.
That's good. While it might cause higher prices for a while, the more they do this, the more their greed shows, and the closer they get to going too far and finally, through their own actions, forcing the entire industry to collapse -- leaving room for the real artists (not the sex symbols like Spears and such) to actually make a living on the work they create.
What the RIAA does (or rather, the RIAA member companies) is extremely expensive. Their job is to make artists well-known enough to sell a lot of music. If you want to make a living making music, you have to sell a LOT of music. At $10 a CD, you need to sell 1,500 CDs just to get yourself to the poverty line, and that's before you've paid for producing, printing, pressing, much less the advertising that makes people want your CD in the first place. You can tour like crazy but getting thousands of people to cough up $10 for your CD is going to be a challenge, especially when there are literally thousands of bands like yours out there. So real number is more like tens of thousands of CDs. If you want to get rich you'd better sell a million of them, and unless you're REALLY friendly you haven't got a million friends to sell CDs to.
So the RIAA spends money: they lobby radio stations (and paying them, even though that's illegal) to play your music, they advertise your tour on TV, they give away free t-shirts, etc. All on a national level, because if you want to sell tens of thousands of CDs you need to adverise to many, many people.
What they have in the end is a brand. They've spent a lot of money on you, and 20 artists like you who didn't catch fire. Once they have your name on everybody's lips, they want a cut of everything that makes money from that brand. They didn't create the music, they created the fame, and it's the fame (not the music) that's bringing people to Google to search on your name.
I'm oversimplifying like crazy (of course the music is relevant to make the brand appealing) but you get the idea. More importantly, it's not like they're not already wildly profitable (even accounting for all of their failed attempts), and they're not taking nearly as big a risk as I'm suggesting. For example, a lot of the start-up costs are taken out of your royalties. You the artist don't see squat until you've paid back the immense costs of producing that album. (In addition to marketing costs, RIAA companies own very expensive equipment, managed by very expensive engineers, operated by very expensive producers and mixers. A musician will tell you that those things are critical to making an album you're going to want to buy, and those who aren't with the labels spend a lot of their own money to buy the equivlent themselves.)
But perhaps your real question is, "Why do they risk alienating their customers so much?" That, I can't say for sure, except to say that I assume that somebody in a room somewhere has done a cost-benefit analysis and taken a guess that maximizing the profit on their brand is worth the customers who are alienated. They may be right; Slashdot readers (and posters) are exquisitely sensitive to the sort of manipulation that the RIAA does but many less technologically aware people aren't.
Ultimately it is all about greed; their job is to make the maximum money. They walk a careful line; some industries do very well by appearing to be generous. Instead, they've chosen to try to milk every possible dollar. But that's "greed" in the "trying to maximize your value" sense, not "greed" in the stealing-from-other-people sense. They want the benefit of what they've created, even though it seems awfully miserly of them (and even counter-productive) to go about it the way they are.
I imagine that they get that cynical as a result of manipulating people into buying the music in the first place, music that a lot of people think isn't very good but which a lot of people spend money on and which many go out of their way to download. (The vast majority of bands would love to have you download their music, because it means you've at least hard of them.) Since they think that they can create the desire to buy music (and their CD sales figures show that they can), the seem to think that they've got the formula licked and can risk alienating their customers because they'd rather buy the CDs from the RIAA than risk jail or take a chance on a band they've never heard of.
No, they should be for the recording industry, because they are the Recording Industry Association of America; and they seem to be doing everything in their power to protect their member's interests. If it disagrees with the interests of the musicians, then so be it, as far as they are concerned. Presumably there is some "Musician's Association of America", but they have apparently been doing a horrible job for decades.
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"Ever hear a performer thank their label when winning an award?"
Actually, my favorite band, The Corrs, were dumb enough to do that when they won their first international award in Spain back in the mid-90's.
In fact, they've been slavishly worshipful of Time-Warner and Atlantic Records, praising them in numerous documentary videos.
Today, guess what? Jason Flom, the head of Atlantic and the guy who discovered them, is out, the Corrs have been relegated to Atlantic.UK and gets no release for their new album, "Home", in the US - and their manager, John Hughes, admits publicly that they're looking for a new record deal.
In other words, having been screwed by Atlantic, they are now looking to sign themselves up for another screwing because they don't have the imagination to see that distributing their own music and live concert broadcasts by subscription - in other words, a return to live performance, the basis of music historically - is the way to go. Even though they're probably one of the best live concert acts in the world and their ticket demand at the end of last year's tour, according to Hughes, is the highest it's ever been.
You just can't save some people from themselves.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
There are several ways of bypassing the label thing, but not all of them are successful. Labels do know how to get you good distribution... so starting your own label and getting your songs in iTunes is very hard if you aren't someone "formerly known as".
But I've heard very good things about CDBABY. They are distributors and store keepers. You, the independent artist can sell in their store (cdbaby.com). If you do, you can also opt for their digital distribution deal, which almost guarantees placement with iTunes, Napster and a whole bunch of other shops. Their cut is 9% of what you get per sale, and since you don't have a label, that means 91% of 65 cents.
So instead of only getting about 5 cents you get about 59 cents. Which is nice.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
You have a good point. I've always compared Shakespear to Hitchcock. Both knew how to create entertainment that rose to a high level, but appealed to people of all levels. Yes, Shakespeare did a lot with cruder themes (like the hilarious exchange about Hamlet lying with his head in Ophelia's lap), but he also created some fabulous poetry and absolutely amazing imagery. Hitchcock knew that as a director, he could do some advanced things, but he had to be sure the audience was entertained, as well. Both had a lot in common that way -- as opposed to, say, Orson Wells, who created a masterpiece in "Citizen Kane", but also made a film that draws on forever. As one film professor once said, he loves to teach CK, because there's so much in it, but that he doesn't like watching it because it is self indulgent in areas and just not entertaining.
So, yes, I picked an example that wasn't the best, but I think the point still stands.