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Myspace to Sell MP3s From Unsigned Bands
soldrinero writes "Yahoo! news is hosting a story about a new competitor to Apple's iTunes Music Store. Nearly all the other iTunes competitors have been strongly controlled by the music industry, shackled in DRM, and giving little back to artists. The new MySpace music store will feature vanilla MP3 downloads at prices set by the individual bands (3 million of them!), all or nearly all of whom are unsigned musicians with no industry affiliation. Is this the example we have all been waiting for of how the Internet will obviate the business model of the recording industry?"
... people won't buy! Unsigned bands have enough trouble getting their music heard when they're GIVING it away!
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Because pretty soon there will be pressure on RIAA bands who are on myspace to start selling their songs! This is definitely the revolution we are talking about where the RIAA record companies go bankrupt. Ironic that it will take a major multi-national corporation to do it!
FTA: "Songs can be sold [...] in non-copyright-protected MP3 digital file format [...]"
This is a perfect horrible example of a 'innocent' slip which conflates DRM with copyright; it cooperates with the corporate worldview that DRM is necessary to protect copyright. I don't know how to get in touch with the author but I would really love to set this kind of thing straight.
RMS may be a freak but I think he's right in that we have to be careful about the language we use; it defines and affects the thought patterns of both speaker and listener.
I, too, loathe any link that leads me to MySpace.
But I loathe the RIAA more.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
""Everyone we've spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative."
This statement sounds really uninformed in its context in the article. There are a lot of alternatives, but most people don't want them. Anybody who has any tech savvy needs to take their head out of their ass when they come up with ideas like this. The reason why people put up with Apple's DRM'ed technology is because its easy to use. Non-tech people can and do use it, and those same people avoid the other options because they are confusing. Now, I understand that selling a DRM-less MP3 will work with the iPod, which is very important to compete, but how will it be delivered to the user? Will it automatically show up in a playlist in a program such as iTunes so that a non-tech person doesn't have to search for the downloaded file and put it where it belongs so he/she can immediately play it after its done? There are a lot of little details that Apple paid attention to that contribute to its success with this industry. Until someone can come up with a total solution that plays as nicely as iTunes and works with the iPod, they will all be dead in the water.
As technical people, this news sounds great, but we are a relatively small population compared to the rest of the world. In order for an idea like this to work on the level of iTunes/iPod, the less-than-savvy need to be addressed.
Sound waves should be free!
Such a service would only ever work with listeners whose musical tastes are still forming, and who would see the net as the authoritative place where new music can be found.
As it turns out, this describes MySpace's audience perfectly, so yes, this could work.
With MySpace's ranking system, they only need to find a few dozen bands with real talent to make it a success. With a population of 300M bands to draw upon, that should be possible.
The record labels will never, ever give up their right to control distribution. It is the only thing they truly own. Any new licensing model will only work with new bands and new fans.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Honestly, I don't see the advantage here from the band's perspective. Selling a Vanilla mp3 is not hard for even the least qualified web tech using any e-commerce storefront.
Really? You don't think that an additional level exposure to millions of MySpace users wouldn't help? How is some random site going to make money if there's no one promoting it?
The RIAA and music recording industry make the greatest amount of money by limiting the number of bands. By limiting the number of bands they record, they get more return per advertising dollar. They only add a new band if their return from one of the old bands starts dropping off or they are filling a new fad nitch. There are a lot of bands out there every bit as good as the recorded bands.
:)
You can see the problem. Too many good bands and no band makes good money.
My suggestion for any band using MySpace is to put up one free recording and charge for the rest. Hopefully music fans will have the decency not to put the MySpace recordings on a P2P network - unless you really hate the band
indeed
the general public might not really know what drm actually is or what it stands for (they don't know what mp3 is either) but more and more people are learning that it is something they don't want.
the sony drm thing left the IT department and went out into the streets, it was regular ass people fearing that they had installed something horrible.
and for those who DON'T know they don't want drm just yet, when myspace says that their downloads are drm free, they will learn.
-- lol pwned
"The problem is society in general. People want to see movies with specific actors. People want to listen to specific musicians, not bands that are just like them."
And why do you think they want to see these actors and listen to this music in particular, who gave them the idea? Who controls what they get mostly exposed to? Who?
I don't understand why you think this is a bad thing. If a band decides to sign with a mayor label after getting famous from myspace I'm sure that is becaus the label makes them a decent offer. You know compared to other bands these will propably have gotten quite some income and fame from being on Myspace (otherwise they wouldn't have been picked up by the label) so I'm sure they won't sattle for a "squeeze every last penny"-contract.
In the same time this is good for Myspace aswell. Just imagine the publicity they get when it turnes out that you can get signed to a label by putting your music on Myspace.
Are you sure? I've been involved with a couple of low-volume CD releases (choral and classical). We got the entire thing done very cheaply (around £2/CD total costs for a run of under 200), and no one complained about the quality. Sure, if you've got a 'singer' who is so untalented that you need to apply complex frequency correction to his or her voice to make her sound remotely competent then you might need someone expensive, but if you already have a good sound then putting it on a disc isn't too hard.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
okay, you're a little confused about how the music industry actually works, works for itself, and doesn't represent the rights and best interest of the musicians they "sign". (or indenture, depending on how you like to look at it).
Typical Major Label:
1. The label signs the artist. to a contract that allows the record label to own forever, the music that the artists create, giving the label all rights to income from the artists, forever. This means that someone who writes a song doesn't actually get credit for the song except for very small royalties. This is why Michael Jackson owns most of The Beatles works and profits from anyone buying older Beatles CD's today. They may in some cases give them a small chunk of good money up front. Unfortunately, this is almost always counted against future profits.
2. The label pays for expensive studio time. And then bills the artists against future royalties, ensuring that the label doesn't have to pay for a crappy album.
3. The rep from the label contacts the program directors at radio stations to get airplay. Sending your demo tape to a station will not get you on the air...reps who offer tickets at concerts and coop opportunities for bigger artists get airplay (because payola is technically illegal). This is why mainstream radio sounds exactly the same, and why plenty of good bands get absolutely no airplay. This is ruining music.
4. The label pays for CD duplication, printing, distribution. and again, bills the artist for this against future royalties. Thanks.
5. The label sends your CD to the music outlets. technically the music outlets purchase the CD's from the labels. They're not getting them for free. They're not even getting them at very good prices honestly, but that's all you get. Of course big high volume chains get a better price than small independent stores, but that's business. This is also ruining music, music stores, and the ability to find good music anywhere that isn't being stroked by the record labels to do it.
6. The label arranges concerts, merchandising, etc to make you rich (because we all know artists make nearly nothing on the music itself). And again, the label bills the band against profits for all the expenses they incur on a tour if they're the ones sponsoring it. That's why you get all the tours sponsored by Best Buy, Budweiser and any other promotional agency. The label takes in the $$ from promotion, bills the artists for the costs (and doesn't necessarily use the promotional windfalls to offset the touring expenses!) and takes their profit that way. Sometimes, depending on how much of their rights the band signed over to the label in the first place, the band has to give the labels a cut of concert profit, a cut of merch, and their share becomes an even smaller slice of the pie.
Can you imagine working for 2 years and being in more debt than when you started? This is what happens to most bands that sign a major label deal, but never end up being astoundingly popular and successful. When you've got 5 guys in a band, you'll be VERY lucky to turn an actual profit on a major label deal without selling 3+ million copies of an album and leading a very successful sold-out tour of mid-size venues. Clubs and small venues aren't going to cut it. This is also why moderately successful bands tour incessantly for 2+ years on one album. They're hugely in debt, and the labels usually have the least control over concert revenues (since often times concerts can and do lose lots of money and the record labels haven't figured out a way for a band to take the blame on that one if they try to profit off it at the same time). This is also why a band can have a slightly popular album, or a one-hit-wonder quality song, sell a million copies of an album (yay!) and never be heard from ever again. Their backs are against a wall, the record label owns everything they've created, and they're also in debt $100k to SonyBMG because S
along with mandatory broadcast flags. Both of which are nuts and are really designed to raise the entry fee. The RIAA will get their pound of flesh one way or another. We already subsidize that bunch with the tax on blank recording material.
What?