New Head of EMI Says 'Embrace Digital Music or Die'

no0b writes "Guy Hands is the new head of EMI, Britain's largest music publisher. Hands has come out publicly with a statement warning the industry against something music listeners have probably understood for some time. In the words of the Telegraph article, 'the industry will not survive if it continues to rely on CD sales alone.' More from the piece: 'With both new and established acts now capable of making money without the backing of a big company, McGee says record labels are being left out of the loop. He scoffs at their efforts to make up lost ground by developing into "multimedia entertainment companies that can manage bands and share in live income". But try they must. Revenues from record sales in Britain have dropped by more than £130m since 2004. The true cost to the industry could be far greater. TNS, the market researcher, looked at the spending habits of file-sharers between 2003 and 2005 and estimated a £1bn loss to the country in retail spend.'"

Comments

he needs to

[derfy]

He needs to say it like George Carlin did:

"Embrace digital music...or DIIIIIIIIEEE"

Re:he needs to

[geoffrobinson]

How about Axl Rose in Welcome to the Jungle?

Hhhhuuu!!!

Re:he needs to

[blackest_k]

great choice of song it's one of 24 worth approximately 222,000 in total apparently.

I'd love to see a list of all 24 or a torrent file for them :)

The industry will not survive?

[hatchet]

How come? They are doing nothing and getting profits from that. How can they not survive? They wanted to say: Digital music will bring even more profits.

Re:The industry will not survive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing? Ugh. Go beat off to Marx, you twit.

Re:The industry will not survive?

[Gary W. Longsine]

Well, to be more precise about it, the major activities of the recording industry which enabled it to maintain itself as an oligopoly are being radically transformed by technology. It no longer takes a multi-million dollar recording studio to cut and mix a decent recording, you can do it with a Macintosh and Logic Pro. Distribution doesn't require production and distribution of expensive physical media. Copy a file to a web server and pay for bandwidth as it's needed. The recording industry won't survive in its current form. It has enormous volumes of valuable copyrighted material, so it will probably survive in some form. There is one leg holding them up right now, which is that new bands don't yet have a way to become super stars without expensive promotion, done by the record labels. If new bands ever figure out how to make money with the record labels, say through some thing like google ads or some mechanism as yet unthunk, this industry is so totally over, overnight.

Re:The industry will not survive?

[Gary W. Longsine]

s//with the record labels/without the record labels/

Re:The industry will not survive?

[jwo7777777]

There are issues with recording outside of a well controlled environment. Recording technology has come a long way, but it still has difficulty with spurious background noise elimination.

You need a well insulated/isolated sound environment to make a decent recording.

Re:The industry will not survive?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

They are doing nothing and getting profits from that.

They put up capital at their own risk to invest in artists. They create the infrastructure needed to create all kinds of music. They have the connections to bring together creative minds to patch up holes in individual artists' skills. They market the music nationally and sometimes internationally, to make the most of it's capitalist potential, with the side effect of giving many, many people the opportunity of listening to it. They have the tools and capital to distribute in CD form to all those people who don't want downloads for whatever reason. The industry provides an incredibly valuable service, but they aren't irreplaceable. You can support a different company if you really want to, but beware, they'll do much the same job that members of RIAA do, possibly less.

Re:The industry will not survive?

[Gary W. Longsine]

Yup. That's a barrier on the scale of say, opening a small cafe in a small town. Hardly enough of a barrier to entry to maintain an oligopoly. The technology for building the physical recording studio is well known and much less expensive than it used to be, too. Heck, I know one guy who just build a little studio in his back yard.

Radiohead provided the inspiration

[CRCulver]

Radiohead were signed to EMI, and now they've decided to go it alone and release their new album online, at a price the fans agree on. Could this be what caused this exec to sound the alarm?

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Foobar of Borg]

Radiohead were signed to EMI, and now they've decided to go it alone and release their new album online, at a price the fans agree on. Could this be what caused this exec to sound the alarm?

Well, in the sense that Radiohead was able to finally roust them from their slumber and scream "The building is on fire, you lazy bastards!", then perhaps. But this has been going on for a long time now. Hell, it's not even new. I remember when VCR's came out and they said the same thing. Also, they started releasing Betamax copies of movies like Star Wars for $100 (and this is in the 80's, so about $200 today). Of course, everyone simply signed up at a video rental club and acquired their own backup copy from the one they rented. Eventually, prices dropped to where people would actually be willing to buy an original copy.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[morari]

Of course, everyone simply signed up at a video rental club and acquired their own backup copy from the one they rented. Ah yes. Exactly why NetFlix continues to get my money! ;)

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Elektroschock]

Is "killing the music industry" good or bad for musicians and society at large? Radiohead made their decision. More to follow. Suicide is always the preferred strategy for creative fields.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[ThirdPrize]

Lets see, the collectors will buy the box set for £40 and everyone else will pay 50p for the new album on download come Wednesday. It will shoot to #1 in the download charts and everyone will go oooohh! In the end Radiohead will sign to another label and the record will come out on CD.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[cdrguru]

NetFlix is a temporary abberation. It is because Internet distribution of quality video is impractical today. If it was practical, you would be downloading movies for free just like you are downloading music for free today.

Today nobody wants to wait 36+ hours for their movie selection to download through clogged P2P nodes. NetFlix is far more practical. It also is helping a significant percentage of their customer base to build up huge video libraries just waiting for the Internet speeds to make redistribution practical.

NetFlix has at most five years left to run. Maybe just 2-3 if broadband penetration of higher speeds gets going in the US.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely agree. It seems like a very temporary solution that assumes/relies on limited bandwidth growth.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[TheRaven64]

If it was practical, you would be downloading movies for free just like you are downloading music for free today. It is practical today. I have a 4Mbit connection. Using various peer to peer systems I could download movies from the Internet at a reasonable quality in an hour or two, while a rental takes a day or two to arrive. I don't, however. Instead, I subscribe to postal rental service, because I don't mind paying a reasonable amount. Anything I rent legally is used to gather statistics on the most popular videos, which encourages the studios to make more things I like.

NetFlix has at most five years left to run. Maybe just 2-3 if broadband penetration of higher speeds gets going in the US. I'd pick a system that rewards the creators over one that doesn't, so I'd pick something like Netflix over illegal downloads. I'd pick a DRM-free download service over either, but that won't happen any time soon.

The thing Netflix has done, which the studios haven't yet realised, is change the nature of the product. They are not selling rentals of shows, they are selling access to the latest shows. They are not doing it well, because the studios won't let them have new material until all of the other channels have had a go at distributing it. Unfortunately, that means the pirate channels get it as soon as it's released in any form, but services like Netflix don't get it until much later.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Foehg]

Well, in the sense that Radiohead was able to finally roust them from their slumber and scream "The building is on fire, you lazy bastards!", then perhaps. But this has been going on for a long time now. Would you say it's been always burning, since the world's been turning?

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[killbill!]

I'm not so sure about that. Of course, over time speeds keep going up, and cost per GB keeps going down. The problem with video is that file sizes keep growing as fast as speeds do. As a consequence, download times and hosting costs remain at a permanently high plateau.

If you look back at the history of pirate movie downloads, you'll notice that movie file sizes crept up from single CDR to double CDR to single-layer DVD-R to dual-layer DVD-R. With the switch to HD, there is still a lot of growth potential. HDTV rips are already available on the Pirate Bay, and will become mainstream as fast as connections allow it.

700 MB DivX movies suck on a regular TV. Can you imagine watching that on a 1080p TV? Heck, even a regular DVD looks barely acceptable when you've become used to HD. So, file sizes will have to grow A LOT before movie downloads are quality-competitive with movies stored on physical media.

It is going to take a long time before we can stream a 30 GB movie. And by then, maybe the next-next-generation DVD format will be around. It's a moving target. Maybe movie downloads will never catch up.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Threni]

> Also, they started releasing Betamax copies of movies like Star Wars for $100 (and this is in the 80's, so about $200 today). Of course, everyone
> simply signed up at a video rental club and acquired their own backup copy from the one they rented.

That price was the price they charged the rental companies - it wasn't intended to be bought by end users for that price.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[morari]

Maybe. Though I doubt it. Not only is broadband in American pathetic, but it will likely remain so for quite a while. I'm almost guaranteed to never see broadband at my house, considering the road doesn't even have cable television running along it. Hell, the county only just paved it and ran public water a little less than twenty years ago.

Broadband penetration aside, illegally downloading films poses several practicality problems in and of itself. Not only do you have to worry about poor encoding and weird formats, you also have to put a lot of work into converting and burning those films for DVD playback unless they are already packaged as a disc image. Furthermore, you don't have anywhere near the selection. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not usually interested in those new releases that can be downloaded. It's simply not an easy affair for someone to host hundreds, let alone a few dozen, high-quality films for others to download. Individual songs are a different story.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Foobar of Borg]

That price was the price they charged the rental companies - it wasn't intended to be bought by end users for that price.

Um, that's the way it is now and the way it was after they finally extracted their heads from their rectal cavities. But, when Beta/VHS tape copies were originally made available for purchase way back when, they were asking about $100 each for private home viewing copies.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Mana Mana]

Betamax copies of movies like Star Wars for $100 ... Eventually, prices dropped

For the record, prices begun to drop to current scales ONLY when "Top Gun" was released for $19.99 and was a resounding megaseller, thus enlightening Hollywood.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[mpe]

Broadband penetration aside, illegally downloading films poses several practicality problems in and of itself. Not only do you have to worry about poor encoding and weird formats,

You get the "weird formats" issue with "legitimate channels" too. It's also known as "DRM"... Some forms of which have involved putting malware on "CDs", requiring you to use special (and platform specific) software to access content, etc.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[tompatman]

Massive Attack was the first to release a new album freely on the internet as MP3s way back in 1998. The album was Mezzanine, and is considered by most to be their best work. I don't think they asked for permission to do it either.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[Mike89]

today nobody wants to wait 36+ hours for their movie selection to download through clogged P2P nodes

Huh!? Maybe if you're on dialup. I remember back in the dialup days I'd get like 200 or 300mb cams (obviously not the best quality). It'd take 20 hours or so but it'd be much quicker than waiting for it to be released here.

Nowadays, I'm on 8mbit (in Australia). I can get 700 MB in roughly 20 minutes, assuming little congestion. And I have, in the past. It's hardly 36+ hours, these days.

Re:Radiohead provided the inspiration

[RipTides9x]

I have to agree.. the 36+ hours may be what people experience on public P2P trackers.

But get in on a good private one. You know, one that's really really private, and holds members to a strict ratio policy, and you can download a 4Gig DVD in about an hour on an 8Mbit connection from there never being a lack of uploaders.

Frankly the bandwidth, technology, and users are already there, it's just a shame the corporations are not.

Too Little Too Late

[MightyMartian]

The record industry has spent decades reaping vast profits, often screwing over artists in the process. That business model is now dying, I think this is all too little too late. In the long-run why would artists want to sign contracts with record companies when they market the music themselves?

Have fun with those lawsuits, they're your swan song, record companies.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[thatskinnyguy]

In the long-run why would artists want to sign contracts with record companies when they market the music themselves? Sure when bands turn into household names. But the unknowns who lack the resources to promote themselves on a national/global level need a record company with resources to do so. Sure there are things that small bands can do to reach a global audience. But when was the last time you heard of a band selling-out a stadium that had a popular MySpace profile and no record deal?

Re:Too Little Too Late

[MightyMartian]

Sure when bands turn into household names. But the unknowns who lack the resources to promote themselves on a national/global level need a record company with resources to do so. Sure there are things that small bands can do to reach a global audience. But when was the last time you heard of a band selling-out a stadium that had a popular MySpace profile and no record deal?

They need a marketing firm, or hell, someone willing to put a link to their MP3s from a popular site. I could see a guy like David Bowie popping a link to a band he thinks is great on a site where he's putting out his own MP3s.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Basehart]

There should be EMI lite, where lots of artist can get a modicum of promotion in the right places to make a name for themselves. Instead those same artists unable to even get in the door of a major label (because they don't like licking asses or write totally crap songs) go to DIY Records and start making a name for themselves that way.

The bottom line is if a piece of music kicks ass enough it'll rise through all the shit and become a shining star, but unfortunately a lot of this awesome music never even makes if off the hard drive.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Original Replica]

But the unknowns who lack the resources to promote themselves on a national/global level need a record company with resources to do so.

The same could be said about any other fledgling business. The steps to national or global success are gonna be the same. Start locally and deliver a good product. Get a loyal fan base going and then grow into a regional band. Keep making good music. When you've been making good music for a decade or three, then you will be able to stadiums the way the Rolling Stones or U2 do. I think we will be culturally richer (aka much higher quality music) if there are more regional and local bands and only the truly talented veterans are national or global fare.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[MightyMartian]

The bottom line is if a piece of music kicks ass enough it'll rise through all the shit and become a shining star, but unfortunately a lot of this awesome music never even makes if off the hard drive.

In a perfect world that ought to be how it works, but in reality the record companies seem to prefer creating artists rather than finding and nurturing them. In a perfect world, Britney Spears would be working in a women's clothing store, but in the world of the record company, someone whose vocal performances need heavy digital manipulation to even be marketable is now the center of a popular culture obsession.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right. But is that the record companies fault of the fans fault. There is a lot of good music in the underground/online that has no major backing. If the people who listen to music are happy listening to what they are told to listen to then what do you do? It is the burden of the listener to find the music that they like and support it. The record industry is only going to support what they see as a guaranteed ROI. I say all of this first hand. I was in a band for 14 years. I worked endlessly to get the music out there, creating a network of contacts in Europe and America so that we could sell records and tour those places. On more than one occasion, record labels told us that we were a great band. In fact they had all of our cd's. But they did not feel they could generate a good return so they would not invest. Simple as that. It is the music "business" after all........

Re:Too Little Too Late

[king-manic]

Sure when bands turn into household names. But the unknowns who lack the resources to promote themselves on a national/global level need a record company with resources to do so. Sure there are things that small bands can do to reach a global audience. But when was the last time you heard of a band selling-out a stadium that had a popular MySpace profile and no record deal?

Thats the thing, there needs to arise a true competitor to the labels. The labels themselves are basically functioning as a illegal cartel. They collude to price fix, they act in unity to instate things like the soundExchange and they lobby for laws that makes any alternative illegal. They serve no purpose other then distribution, marketing, and ripping off customers and artists. As a consumer I can do without their marketing and their distribution. As artists.. they've sort of scammed most artists into getting into the "get rich or die trying" mentality. They offer some cash and a record deal but the cash is a loan and most record deals make you an indentured slave for X# of album's if your successful or deeply in debt if your not.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Telvin_3d]

In theory, this is how the music industry is supposed to/used to/sometimes does work. Someone who is in charge of the money side of getting the music made (dedicated producer, one of the artists, it depends) hears some new band and thinks, hey, I like that. It's kind of cool. So, they go to the band and in exchange for a cut of the proceeds they give them a chance to get better known. This might be letting them open for shows, collaborating on a song or two, producing a CD, whatever.

Then the new band either takes off or not. If they do, a few years down the line, they hear someone know and the cycle repeats.
Right now, the section of the industry that has this working best is the rap industry. For all their other faults, they are really good at bringing in new talent(?). You can see it if you look at most rap artists on Wikipedia. Their history goes "was discovered by.." who in turn "was discovered by..." and so on.

I think you can judge the health of any section of the music business based on the percentage of the artists who got their starts playing small gigs until someone bigger gave them a shot.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

The first one that came to mind were these guys.

http://www.8bitweapon.com/

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

A marketing firm is useful.
And accountants.
And a promoter, a radio plugger, an agent for gigs, a good graphic artist for the artwork/posters etc, someone to do the web design, someone to moderate the forums...

And Lo, and Behold! you have a record company again.

Or the band could do it themselves.
Let's see. For two people to do *all* of this full time they will need paying £100 odd a day.
That's £200 a day costs.
The band make 25 pence on web download song, say 15p after recording costs.
So they need to be selling a thousand odd songs a day.
That's 365,000 sales a year.
So each band has to be selling more songs every year than the total amount of seven inch singles sold in the UK per year. Imagine if the band is a four piece and they all want paying.

Low price sales on the internet just does not add up to make any musician a living.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

But when was the last time you heard of a band selling-out a stadium that had a popular MySpace profile and no record deal?

Who in the world wants to watch a band play in a stadium? Unless you are near the front and can actually see the band play, what's the point? If you are in the middle or back you can't even see the band. You might as well stay home and listen to the CD. I much prefer seeing bands in small venues (3000 people or less, ideally 500 people or less) so you can actually *see* the band play.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Lobster Quadrille]

when was the last time you heard of a band selling-out a stadium that had a popular MySpace profile and no record deal? This is a terrible example, considering I don't even remember the name of the artist, but a few years back there was a guy whose music was all over the P2P networks, without ever playing a live show. When he finally did, it was a very big deal.

That said, it is only one example, and a few years ago. I read about it in Rolling Stone at the doctor's office, so maybe it wasn't as big a deal as they made it sound. I'm actually hoping somebody can give more details, cause I'd like to find the guy's music. At any rate, I do expect there to be many more examples like this coming in the near future. Most major pop culture movements have come from grass-roots origin. The internet makes it a lot easier.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Slippy.]

You're right, only in that the music cartels are running music as one-band hits. This would also change.

It really is an unsustainable model, but easier to own - but there aren't enough really talented or mass-appealing musicians, and you end up trying to make up the difference pushing mediocrity, wrecking the market. As has happened.

A small minority make large dollars, most fail. It always looked to me, and my non-business eye, like a peasant/nobility economy.

But I don't find it too hard to picture larger groups of bands pushing larger group concerts. Less money for all, more money being spread around. This is a method that's worked for years and still works. Smaller pub concerts. Bigger citywide concerts - ex Bluesfest, Jazzfest, etc happen here.

Music moves back to a living and not a gold rush. That'll be a tough change for many teenagers and older cartels.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'm not sure HOW the labels are marketing their wares except by puting them on the radio and puting them in their distribution catalogs.

A lot of teens now just surf around MySpace and the like for new music. I really don't see why the label is of a benefit, definitely not one where the label takes an 80% cut.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

"But the unknowns who lack the resources to promote themselves on a national/global level need a record company with resources to do so."

You assume that because the band has the contract, they will be promoted effectively. That's unlikely. The record companies can push only so many tracks onto the radio stations' big-hits-only play lists. The Saturday morning "top forty" show has a longer play list than some of the major metropolitan radio stations. Unless the band has been chosen to be the "next hot thing", the promotion will be half-hearted at best. Becoming the chosen ones has more to do with looks and marketability than musical talent--Milli Vanilli was unusual only because they got caught.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[fyngyrz]

There is a lot of good music in the underground/online that has no major backing.

You know, people keep saying this like ti was a given. I've been haunting the download sites looking for good music from unknowns for some time now, and I've not found any. I always start by looking for people of Satriani's genre - guitar pyrotechnics interest me, as do most music genres other than rap, country and bluegrass.

I have, however, found literally thousands of crappy to really crappy recordings. Very disappointing. I'm sure there are good unsigned bands out there, but finding them has been a lot harder than people seem to imply it should be.

I'm a musician and a recording engineer, among other things. I may be too picky.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[mpe]

They need a marketing firm, or hell, someone willing to put a link to their MP3s from a popular site. I could see a guy like David Bowie popping a link to a band he thinks is great on a site where he's putting out his own MP3s.

Not unlike a tour having one or more "support bands".

Re:Too Little Too Late

[mpe]

In a perfect world, Britney Spears would be working in a women's clothing store,

Or maybe sharing a prison cell with Paris Hilton.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[mpe]

As artists.. they've sort of scammed most artists into getting into the "get rich or die trying" mentality.

This is definitly not an exclusive or either...

130 million is nothing

[gilesjuk]

In the UK we're struggling from huge consumer debt and massive house prices, 130 million can be the loss due to people not bothering to buy CDs simply because they need to pay their mortgage and debt off.

If the music companies were feeling the pinch they wouldn't be making expensive music videos.

Re:130 million is nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

> "... TNS, the market researcher, looked at the spending habits of file-sharers between 2003 and 2005 and estimated a £1bn loss to the country in retail spend.'

As you point out, the money doesn't "disappear". It just gets spent elsewhere. Video games, for example, now represent a larger market than music.

Considering that a game costs several times the price of a music cd, and that the "console wars" are in full swing again, don't be surprised if music sales continue to shrink compared to consoles and pc game software.

Besides, the fans are just eliminated the middleman. Rather than them giving their money to the recording industry to buy crack, they buy it themselves.

Re:130 million is nothing

[maxume]

Bah!

If they think they will lose $5 making the video and also think that they will lose $7 by *not* making the video, they are going to go ahead and lose $5 making the video.

Re:130 million is nothing

[sufijazz]

Actually, music video budgets are shrinking.

I would be overjoyed if they would

[LM741N]

just die irregardless of digital music. As marketing shifts to the web, eventually no band will need these barnacles.

Re:I would be overjoyed if they would

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, they're not going to go anywhere. They are needed: by the sheep that need to be told what's popular or "good" in the form of who has the shiniest videos on MTV, who's posters are up in the record store, etc, etc.

Re:I would be overjoyed if they would

[MightyMartian]

I don't see how the record companies are necessary for marketing. It does mean that management and PR agencies will likely take a greater role. MTV barely covers music anymore anyways, but I can see the online pop culture community, guys like Yahoo and the like taking on the promotional role that record companies traditionally took.

Not that that is much better, but it does mean that artists are getting closer to the point where they can entirely dispense with record companies at all stages of their career. Guys like Radiohead aren't quite fair, because they did use the record companies to get to a certain position in the music world where they do have the freedom to make the leap. The real test will be new acts who can get from the bottom to the top without having to go hat in hand to the media giants in the hopes of a contract and marketing.

It also means the death of the album as the major aspect of recording. The cost of recording a dozen songs will be reduced as bands become more interested in online singles and the equivalent of EPs. You look at how bands were marketed in the 1960s, with a steady stream of singles keeping the artist on the charts and in the popular eye. It means not having to be a Britney Spears and whore your image everywhere just to keep a career going between lengthy release dates.

That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, the music industry are gross committers of the broken window fallacy - that we should go around smashing windows so glaziers are well-paid. If people get something cheap or free, they're better off. All human progess corresponds to greater economic efficiency. Intellectual monopoly rights are hangovers from before 20th century economic science proved they're a spectacularly bad idea.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your belief that everything should be free is what is putting many artists out of business. At your job, do you work for free? Are you that "open source?"

I've experienced that parasitic mindset firsthand in the form of people contacting me, blatantly asking me for free CD's and free downloads.

While I agree that CD's are outrageously expensive, music should not be free.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are under now obligation to provide them with music. Total freedom of information includes the freedom not to disclose information; you should simply have no say over its disposal post-disclosure without agreed contractual terms.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[meringuoid]

Quite right.

TNS, the market researcher, looked at the spending habits of file-sharers between 2003 and 2005 and estimated a £1bn loss to the country in retail spend.

No, that's a £1bn loss to the music industry. If I download an album, and allowing for the sake of argument that I would otherwise have bought it rather than just doing without, I'm not going to put that money under the bed. I'll spend it on something else. The country loses no retail spend at all, it just shifts to a sector that sells real products rather than just artificially-scarce information.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[CRCulver]

Artists had absolutely no problem producing art for most of human history before limits were placed on what one could copy. Copyright is a recent invention, going back only 400 years. Before that, patronage was a successful economic model. In Rome, for example, literature was copied by amanuenses, and sold in the marketplace without a dime going to the author. The only complaint we have about this was when Martial took offence at someone putting his own name on collections of Martial's poetry, but the poet otherwise had no problem with copying.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[Elektroschock]

You mean those 3000 "artists" who signed up with majors? That is life. I am for creative destruction of the music industry.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[Dunbal]

Your belief that everything should be free is what is putting many artists out of business.

      Please name a few.

      I will counter that those "artists" are "out of business" because THEY SUCK.

At your job, do you work for free?

      No one is saying the artists shouldn't be paid. We're talking about the middleman here. There is no more room for the middleman, he has been made obsolete. Nice switch of the argument. EMI is not an "artist" as far as I know.

      Now how hard would it be for a band to set up their own "store" on the internet and sell their tracks directly? Not very. I think the technological advances of the past 10 years have gone right over your head. Wake up, the world has changed.

      The old model had the record industry going out to "scout" new bands to find a sound that they thought hopefully would sell. Now the bands just have to make themselves available electronically, and the people will decide what sells.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[whoever57]

Now how hard would it be for a band to set up their own "store" on the internet and sell their tracks directly?

How hard would it be for a band to sign up directly with iTunes to sell their tracks for them? Yes, there is still a middleman, but one that only takes a small bite of the revenue instead of most of it.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[TheRaven64]

How hard would it be for a band to sign up directly with iTunes to sell their tracks for them? Impossible, since the Apple Vs Apple settlement specifically prohibits Apple Inc. from acting as a record label in this way.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[whoever57]

How hard would it be for a band to sign up directly with iTunes to sell their tracks for them?

Impossible, since the Apple Vs Apple settlement specifically prohibits Apple Inc. from acting as a record label in this way.

I see an opportunity here. Set up a "label" that does nothing but contract for the label's music to be available over iTunes. Sign up such bands on the basis of taking a very small fee for the small amount of work done. The contracts with the bands could be non-exclusive. Now iTunes does not have to act as a label.

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[TheRaven64]

CDBaby does this (and puts music on other online music stores, and will distribute CDs, if you want).

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[gnasher719]

The second and last Apple Inc. vs Apple Corps settlement allows Apple Inc. to do pretty much anything that they want.

Apple Inc. now owns all the trademarks to the Apple name. Probably cost them a penny or two.

See http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/02/05apple.html

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[JNighthawk]

You do realize that's not what the broken window theory actually is?

Re:That's a 1bn GAIN to the country.

[Hao Wu]

Apple should drop the "Garage" in "Garage Band" and sell it as the professional studio it is (or could be).

They could also license or brand a line of recording equipment... perhaps even instruments...

Macs could be sold with your own personal "store" (like iTunes) that serves out songs to downloaders, paying right into your PayPal account!

EMI gets it...

[jawtheshark]

At least in my opinion. I stopped buying iTunes songs that were protected after that EMI and Apple introduced the Plus songs. If it isn't plus, I won't buy it. That simple. I have a playlist called "To Buy" in iTunes. It contains links to songs I'd like to buy but that aren't Plus. I review them from time to time if anything has changed. Never happened, tough shit for them. If I find a Plus song that I like, I buy the whole album, just to support the idea.

All songs before I started boycotting non-Plus songs, have been cracked with Hymn.

I don't want to do illegal downloading, besides it's a pain in the neck. Give me an easy way to download and honest prices, and I'll be happy. I can't be alone.

Re:EMI gets it...

[CastrTroy]

My biggest beef is with the price of the tracks. $1.29 for a track is way too much. Even the $10.99 for the album is too much, especially considering there is no distribution chain, and no physical product. For me, eMusic offers a sane price. They have a subscription which forces a minimum spending limit, but I'd rather have a minimum spending limit of $10 per month, and only pay $0.30 for a track, than have to pay $1.29 cents a track. Even if I only downloaded 10 tracks on a $10 per month account, I'd still save over iTunes Plus. Downloads should be significantly cheaper than the CD. Many people say CDs are overpriced, and if that's true then digital downloads via iTunes is just highway robbery.

Re:EMI gets it...

[jawtheshark]

Oh, I understand. I'm even worse off: I pay 1.29€/song. The thing is, I know that I vote with my dollar, ehm, euro.

That said, I'm probably an exception. I was looking for Jonathan Coulton songs lately and found him on iTunes. DMRed and all. So I didn't buy. Today, I had some spare time and googled him and found that he got them DRM-free on his site, guess who I will be paying some euros tonight. For me it's a deal... all songs for 70$, is only 50€ for me!

Yes, "Plus" is too expensive, but if we don't support it at all, piracy will be blamed and we will get even more DRM shoved through our throats. As for CDs: I live in a cramped apartment. I already put all my CDs in the basement to save space. For me download-only actually is an advantage.

Re:EMI gets it...

[WozNZ]

"Yes, "Plus" is too expensive, but if we don't support it at all, piracy will be blamed and we will get even more DRM shoved through our throats. As for CDs: I live in a cramped apartment. I already put all my CDs in the basement to save space. For me download-only actually is an advantage."

Sorry but if you don't agree with something then don't buy it. That is the ONLY way they will listen.

AllOfMP3 and emusic are the way forward. People like the prices of these sites so lost of money changes hand.

Once the first of the majors die the rest might actually start to understand. If the price is too high then DO NOT BUY, just email the artist to let them know you WOULD buy their music if it was a fair price.

Re:EMI gets it...

[jawtheshark]

You do not understand. This is about principle.... If people reject the only legal way to get DRM free music, they will say that there is no market for it. (Or blame piracy, the price, something but not themselves) As for your alternative: AllOfMP3 is kind of shady. eMusic doesn't have popular mainstream music. (I coulnd't check, for some reason their page won't load: just a gray background) It's not that I look down on that, just that you can't get normal people to those sites if the music they want isn't there.

So, it may be expensive, but I'm willing to pay *because* they do the right thing. I pay for the "right thing", not because I'm a cheapass. This is about moral choices, not about economic choices.

Re:EMI gets it...

[sound vision]

Honestly, fuck "Plus". Why should you have to pay more for DRM'd tracks? And still using lossy encoding, no less. Until there is a service that lets me download lossless, DRM-free music (in other words, exactly like a CD) at no extra charge, I will continue to pirate music (a lot of good FLAC rips out there!) and occasionally buy CDs, if they are self-released a la Radiohead or on an independent label. I refuse to be monetarily penalized because I want my music the way it should be in the first place.

Re:EMI gets it...

[jawtheshark]

Read my replies to the other poster. I'm not going to repeat the same things twice.

Re:EMI gets it...

[WozNZ]

Actually. If people continue to purchase songs at inflated prices the record companies will think this is what people are willing to pay and will not change. AllOfMP3 might be on dodgy ground BUT and this one is a HUGE but. The prices they charged are the prices that people WANT to pay. It does not matter WHAT the record companies WANT to charge because if people are not willing to pay it then they will still DIE. The business model they have BROKE when the internet removed distribution control. Now they change or die. Simple supply and demand from 1st grade.

Re:EMI gets it...

[TheRaven64]

I've done the same. I bought a few tracks from iTunes before the DRM-free, to encourage Internet distribution. I then stopped, because the DRM was stopping me from playing the tracks on my Nokia phone. I started again with Plus, and have bought more music on that so far than I bought music in total last year. And, since I only buy complete albums (if an artist can't produce a complete album without filler, they aren't worth my time to listen to), it's exactly the same price.

Re:EMI gets it...

[adona1]

The biggest thing that Allofmp3 got right is their business model (not the legally questionable royalties part, but the delivery). Letting your customers choose what format they buy in, what quality, no DRM...and at a low price. If the labels adopted a format like this, they would probably see a dip in profits, but more than likely would ensure their survival for years to come. It's called 'serving your customers'.

But it'll never happen, so hey, TPB will thrive in its place ;)

Re:EMI gets it...

[jawtheshark]

If people continue to purchase songs at inflated prices the record companies will think this is what people are willing to pay and will not change.

I have a question for you: I am paying right? While I do agree that it's a bit too expensive, I also agree that gas is too expensive. I still pay. This means, that I am willing to pay (albeit grudgingly) and that the pricepoint is okay for *me*. Now people with less money that me, or people that have a stronger feeling that they are overpaying, those will not pay. If they want to expand their market (more sales), then they'll need to lower prices.

Supply and demand works in both ways. Think of it: back in the day CD players were extremely expensive. I only knew one kid with a very very rich dad that had access to it. Years later, CD players became much cheaper so that everyone could have one. While I do realise this is due to production costs getting lower, the market expanded because the product got cheaper. Since music prices are essentially fixed by the record companies, they can choose the size of their market.

That also is economy 101. I doubt you had economy in 1st grade though...

Re:EMI gets it...

[WozNZ]

Yes, the music industry USED to have a vice like grip on distribution. But with the internet and modern PC's that grip has all but gone.

You do know that all of the majors had a round table with Napster before the sued it into the ground?

The deal would have been along the lines of $10/month for all you can eat music with full audit of downloads to enable distribution of money etc. Napster was a SINGLE point of distribution that everyone already used. The PERFECT distribution system. Instead they got scared, the model was too far from CDs.

The killed Napster and since then it has been a downward spiral for them. The music is out there free. All they can do now is make a new model that is compelling enough.

You should read up a little on the subject... The average spend per year for iTunes users is $10, remember iTunes charges $1+ per song. The average spend per year for eMusic customers is $168, they charge $0.33 per song and even less if you spend more. I am willing to bet the average spend for AllOfMP3 users was far more than the tiny $10/year that iTunes pulls in.

When you charge less people think less about the expenditure and so spend more.

Radiohead are allowing fans to pay what they feel like for their new albumm which they have SELF published. The middle man is DEAD. They just have not realised it yet. If they CHANGE they might just have a chance.

Re:EMI gets it...

[jawtheshark]

The average spend per year for iTunes users is $10, remember iTunes charges $1+ per song. The average spend per year for eMusic customers is $168, they charge $0.33 per song and even less if you spend more.

I think you are overlooking something, and from this comment I assume you are a music lover. I'm pretty sure that emusic would be something for my sister who loves music more than anything in life. I am, on the other hand a casual buyer. Back in my CD days, I bought two, three albums a year... tops. I think I have not more than 150CDs, perhaps 200 if I'm being very very liberal.

My current iTunes purchases are not bigger than my former CD purchases, plus I can pick and choose songs. I spent 30€ on songs in iTunes in 2007. For a comparable subscription, I would have had paid alread 90€ just for the subscription at emusic. Now, frankly, which one is better from *my* perspective.

I understand subscription models for music lovers, that would spend over 120€ per year on CDs. I don't I'm not a music lover and to me 120€ per year is too much. So let's just agree that the current music services cater to different publics. iTunes is ideal for me, emusic is ideal for you. If you would use iTunes it would turn out to be more expensive than emusic, but for me the reverse is true.

Also keep in mind that I do not fixate on iTunes. Yesterday, I bought the complete works of Jonathan Coulton, directly from him. That's the best way to support an artists, but not all of them give you that possibility.

Again, instead of saying that I don't get it or should read on the subject, try seeing it from my point. I already understand your point and agree that from your point of view iTunes is a complete ripoff.

Yeah ok Guy keep on dreamin'

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft... too little too late EMI. Your business is gone. You will continue to get screwed on your IP because, well frankly, you screwed others to obtain it. Now it will bite you in the ass.

Goodbye Music companies - game over.
Hello new empowered musicians, we welcome you - rock on.

CD isn't digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

shouldn't the title read "embrace internet distribution of music, or die"?

Re:CD isn't digital?

[HeLLFiRe1151]

Not if the new head of EMI didn't say it.

I wrote this in December of 2003...it still rings

[Hangtime]

In an Alternate Reality(Score:4, Interesting)
by Hangtime (19526) on Friday December 12, @01:21PM (#7702447)
(http://slashdot.org/)
(AP) Paris - 12/12/2003 10:53 AM
Vivendi Universal today was among the host of media companies with record company subsidiaries reporting record profits for the third quarter. Jean-Marie Messier, CEO of Vivendi, attributed the stellar quarter to the company's partnership with the Napster Inc. Napster, a software program used to share and download music, started out as a way to pirate music, but turned legitimate in December 2000 with a broad licensing agreement between each of the five major record labels. Since that time, Napster has made agreements with 6 of the 7 largest US ISPs and OEM deals with computer manufactuers Hewlett Packard and Dell Computer to either install or give users the right to download music from the network. In the case of AOL and Earthlink subscribers, each customer pays an additional $10 a month to share and download from the network. In addition, deals with most of the top indie record labels have followed since 2000 giving Napster users the right to share and download those record label files from the Napster network.

"While we ceratinly were anxious at the beginning of the Napster "experiment", it has truly taken off. It is our hope that even more users will join the network, we are already seeing wonderful penetration in Europe." This past spring, Napster opened its gates to European users in one of the biggest product launches in history. "The network almost doubled the day we opened up to Europe. We are now seeing concurrent usage approaching over 500,000 users with nearly 100 Terabytes of files being shared on the network." explained chief technology officer Shawn Fanning. "With our improved distribution system, we hope to push on into Asia sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2004 once we reach deals with many of the labels there."

The success of the music industry stands in dark contrast to the rest of the economy which grew at an annualized rate of 1.2% this quarter while revenue among the five largest record labels was up 11% from last year. When questioned about Napster Messier replied "Napster has truly been an innovative product and has rewarded Vivendi shareholders and most other media company shareholders immensely."

Well, what did they expect?

[Animats]

It took the recording industry an amazingly long time to figure this out.

On top of their distribution problem, the recording industry has other problems. The rock music part of the industry is endlessly recycling decades-old music. The hip-hop/rap/urban component has bands with a very short commercial lifespan. (Rap band members tend to get shot, too, but that's a separate problem.) Folk is dead. Classical is tiny. Country really isn't that big; the Dixie Chicks are more successful since they quit country.

The top two stories on Billboard this week are about litigation, not music.

Fundamental problem: the industry spends far more on promotion than on making the stuff. Any business in that position can be undercut on price.

Re:Well, what did they expect?

[MightyMartian]

It was Joni Mitchell who once observed that the guys running the record company were always greedy bastards, but at least they used to be greedy bastards who liked music. Listen to some of the pure crap coming out of the record companies these days and one can only assume that these guys could give two shits about music.

Re:Well, what did they expect?

[robkill]

Folk isn't dead, it has just gone independent of the major labels. Many artists either have their own label, or record for small labels like Compass, Waterbug, Red House, Gadfly, or Rounder. The economics of the big labels just don't work well for smaller, independent artists. Labels will often dictate the terms of recording to smaller artists, forcing them to spend more money to do it the label's way rather than the artist's way. Artists on their own label usually make more money (better budget control), and have full artistic control, to boot. Folk artists learned early on to use the Web, email lists, MySpace, and other means of electronic communication to maintain a fan base. CDBaby has also made it easy for an independent artist to sell CD's nationwide.

The biggest obstacle to folk music is not the record labels, but the corporate concentration of commercial radio. Independent singer-songwriters are pretty much relegated to public radio, or satellite radio. ASCAP and BMI's methods of computing airplay for royalties favors the large commercial stations and shortchanges the artists who don't get airplay there. Since voting in ASCAP and BMI is apportioned in accordance to royalties received, that isn't likely to change. The royalty rate negotiations for webcasting will have a major effect as well, since the viability of smaller webcasters (and simulcasting of public radio) are threatened.

"Irregardless?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.

About time

[HangingChad]

The other day I was looking for a song that's been off the air for some time. Finally ended up going to eBay and buying the CD, which was the effort of least time. It was an artist with the Sony/BMG label. If their library were online and I could download a high quality MP3 for a buck, I'd do that just to save myself the time hunting around for the CD.

It's like the music business is being run by the Bush administration. They couldn't screw it up any worse if they planned it. First they sue their customers, always a way to win the hearts and minds. Then they try to wrap everything in DRM and license yet another company to distribute it. The user has to figure out which company is distributing that label, then which operating system/music player you have to have to play their music. Then hope they don't pull a Microsoft Plays For Sure on you and drop support for the old format.

There are too many good alternatives for artists to go straight to the consumer these days. The old record companies take everything from the artist and give very little back. I think the EMI guy is right. Either start providing value to artists and consumers or f'ing die and good riddance you greedy, cocaine laced fucktards.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like the music business is being run by the Bush administration. Ah, yes, the First Rule of Slashdot rears its ugly head yet again.

pfftt...

[djupedal]

Sound the alarm? Been asleep for a while or what...?

The alarm went off more than ten years ago when Apple and Tower Records courted each other to sell music online. Apple wanted to supply the hardware/software and Tower planned to run the online store. Tower had the credit card backend and access to the MUSE database.

FINALLY!

[Spy der Mann]

At least someone has seen the light! :') I'm moved.

If EMI does this well, i might buy a song from them.

Re:FINALLY!

[TheRaven64]

Have you bought any of their DRM-free songs from iTunes yet? If you want to encourage more labels to ditch DRM, that would be a good place to start. If Apple can say to the other labels 'EMI are selling more tracks than you, without DRM' then it would have a lot of impact.

the labels need some fresh blood

[Anonymous Coward]

Executives and A&R guys, from both the musical and technology perspectives.

From the musical perspective, people will still buy CDs if they are worth listening to all the way through, many times, and if the stores aren't asking something like $16 for 40 minutes of music. Now, what is considered worth listening to all the way through, many times, by millions of young fans? I don't hear a lot of it coming out today. That's why the labels need young blood.

I suspect the answer will have more to do with old-fashioned musicianship at the instrumental and songwriting level and less flash at the production level.

Here's how they can survive.

[Entropius]

1. Offer unencumbered mp3/flac/ogg/whatever downloads as their primary product at a reasonable price. This is below $1/song.
2. Tell the customer exactly where their money goes: "Out of every download, $.30 goes to the band, $.10 goes to the people who operated the recording equipment..." People will buy music from bands they like if they know they're actually supporting the band.
3. Save money by cutting marketing bullshit. Market music by selling *good* music, not by convincing 16-year-olds that they'll be cool if they listen to XYZ.
4. Diversify. Rather than trying to "produce" some canned pop "product" that they can sell to everyone, recognize that people's music tastes are often pretty eclectic, and their catalog needs to match that.
5. Stop trying to make obscene profits by underhanded dealings, and be happy with a sustainable business. Recognize that you're a middleman, and that you succeed by being as transparent as possible.
6. Cut the compression bullshit. If I want my music to sound louder I'll turn up my speakers, thanks.
7. Operate anonymous tip jars with a known cut (65% to the artist/35% to us, or whatever), and encourage people to download music via bittorrent or whatever and then donate to the artist. People will use them.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Spy der Mann]

I'm adding your post to my blog. This is a very good summary.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[mc moss]

The problem is, marketing the next pop sensation or fad (such as emo or "gangsta" rap) to 16 year-olds is pretty much a guaranteed way to reap in huge profits since they have so much disposable income (the parents take care of necessities) and are feared that they won't fit in or be cool if they don't like what's popular and what they're peers like. I found that people that have a more varied taste tend to find the kind of music they like whether it is a independent record shop or online.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[The One and Only]

3 would reduce sales, 4 is a prescription for losing money, 6 is the exact opposite of what most people want, and 7 is a recipe for not making any money at all. Do you honestly think we would be stuck with crappy pop acts if they didn't make money for the record companies? The reason mass media is so awful isn't because of some conspiracy to dumb down the populace--it's because the populace is already dumb enough to want those things.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[freedom_india]

Dude ! You are espousing altruism.
If any label does this, they will be sued by their shareholders for not generating profit.

The labels are caught in a bind as much as bands are, PROFIT.
The pathological pursuit of profit alone is a company's role.

If the label offers bittottent, and has cookie jars they become a not-for-profit trust like Salvation Army.
Shareholders will sue and make sure either the board is replaced or the board is behind bars.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[PoderOmega]

1,3-6: Agree 2: It would be nice, but the implementation may be impossible or improbable if these percentages are different per artist or even per album. 7. Do not agree. Whether you or anyone else wants to believe its not true, everyone needs to make a living. It is never just about the music/art, but it is obviously more for some then others. It is great what Radiohead is doing, but they are established. They have enough money and cred that this "experiment" won't hurt them, worst case is they won't make a ton of money off it, but they will definitely make something. If some band no one has ever heard posted on their blog saying "Hey, name your price for our new album!", it would not make the front page of slashdot.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[hedkandee]

How about Let users listen to full length previews of all their music in exchange for advertising. A few websites seem to think this is the way to go.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Joe Jay Bee]

1: Technically possible, and desirable, but unlikely. AllofMp3 did on-the fly transcoding, so it's very possible.
2: A lovely idea, but would be fairly unwieldy in practise. Imagine the diversity of record contracts and their terms.
3: Would kick your sales figures in the nuts. Just about anything which needs to be sold needs to be marketed. Supermarkets advertise their prices, toilet paper companies advertise how much better it feels wiping your ass with brand X than brand Y, music companies have adverts, music videos and radio. EMI would be insane to just wipe out marketing at a stroke; word of mouth is effective, but until you have enough people buying a record to have word of mouth, you need to let people know it exists, and not just let it be another CD in a rack of thousands.
4: EMI already *do* diversify. They release everything between and including Pink Floyd and Kylie Minogue.
5: OK, fair point.
6: Again, fair point, although for EMI to do it out of step with all the other labels would annoy some listeners.
7: Until we know the results of the Radiohead thing, we won't know for sure how well that will work. There are enough people who download music because it's free/because they don't like giving money to labels (regardless of the ethics (or lack of) of not paying) to make such a venture, at the least, unprofitable.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[dc29A]

4: EMI already *do* diversify. They release everything between and including Pink Floyd and Kylie Minogue. Really? When EMI regulary sells drone metal, shoegaze, dark ambient or simply bands that play in 700-1000 people venues, then yes, EMI will be diversified. Right now most of their acts are regurgitated pop crap or bands who no longer play or make albums. And no, Pink Floyd doesn't count. If Floyd were a new band today, there is no way in hell they'll be signed to EMI. Case in point: Agalloch. Floyd make complex music, music you have to think about, savour, something the targeted audience of EMI doesn't want. Hell, when EMI will sell any decent metal music, then yes, they might be a bit more diverse.

Right now EMI, like the other big labels, are selling mostly music that plays well on radio. 3:30 minute songs, catchy, poppy, perfect for radio. Yes there are a few exceptions that are mostly "legacy" artists who made their names in the 70s,80s.

Whey I'll see artists like Agalloch, Haggard, Tiamat, The Gathering, Ulver, Ulf Söderberg and Arcturus signed to EMI then yes, I will consider EMI diverse.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Entropius]

On #7: There is no technological or legal way to stop filesharing. The best they can do is appeal to the honor of the filesharers and at least maybe get some donations out of it.

It's going to happen. Do you want to fight a battle you can't win, or realize that people are going to copy files over the internet no matter *what* you do?

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Entropius]

On #3: There's a difference between marketing what you're selling and selling marketing.

I went into Best Buy to buy a printer cartridge and saw giant posters advertising some new rap CD. This is excessive. Telling people about your product is one thing; selling a product based solely on advertising is, in the long run, a recipe for failure. Ultimately there has to be something behind the marketing.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Entropius]

Full-length previews are going to be available one way or the other no matter what. Either we get them from itunes.com, or we get them from thepiratebay.org.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Anonymous Coward]

7. Operate anonymous tip jars with a known cut (65% to the artist/35% to us, or whatever), and encourage people to download music via bittorrent or whatever and then donate to the artist. People will use them.

I might have, prior to the DMCA, lawsuits, CARP, etc. But after all that bullshit, there's only one way that I'd ever use one of these tip jars...if the "to the artists" percentage is 100%.

If the record companies had not shown themselves to be entirely devoid of any caring for either the consumers who buy their product or the artists they represent, I might feel that there is a place in this world for their lot. But given their track record, I no longer see any need for them to exist. The internet and computers are perfectly capable of acting as a middle man between consumers and artists. There is now no way that even one cent of their revenues will come from me.

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Posters have been promoting pop music since the beginning. Or do you just hate anything rap? Are you capable of making a coherent point?

Re:Here's how they can survive.

[Entropius]

It has nothing to do with the music specifically being rap, and everything to do with it really having no redeeming value outside the massive advertising campaign for it. Many pop acts are created to fit a marketing niche, rather than marketing being designed to sell music.

That's the difference.

Loss in retail spending?

[Timtheenchanted]

It's amazing how well polling organizations can misinterpret data. The spending wasn't lost, it just didn't go through the record companies.

CD's arn't digital?

[junkgui]

I am always disheartened by the fact that people who hold highly paid jobs can't seem to understand simple technical concepts. CDs are a digital format! The data on a CD and/or DVD is digital. The music industry hasn't released music on analog formats for years, with the exception of some specialty vinyl record sales mostly for DJ's. If he is saying they should stop releasing music on tape and record I think he might have a point, but not a very interesting one... If he is saying they should be selling music over the internet via compressed digital formats for direct download... well... then he should say that...

Re:CD's arn't digital?

[MightyMartian]

I gather you don't get irritated by purely semantical arguments. CDs are very much the same marketing beast as LPs. By popular usage, digital music applies to downloadable compressed formats.

Do you also have the same freak-on when people say "I need to dial the phone"?

Some Romance is Gone

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is Slashdot and we're all supposed to be computer nerds, but..

I think theres a romance inherent in going out and buying a new album. In waiting at midnight for it to come out. In discovering an old vintage album in your Grandparent's attic that shows they listened to stuff you love too.

With downloadable instant-click gratification, all this is a thing of the past. A little bit of the music lover's heart just died. :(

EMI? Well, sex my pistol!

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's unlimited supply
and there is no reason why"

Cant survive on CD sales alone?

[nurb432]

True, and they always have the lawsuit business model to fall back on if times get rough.

indie labels???

[ThirdPrize]

Is it all record labels that are evil or just the big ones? In the old days there used to be such things as indie record labels like factory, creation, sub pop, mo wax, etc. They started small, built up a great rosta of artists who eventually went off to the major labels. Either that or the major labels simply brought them out. no one could ever claim they screwed their bands, Factory even gave their artists the complete rights to their recordings. are we saying they were bad? Dischord is a good example of how a record label could and should work. it is run by the bands, for the bands with the profits going to the bands.

I just don't see how a world where every band, doing all its own work, would work. Every band would end up employing its own engineers for recording, designers for packaging, publicists for advertising, bookers for gigging, etc. And just because Dave has a transit van it does not mean he can book a 50 date tour round Europe by himself. Eventually companies would pop up that did this for you, for a fee, and you would be back where you started.

Music is free now

[cdrguru]

The cost of something is determined by the lowest retail price. For music that is zero today. Most people are unwilling to assign a much higher value to it either.

This means any commercial enterprise which revolves around selling music is doomed. People will redistribute it and remove any possible value from your product.

This means the end of recorded music as a commercial enterprise. Period. I don't see a choice. I understand this is now how it is in China today - they gave up against piracy. I is going to be that way elsewhere shortly.

Movies are probably next.

Re:Music is free now

[Anonymous Coward]

And good riddance. Living in a movie-inspired dreamworld is 90% of what is wrong with americans today. If people stopped thinking "their stories" they see on TeeVee were real, the world would be a much saner place.

Re:Music is free now

[hedkandee]

imeem, qtrax, deezer, and spiralfrog are 3 companies who are trying to deliver music for free, supported by ads - either as on demand streams or DRM downloads. And before you start with the 'oh but...' many of the sites are offering CD quality versions, not low bitrate crap

Re:Music is free now

[killbill!]

The cost of something is determined by the lowest retail price. For music that is zero today. Most people are unwilling to assign a much higher value to it either.

This means any commercial enterprise which revolves around selling music is doomed. People will redistribute it and remove any possible value from your product.

Spot on. And it's actually a good thing, because it means money will flow to more productive purposes.

On the other hand, the music store is not necessarily doomed. Music is free, and there's actually too much of it. There is a lot of money to be made in narrowing down the choice offered to each individual customer.

The first online music store to display no more than five songs will win.

Re:Music is free now

[Zimm]

Your dead on, I wouldn't go into commercial music now even as an artist, it's a dead end. The movie industry is different though, they have control of distribution at the movie theatre level. At the very least if the home movie market isn't profitable anymore, they can just cut it off, and stick with just theatre release. This would significantly lower their profits, but at least it's something.

Re:Music is free now

[Eskarel]

I disagree, I think music has a value, and that the vast majority of people would rather do the right thing and pay something than pirate.

The problem for the record industry is both finding that price, and recreating their image(should they choose to do so). Their profitability is dependent on finding a price point where people find that the product is convenient and valuable, and having something that people like. Their problem is that aside from general dislike of large corporations, they've proved themselves to be more greedy and unethical than most. This will probably lower the effective price of their product(doing the right thing for an entity you like has a higher value than doing the right thing for a bunch of greedy swine), but it doesn't remove the value entirely.

Society still enjoys music, and if you don't pay something for it people won't produce it, so finding a compromise between the old way and the total destruction of art as we know it is probably in everyone's best interest.

Re:Music is free now

[mpe]

Society still enjoys music, and if you don't pay something for it people won't produce it,

Actually the latter isn't the case, there are people who enjoy producing music. They would continue to do so regardless of financial reward.

Re:Music is free now

[blackest_k]

To a large degree your right, however the music is only part of the product they sell.

About the best product they sold was the LP. It felt good it looked good it was possible to instantly recognise an album you could grab a handful and flick through and find what you wanted in seconds they were easy to gather up..

CD's Improve only in the quality of the recording. The cases are terrible they break slide pop open and scratch the CD's they are fiddly to store. Even the Cabinets are ugly. An LP could be a beautiful thing some of them did get displayed on walls.

  A cd hdd ipod full of music doesn't really count for much, do you really want to flick through your friends ipod or look at track listings for a CD or HDD with a few thousand tracks.

Honestly stop with the tacky perspex cases already and make a better product. The Movie Industry seems to do better with DVD's. Film Collections seem to grow faster than CD collections with most people more prepared to pay for a DVD than a CD. why is that?

The recording industry seems to be clueless as to how music spreads and builds a fan base, the attacks on customers and online radio stations is counter productive. It was by sharing music with our friends we developed our appreciation of artists, certain DJ's actually went looking for new music and shared it with their audience.
There should be websites dedicated to particular genres run by people who love the music, bringing it to new audiences letting us hear the music they love. But we know that should anyone set up such a site the RIAA would have them shutdown fined and their lives ruined. I'd love to be able to explore music outside of my experience listen and read about the artists and the history,but even writing down the lyrics on a website is inviting a law suit.

unfortunately rather than allow a love for the music to flourish, they are intent on destroying any appreciation of music by the bean counting and law suits.

I might be wrong here but the top 50 or 100 is where most money is made outside of that most retailers will not give shelf space. If the RIAA focuses its attention on the Top 100 where illegal downloads do make a real difference to real sales and ignored the rest. Then file sharing and internet radio would be promoting the music we otherwise wouldn't hear or more importantly BUY. People will pay for the music they really like. They don't want a CD'r with a felt tip track listing. unless of course they have the original and are using the CDR to avoid damaging the original. CDR's go bad hard drives fail. No matter how much music you have the best is on a pre recorded stamped disk. That should be able to be last a lifetime maybe more.

music today is seen as a cheap disposable product, it isn't. it's been part of our lives and our loves and memories.

Theres a value in an original recording that you bought at the time of its release. something you can keep for your kids and grandkids even.

so really music does have a value, mp3's don't.
If the RIAA actually got that, their members would be appreciated as custodians of our culture, providing a valued service to the community instead of puss filled maggots with couldn't care less what was created as long as they made money from it.

Re:Music is free now

[Eskarel]

Yes, but those people still have to eat, and if you want them to be able to work full time on making music, they have to be able to make money off music, that's the whole point of copyright in the first place.

The LIE that few spot

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a person, I got an income of 1000 dollars which I spend completly every month, 600 of which goes to fixed expenses like housing, insurance, taxes and other mundane stuff that you have to pay. Two hundred I spent on essentials like food, clothing, phone, etc. That leaves 200 to spend on fun. Lets say that before filesharing I spend that 50 dolllars of that 200 on music, now with filesharing I don't.

How much money has been lost to the economy because of filesharing?

Not a single penny.

If you don't understand why, you are an idiot, stop reading, american idol is probably on, if it ain't watch the static.

To everyone else offcourse it is obvious, I spend ALL my money in the economy, it does not matter to the economy WHAT it is spend upon. If I don't spend it in shop A I spend it in shop B, shopowner A may not like it but the economy doesn't give a shit, as long as I spend.

Now if you were to present me with figures that show that people nowadays are saving more money then before, then you might have a point, if teenagers start putting their allowances into banks instead of CD's then the world might indeed come to an end (although I am sure an economists could explain how this too would just be another way of spending)

Simply put, although I haven't bought a CD or a DVD or even a game in ages, that doesn't mean I don't spend money, turbine has large faction of it with my lifelong LOTRO copy, Blizzard got maybe a half-dozen full games sales out of me with WoW. The record company doesn't sell me CD's but I pay several CD's worth each month to my ISP.

They talk about money flows sometimes and that is just what money does, it flows like a river and sometimes that river changes courses, leaving one area dry and flooding another. It is part of live. We spend less on coal and more on gas. Once we bought hay, today we buy petrol, tomorrow, who knows, but there always be a inn/service station beside the road selling fuel, not just for our mode of transport, but ourselves.

If you really want to talk about lost money to a countries economy, check where those CD's are made. I can bet you a lot of money it ain't the US of A or Great Britian or wherever. It is china. Now putting ALL that manufacturing in low wage countries, now THAT hurts the local economy, to the tune of far more then a handfull of billions. Why don't we hear the music industry about that eh?

Wanna see proof? Go into an archive and look at pictures of your local highstreet, see how one type of store just gets replaced with another over the years. I am willing to bet that your local music store is now housing a mobile phone store. That is what people spend money on nowadays.

Re:The LIE that few spot

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I had $1000 and stole some jewelry, that would be stealing, but if I had $1000 and bought a tv and stole the jewelry, that wouldn't be stealing? Please tell me what country this is legal in, so I can move there immediately!

Oh wait, let me guess, my analogy doesn't work because it doesn't cost the company anything to copy a few bytes here and there...

and I've never seen American Idol

Re:The LIE that few spot

[micpp]

Tell me where the grandparent even mentioned stealing.

Re:The LIE that few spot

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me where the grandparent even mentioned stealing.
OK...
Lets say that before filesharing I spend that 50 dolllars of that 200 on music, now with filesharing I don't.
right there.

Re:The LIE that few spot

[mpe]

To everyone else offcourse it is obvious, I spend ALL my money in the economy, it does not matter to the economy WHAT it is spend upon. If I don't spend it in shop A I spend it in shop B, shopowner A may not like it but the economy doesn't give a shit, as long as I spend.
Now if you were to present me with figures that show that people nowadays are saving more money then before, then you might have a point, if teenagers start putting their allowances into banks instead of CD's then the world might indeed come to an end (although I am sure an economists could explain how this too would just be another way of spending)

The only way you'd be keeping money out of the economy would be if you were putting cash in a box.

Re:The LIE that few spot

[bentcd]

To everyone else offcourse it is obvious, I spend ALL my money in the economy, it does not matter to the economy WHAT it is spend upon. If I don't spend it in shop A I spend it in shop B, shopowner A may not like it but the economy doesn't give a shit, as long as I spend. (Assuming for a moment that the economy doesn't mind us anthropomorphising it . . .)
The above isn't entirely correct. Capitalism builds on a premise that what people spend money on is a decent expression of what sort of things they want and what sort of things they think are "good". When you stop spending money on music /in spite/ of you actually liking music (and obtaining it by other means), you are effectively feeding the economy erroneous information and this will, in principle, reduce the quality of the market. So while the money is not lost to the economy, its value has been degraded somewhat.

Re:The LIE that few spot

[Hyperspite]

Moral component aside, the goods are redistributed much more efficiently, making the economic pie bigger for everyone (at least in the short term until the companies stop producing those bits and bytes).

Re:The LIE that few spot

[Hyperspite]

I made a mistake with that last post, it's not that it's redistributed, something is created where there was none which is why there is a short term advantage. If you steal the jewelry, its a zero sum game - no additional pieces are created.

correction

[sound vision]

Make that first sentence "pay more for non-DRM'd tracks". :(

Morons!!

[zmollusc]

The salvation of the music industry is simple: go back to vinyl. All the nerdy peer to peer texchnology in the world won't stop the fact that the music needs to be digitised first, and every audiophile will tell you that any digitisation utterly ruins the quality.
QED

Re:Morons!!

[Asic Eng]

[...] go back to vinyl [...] every audiophile will tell you that any digitisation utterly ruins the quality.

For a long time you could buy LPs and CDs in the store. First the CD section was small - a specialty section, then it grew. For a while both media were occupying equal shares of the store, then LP became the specialty section, and finally the LPs disappeared. You can come up with all sorts of conspiracy scenarios, I'm sure - but this seems just like normal market behaviour to me. The size of the LP section is related to the share of customers who want to buy LPs. By going back to that antiquated technology you'd capture exactly that share of the market which is still using it. I'd have a hard look at the sales numbers for iPods in comparison to the numbers for LP players instead.

Im not sure this is a good thing...

[webmaster404]

Because it will probably leave to more DRM and other things that the record companies end up killing themselves over. CDs (before they went to putting rootkits in them) worked well, I could buy the CD, rip the song to whatever format I felt like (WMA, MP3, Ogg...) play it on how many devices I wanted to on the physical CD (my home, car, portable CD player) or digital (My cell phone by way of SD card, my Mp3 player, iPod, Wii, Linux computer, Windows Computer, Mac) and I could make a backup copy to insure it in case I step on my CD. Now with digital music the way that the record companies want it, I can buy the song, listen to it in some DRMed or patent restricted format, pay extra and listen to it on devices other then a Windows computer. Pay for it again to have a ringtone of it, pay for it again to put it on a non "preferred" Mp3 player and probably never get it to play on a Linux computer. Yes there is e-music and other DRM free music stores, but whenever record companies try to attack innovation, its us consumers that lose every time.

A better business model.

[deviated_prevert]

If the companies like Sony and the other media giants could see the forest for the trees. A good example is the fact that whenever I go into a 'record' store I wind up getting the clerk to look through the industry data base to find recordings. Most other classical music lovers that I know find themselves in the same boat. It would be trivial to create a business model for music that would burn the media right in the store. I would gladly pay a sensible per unit price.

A system that would allow the customer to browse a huge selection of tracks and buy the tracks on a per unit price could easily work. The shop(s) could have a secure digital connection to the entertainment companies and there is no reason to think all of this could not be easily done! This system would also take the distribution, packaging and warehousing costs out of the loop, inventory costs are one of the reasons only the big record stores are still in business.

Not that long ago there were many record stores that had good selection, now the selection and availability of great music is the shits because of companies like Sony aka Columbia, Polydor DDG Archive....etc..etc! and all the other corporate asshats that have screwed things up.

And why shouldn't it die?

[mlwmohawk]

Hey, I'm all for capitalism and all, but the music "industry" must die as it isn't about music. If you are a musician you know that radio play is tightly controlled by the big corporations. You ain't getting radio play if you ain't dealing with the big corporations.

So, the HUGE majority of musicians and bands never get on the air, never get any play, and never will and are far better than what you hear on the radio.

The internet removed the industry from the mix, you can make money without them. This should make them afraid, and this should make you happy because you'll hear voices that aren't from pretty boys/girls who pose for teen beat.

Hands is not the Head

[EnglishTim]

Guy Hands is the founder and CEO of the private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners that bought EMI, not the head of EMI.

I'm sure as the owner of the owner of the company he holds a fair amount of sway, but he's not in charge of running the company. The directors of EMI Music Publishing UK can be found at the bottom of this page:

http://www.emimusicpub.com/worldwide/around_the_world/united-kingdom_home.html

Re:Hands is not the Head

[Anonymous Drunkard]

EMI Music Publishing has absolutely nothing to do with EMI Music.

EMI Music Publishing publishes and controls the copyrights to sheet music, as well as producing and distributing recordings of "library music", pre-recorded background music you find in commercials, on radio and tv, and often in films. This music is not available to the general public; you must be in the audio production field to access it, and each use must be licensed.

EMI Music is the commercial record company whose record labels distribute music sold to consumers. EMI Music is what Hands is considering selling ("hand"-ing off, if you will) to Warner Music.

In other news

[einhverfr]

Guy Hands, CEO of EMI has hired Randsom Love (former CEO of Caldera Systems) as CTO....

Sometimes I wonder if having a wacky name might not be an asset in big business.

see: Phish

[opencity]

Sold out stadiums. Had a record deal as a side project. Also Dave Mathiews. Anyone remember the Grateful Dead (man)?
Not a fan of above, don't mind early Dead, but I'm just sayin ... Later, see: Wilco. Anybody who ever ran a minor label will tell you promotion is almost always a waste of money. Too much noise out there. It was like political contributions. Unless you came in at the highest level, full pages in Rolling Stone (and that conincidental long story in the next issue), you were wasting your money.

There's no money in the business for anyone anymore except the players.
(the sound of players worldwide laughing)

But ... 20th century media was an employment machine. While I personally get a kick out of the image of power hungry lawyer / label wanna-bes saying 'you want fries with that', there were a lot of support jobs that were honest work: Record Store clerks (insert joke), audio engineers, ... uh, that's about it. The other honest jobs in tour support are still needed.

Rumor - EMI + Imeem = free music

[hedkandee]

When the news came out last week about imeem signing a deal with Sony/BMG the same story also revealed that EMI was talking with imeem about the same kind of deal and so were Vivendi. So with a bit of luck we should soon see all major artists* available for free on imeem, assuming you can find them of course - the labels are supposedly getting a chunk of the ad revenue from the site. * Except of course for the Beatles, Radiohead and other artists who haven't signed up for the usual digital distibution deals.

Embrace Digital AND Die

[mdavids]

Can't they do both? A decade ago, there were too few record labels. Now there are only four, and that's four too many,

If I were a professional musician, I'd be releasing my recordings under a license that permitted (at least) verbatim redistribution, including commercial redistribution. That way I'd still be making little or nothing off the sale of the recordings, but many more people would be able to access and afford a copy, and I'd be able to make the music I wanted when I wanted.

While it's good to see well-known artists publishing free-as-in-zero-cost copies of their works, it will be free-as-in-redistributable publication from a major artist that will mark the beginning of the end for the redundant middlemen.

Guy Hands?

[payndz]

Wasn't he in an episode of Seinfeld? "She had Guy Hands, Jerry! GUY HANDS!"

Oh, wait...

Re:Guy Hands?

[F4_W_weasel]

sheeeesh, finally a joke with his name, c'mon, /.rs you're soo slow today...

Re:Guy Hands?

[weber]

That's because it's a serious topic, and I for one think we can all learn something from Mr. Hands.

Didn't Batman play a key role?

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Also, they started releasing Betamax copies of movies like Star Wars for $100 (and this is in the 80's, so about $200 today). Of course, everyone simply signed up at a video rental club and acquired their own backup copy from the one they rented. Eventually, prices dropped to where people would actually be willing to buy an original copy.

I'm old enough to remember the 1980s quite well. I remember that even though my family had a VHS machine, prices for buying movies on VHS started at $80, and most were in the $89-$99 range, so we didn't even think about buying movies. We used the VCR to record TV shows and to watched rented movies and things we and friends had taped from TV.
I'm not a big fan of Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie, but I did stand in line to watch it the night before the official release (it was called a "preview" or something), and the way I remember things, I think we all owe the folks at Warner who made decisions about that movie some thanks, because I could be mistaken, but I think that was the first major release movie on which a studio tried the approach of making it available on VHS at an accessible price everywhere and seeing if they could make more money with a much smaller margin on each sale, but selling many more units.
Batman is the first movie I remember seeing in the sub-$30 range, and the first movie I remember seeing available in drugstores (specifically, I remember being surprised when I saw it at the Walgreens on 55th Street near the University of Chicago and at a price that was not so outrageous to me as to be beyond consideration, which was quite a new experience at the time) and stores like K-Mart. The movie was only "ehhh" or worse to me, and it spawned three successively more ridiculous sequels, but I still recall Batman fondly for having been the first major movie made available at a less-obscene price. I never did buy a copy of it, though.

Re:Didn't Batman play a key role?

[Digz]

The first one I remember was Top Gun. It had the Pepsi commercial at the beginning (which I've always believed was the first time that was done) and was the first VHS tape I saw in the stores under $30.

Of course, there could have been something earlier - but that's the first one I remember.

Drop Vinyl and MC?

[Tom Hek]

They are going to drop Vinyl and MC? CD is digital, CDDA stands for Compact Disc DIGITAL Audio.

Welcome to 1999 fellas

[damburger]

If the record companies had changed their business model when the business actually changed, they might have survived. As it is, they spent years alienating their consumers, crushing innocent people in extremely vindictive lawsuits, and generally establishing themselves in the minds of young people as the worst thing since the Third Reich.

Changing direction might have worked before you all made yourselves into the embodiment of corporate greed, contempt for humanity and disregard for civil liberties.

Have you heard of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

[Manfesto]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clap_Your_Hands_Say_Yeah

They may not sell out stadiums, but they garnered significant success from the popularity of their MySpace page (especially once it was picked up and promoted by the ever influential Indie-rock critics at Pitchfork Media).

Re:Have you heard of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

[Abotron]

Um. . . Arctic Monkeys too. Built a crapload of buzz in the UK, ended up selling out arenas before they even released their first record. Then when they did, it became the fastest selling record in British history. Then again, there can only be so many who take the same path. How many people languishing on MySpace are actually going to be able to sell an entire album?

Mod parent up... maybe?

[75th Trombone]

If the parent is anywhere close to accurate, that's the most, er, "insightformative" post I've seen on Slashdot in a year.

But I'm in no position to verify its accuracy or validity or non-Swiss cheese-ness.

I am wondering whether most of musicians' money now, in the old business model, comes from recording sales or ticket sales. Because it seems feasible to me that your average, non-blockbuster band might see hardly any of recording sales, but that the recordings are actually just promotional material for the concerts.

I basically don't know whether the parent or myself (or each of us) is talking out of our butts. Anyone care to enlighten me? <.<;;

Lame psychoanalysis

[MikShapi]

Yes, it could be due to P2P. But it could also be other things.
How about "1 billion lost due to a record industry that alienated itself to the public"?

Audiophiles are strange and genie is free anyway

[Dogtanian]

every audiophile will tell you that any digitisation utterly ruins the quality. Which may or may not be true, but I wouldn't take an audiophile's word for it. Half of those guys are pseudo-scientific obsessives who'll buy any piece of overpriced snake-oil technology and dubious marketing claims but would run a mile from anything remotely resembling a reliable double-blind test.

This recent thread is interesting, this comment references a particularly pseudo-scientific sounding piece of equipment.

Oh, and by the way, they can go back to vinyl if they like. Someone will digitise that ("ruining" the sound quality), upload it to the net, and the hordes of people will get it from there instead. The genie is out of the bottle I'm afraid- and if people were really that bothered about sound quality (whether what you say is true or not), there would already be many more vinyl sales. Fact is that only the vinyl-centric audiophiles will buy it for this reason, and I doubt they were downloading badly-encoded 128Mbps MP3s in the first place.

He IS right

[unity100]

As of now i have Best Classics 100 Vol 1, (6cd, stuffed with classical music), Best Classics 100 Vol 2 (6cd again), Best Relaxing classics (6 cd again, Best Baroque Classics (again 6 cd).

All are emi's.

I duly ripped them off to my hd, and im listening them wherever, however i want. No holds barred, no restrictions.

I bought all these just over the course of a year. goddamn easy. Up to that point, for over 10 years, i havent bought a single music cd. im serious. then, when i got into classical music a year ago, i thought that instead of p2ping and searching and trying to create a goddamn collection, i could just buy a set. and i did. and im living in a country where copyright doesnt mean jack shit.

result is, i have every kind of shit i can want. winamp gets the info from ccdb databases, and suddenly, as a person who is a total noob when it comes to identifying what piece is whose, i am able to tell them apart from each other.

now im looking for EMI sign whenever i am going to buy some set again. i have decided to go into some latin, saw a set, but saw some other firm's brand on it, which firm has an infamous standing when it comes to drm shit. i just avoided them and now am waiting until i can get something emi, no hassles.

again, he is right.

CDs not digital?

[noidentity]

New Head of EMI Says 'Embrace Digital Music or Die'

'the industry will not survive if it continues to rely on CD sales alone.'

It's about time they realize that those old analog CDs won't cut it anymore. Oh, wait...

Re:Poor title choice..

[Technician]

Also, they started releasing Betamax copies of movies like Star Wars for $100 (and this is in the 80's, so about $200 today).

Lucas vowed to never release to the video market. He changed his mind about 6 years later when the pirate copies were everywhere. Raises hand.. I had my copy about 4 years before the official release. The companies did what they always do, throw out a few test crumbs to see if the model will work. Having been in the middle of those days, I remember wonderful titles such a Barbarella and How to watch professional football. The stuff worth buying came much later as well as offical rentals. They tried to squash the rental market by the licensing of the content for sale only, not rental. That got overturned thank goodness. I rembember those days...

Napster was just the music clone to the original unauthorised movie rental stores. The official stuff came later. They tried to shut down but had to adapt instead.

The music industry is simply following the video tape path 30 years later.

Terra Firma

[saunderscc]

As an investor in Terra Firma's last 2 funds, I can tell you that Guy Hands and his team are smart cookies. TF often invests where others fear to tread--industries in desperate need of change. More often than not, they've been successful in their turnaround efforts. While that doesn't guarantee success with EMI, the music biz certainly seems broken. This "memo" made news this weekend, but it is similar to what we've been hearing for some time. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out--fingers crossed here. To read more about Terra Firma and it's previous investments see www.terrafirma.com. Slashdotters might be interested in TF's renewable energy business, Infinis, which was created out of a landfill business, Waste Recycling Group, and now accounts for something like 10-11% of the renewable energy in the UK.

Janis Ian Articles

[PHPfanboy]

Don't know how many people have heard of Janis Ian, but a friend of mine who has a bunch of friends in the Music industry (producers etc...) pointed these out to me when we were building out a music venture (which never got off the ground). They're old, but a good read from the musician side.

http://www.janisian.com/articles-perfsong/internetdebacle.pdf

http://www.janisian.com/articles-perfsong/Fallout%20-%20rev%2011-23-05.pdf

Re:Audiophiles are strange and genie is free anywa

[Anonymous Coward]

there would already be many more vinyl sales

From what I hear vinyl sales ARE up.

Re:Audiophiles are strange and genie is free anywa

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I don't think 128Mbps MP3s would sound that bad...probably take up too much space on the hard drive though.

CD's *ARE* DIGITAL

[The Cisco Kid]

There seems to be this mass mis-concept that CD's are not digital music, and the word 'digital' being misused to mean 'Internet downloadable only', or something like that.

CD's continue to have several advantages, at least to the purchases, that have been fairly scarce with 'Internet downloadable' music:

1. Its a full 44 Khz non-compressed. (Granted, egotistcal audiophiles will still prefer their vinyl, but we're are talking the average consumer here)

2. No built-in "Digital Restrictions" - you can copy the audio (compressing it, if you choose) into the same device-and-location independent type of 'digital' file that you might get from an Internet download. You can also make a full uncompressed archival copy (either to CDR's, or you could put perhaps 5 of them on a DVD-R if you wanted) (Or you can use the original as the archive and take your copy for everyday use)

3. A standard publicly documented open format readable by anyone.

That said, they still have some disadvantages:

1. Usually grossly overpriced.
2. You have to go physically get them, or order and wait for them to be shipped.

Unfortunately, the labels seem have taken an attitude that they are going to be damned if they are going to make music available to people with the advantages but with the disadvantages. And as you can see, they even want to eliminate CD's. I'm sure they hate them, becuase they allow others to to fill in the gap, by taking the physical CD's, and turning them into online downloadable files. They usually do compress them, but that is the far more minor of the disadvantages than the DRM is.

If any player in the music industry were to ever offer online downloadable music, in a standard open format, without DRM, at a reasonable price, it would be news. The head of one of the 'publishers' decrying CD's (and using the wrong term to describe non-CD music), isn't really news.

Re:CD's *ARE* DIGITAL

[skeeto]

There seems to be this mass mis-concept that CD's are not digital music

You seem to be only the third person to point that out -- and on the site labeled "new for nerds". Come on people!

That probably explains why there are plenty of clueless audiophiles who spend money on worthless snake-oil like the Audioprism CD Stop Light Pen. Thanks to the media being digital, CDs are already read perfectly every time (unless terribly damaged).

And, reading the title assuming they know what they are talking about, of course people still selling only cassette tapes will go out of business, if they haven't already.

Re:CD's *ARE* DIGITAL

[The Cisco Kid]

Well someone (P. T. Barnum?) said there's a sucker born every minute. Presumably some of them buy that thing.

Anyway, if you do have a scratched-up CD, there's CDParanoia - http://xiph.org/paranoia/faq.html

And again, what the RIAA-members want is to eliminate the CD and replace it with a new proprietary format that can't be copied and requires one to buy additional copies for each device you might want to listen on. And they'd love to give extra points for a system that let them count and charge for every time you listen. Grand Prize for a way to bill you if you even hum one of "their" songs to yourself or in your head. What they don't give a damn about is wether its digital or analog, or wether anyone wants to pay for it that way. They figure if they can eliminate everything else, the herd will just go along with the only choice they make available.

Re:Mod parent up... maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, bands, at least in the UK do not make money by gigging either.
It's a tremendously expensive thing to do.

Take a four piece band + roadie/sound guy + driver.
You have to get them to the venue, normally provide a place to stay overnight, and get them home.
This will mean none of the members can attend other jobs for two days.
Venues for low/mid scale bands have average, say 300 attendance.
Say tickets are £5.

Cost for human being band member to *live on* is £100 per person per day.
To pay everyone takes £600.
Costs of hotel and food for everyone is say £250 per day.
Fuel and maintenance/hire of vehicle minimun £50

So minimun costs for band is £900

Venue takes £5*300= £1500
Venue takes at least half ticket sales leaving £750
Therefore total loss for band is £150.
Of course, this will vary on ticket price/attendence/venue take etc, but it never makes you money.
Also, bands cannot gig 365 days a year. There are limits to the fans that will attend and venues.

Now someone will tell me that six people can make a living on selling Tshirts at gigs.
How many obsessive tshirt buying fans are required to provide a living for 6 people?
Why not quit the music business and just concentrate on selling nice clothes?

Also, in regard to my post you are replying to, this is worth reading, and puts band profit from singles at about 10p per download:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9735

It just does not add up to eating and having a place to live from profits from your music.

Not true

[Captain_Chaos]

The cost of something is determined by the lowest retail price. For music that is zero today. Most people are unwilling to assign a much higher value to it either.

This just simply is not true. Look at Magnatunes: they let you choose how much you want to pay for an album, with a minimum of $5. If what you said was true one would expect almost everyone to pay $5. Instead, the average price people pay is $8! Apparently, people are perfectly willing to pay for music, as long as they know (as is the case with Magnatunes) that it is DRM-free and half of what they pay goes directly to the artist. I know I am, and that there are many people who think the same.

And saying that the reason people are willing to pay is because Magnatunes is a small label whose music isn't generally to be found on the peer-to-peer networks won't fly either, because Magnatunes make it extremely easy to listen to their music for free without any restrictions.

Re:Audiophiles are strange and genie is free anywa

[Dogtanian]

Somehow I don't think 128Mbps MP3s would sound that bad Well, they're never going to reach "audiophile" grade. However, they don't sound as bad as their reputation would suggest... *if* you use a good encoder. I think the problem is that a lot of people used really crappy encoders (and/or transcoded). I suspect that a decent encoder at 128mbps would beat a crappy one at 160 if not 192 mbps.

Re:Audiophiles are strange and genie is free anywa

[Dogtanian]

From what I hear vinyl sales ARE up. Yes, but that's as a tiny niche market which only makes up a tiny fraction of total music sales- and it will only *ever*. The suggestion that by going back to vinyl the masses will start buying it again and the music industry will be saved is horrendously implausible.

It relies on the assumption that people will buy it for quality (no they won't; they'd already be doing that if it were the case- and I'm talking about a *significant* percentage of the market), and that digitisation is somehow a barrier or a deterrent.... but I'm repeating what I already said.

Now I have to replace all my analog CDs!

[Cajun Hell]

Shit! If EMI is going digital, does that mean I have to replace all my EMI CDs, since my CDs are apparently analog? ;)

CDs are dead

[whereiswaldo]

I only ever listen to music played through a computer or an ipod these days. In fact, I use CDs so infrequently (it's been many months since the last time) I just threw out all my original jewel cases and album inserts and now keep all my original CDs on CDR spindles. It's so much less clutter and takes way less space. Plus, I don't have to keep shelling out for new CD holders. If I don't like a song, I delete it so I never have to skip it again. I can keep lyrics to my favourite songs right in the song file itself. Digital is the only way to go - I'm hooked. CDs are dead.