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MTV: 2007 Borked the Music Industry
Sockatume writes "MTV thinks 2007 was the year the music industry broke, and provides a hefty pile of examples to justify it. Unsurprisingly, most of them revolve around the collapse of CD sales and the rise of digital distribution (authorised and otherwise). Be advised that many of the examples are the continuations or repercussions of old favourites (RIAA suits, the Sony rootkit fiasco)."
Why should MTV care about the music studios? Sure, I, too, remember the time when the M in MTV was for MUSIC, but it's not their biz to keep the dying studios afloat. I mean, would you tie yourself to a sinking ship?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...with the occasional landslide. A bit like the glaciers melting.
The music industry's old business model is outdated. Yeah, I know, if there was a "deadhorse" mod option I'd be modded into oblivion now, but maybe if we keep telling them long enough, they will finally listen.
Now, I don't want the MI to die. No, really. I don't want them to go keel up and drown. Yes, we'd still find a way to get our music through the internet, we'd go to artist pages, pay them directly and download our songs. But what about those people who don't have the net? Music is part of our life, would you really want them to do without?
Not that I'd miss American Idol nonreturnable stars, hyped today, forgotten tomorrow, but people want them and want those songs, they want those shallow, hollow feelgood crap. Who am I to dictate they should listen to good music?
So what the MI needs to find, and soon, is some other revenue stream. Personally, I could well see them turn from distributors to marketing assistants. They have excellent connections to TV and radio, so why not become the marketing and PR people for artists who think they can't market themselves?
Yes, that's probably less profitable than the current way. But this way is leading into a dead end, and the longer you run on it, and the faster you do, the more it hurts when you hit the wall at its end.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ok, I make my fair share of spelling errors in my posts, too. But shouldn't the editors... ummm edit?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Exactly.
My company has an informal motto, Adapt or Die. Every 5 years or so we change directions slightly to keep competitive. Mainframe Service -> Sun Service -> Unix Development -> Application Programming no matter what the OS is -> Who know what will be next IT Project Management, Infrastructure Support... But the point is when technology changes so do we, When we feel that the area we are specialized in is dieing or we cant be competitive in then we move to a new area based on what we are good at to a new one that we have skill set to compete in and have potential to be really good at.
The Radio Industry needs to do the same. What happened in the past 10 years or so is technology improved to a point where Music can be shared in perfect condition. In the when Copy Analog to Analog there is a drop in the quality, and every other copy will in turn be worse copy. So from Beginning to Early CD (When most people harddrives were not large enough to cary the information, and they havn't found a way to personally burn your own CD Cheaply) and Music Pirates were limited to rather big operations (At lest the size of a small company) so They could Fight them off and the Fines for Copyright infringement was just. But now technology makes it too easy to copy music, and people want to share music. The industry is holding onto the old ways of doing things... And the need for them in their fashion all may be outdated in a few years, where higher quality Audio recording technology improving and the current High Quality Stuff is dropping, and getting easier to use... So people can make their own high quality music themselves with the Radio Companies Now Musicians will actually need to make their money the old fashion ways Traveling to different locations and sing, and royalties on public/commercial performances of the song. Yes they may not be huge millionaires unless they are cream of the crop, but it is back to the people to decide what they like and dislike.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If the major-labels and entertainment conglomerates were to disappear tomorrow, radios would still be everywhere, including (especially) in the homes of the poorest. Instead of playing the latest hits from Britney Spears, broadcasters might have to find the music of local artists to play (or get their music from the Internet). There's no way that will provide enough revenue to support the incredibly top-heavy structure of the current entertainment industry. It would be better if they just started looking for real jobs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If, in '98, the recording industry had worked with pioneers such as Napster, rather than trying to close pandoras box after everything had fled, this would be a very different story. Rather than utilizing the internet for promotion and a sales channel, using the net to drive forward disk sales and band tours, they opted to try and hammer it down. Fear of the unknown, and fear of lack of control remains their sole cause for this. I'd pity them, and their eventual extinction. It is evolve or die time, for the RIAA and soon the MPAA, and neither one looks willing to accept the evolution, baby.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
It's alright, many of the /. readers today don't really know the term "Borked" and those that come up and post to say they do will have run to Wikipedia first to find out what it means.
On a side note: Many of the things that /.er's complain about the government gettting mixed up in would have been slammed hard by Robert Bork. If he were on the court today he'd be telling Bush and Congress that neither have the authority to do a lot of what they have done.
I think the use of the term "Borked" in the headline is misguided, though. The story doesn't fit the meaning. Again, another symptom of people who don't really know it, its just a fun word they heard and were looking for a reason to use it.
Kids, these days.
Now, get off my lawn!
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
It's not simple, but it's straightforward.
1. SUPPORT LOCAL MUSIC. Go to concerts/pubs/etc., buy self-produced CDs.
2. Buy from non-label-affiliated, artist-friendly Web sites, not fronted by megacorps. Google is your friend here, even if you're not buying from them.
3. When permitted by the artist or by "fair use" in your jurisdiction, share samples with friends or play a few tracks you're partial to for them. Word of mouth has been the greatest aid to supporting musicians since music was invented.
4. Write to your local radio station (in the US, undoubtedly ClearChannel, alas), as well as to their advertisers. Tell them that you support independent music, and won't be buying overpriced Big Label CDs any more. ClearChannel might not notice, but chances are much better that your local grocery chain or even some non-music-industry large advertisers *will* make adjustments if they've got a couple of thousand unique letters and emails coming in every week.
5. Listen to and support independent Internet radio stations. Their costs are going up way beyond orbital, thanks to the megacorps and the Bush-league "Copyright Royalty Board". While you're at it,
Yes, it means we, the fans (customers), have to put in some effort. We're going to have to break old buying habits, and actually pay attention. That's the price of living in a world where you're a customer, not just a consumer. Remember the famous quote by Jerry Michalski: a consumer is "a gullet whose only purpose in life is to gulp products and crap cash." We can do better than that. If we're going to move beyond being told what to listen to, what to think, by the megacorps, we HAVE to do better than that. visit http://www.savenetradio.org/ and stay informed. Fellow Americans, write (not email) your Senators and Congressperson to remind them that you care about this - and when they vote for bills like the Internet Radio Equality Act, write them thank-you notes. Congressional staff *notice* when a few hundred (or thousand) non-fill-in-the-blank letters come in on an issue... that's votes talking.
Remember, the megacorps are counting on the likelihood that you won't do anything, that you'll just continue to "crap cash" on schedule - THEIR schedule. They're counting on the "I'm too busy" or "I'm only one person" naysayers to tamp down enthusiasm, and let them carry the day.
You are personally, individually, solely responsible for the world around you. If you don't like the way things are being done, get involved. This is one relatively easy, open, effective way to start.
The music industry itself will never die.
In American i buy music online from European bands directly. my friend buys his music right from the artists.
For $500 you can set yourself up to make a few thousand cd's daily, ad in a website and an account at UPS or the post office, and mail away.
The bands that take the time to sign cd's before stuffing the cd into an envelope generally have a much more loyal following, who will pay more for music they perceive to be good.
the Music industry model is outdated. Music itself will go on. And since you can't get free internet in just about every library that's not a big deal.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The music industry and other industries used to pay well for sales people that knew the business.
Then they decided that knowledge was not valuable and they could push music through mass market without any sales assitance.
That worked for a while-- but eventually, a new crop of potential customers comes along and you have no contact with them.
It's true of many industries. They decided they only want "top level" people and don't way to pay to train people up any more.
They would use untrained labor or outsourced labor for the low level positions.
Mistake.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Oh please. I laugh out loud whenever I hear this assertion. Please list all of the musicians and bands who've made it big without the assistance of one the studios at some point in their career. Compare that to the ones who did. That's what I thought.
Even with all of the technological breakthroughs, if you really want to make it big in the music industry you still need the studios to promote the hell out of you because there so many other companies and businesses out there today actively vying for your attention and entertainment dollars.
Maybe it's just bad music in general? With wonderful hits from "Soulja Boy" and other songs like "Hey Bay bay" with such diverse lyrical content, is it a surprise that the music industry in the US at least is taking a downturn?
Heh, I feel you.
Sometimes I think, if new music and movies stopped being created today, but I could legally download all movies and video ever created prior to today, would I care that no more new content is being created?
I don't think so.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I find it strange coming from the company that originally built itself on new and interesting music. Who later killed off Yo! MTV Raps & Headbangers Ball, Barely reports any music news, turned it's main station into Reality TV Central, shuffled all it's music to MTV2 and then started cutting videos from there as well, ignores most independent artists and panders to crass commercialism & manufactured pop-music giants. Seriously... maybe they had a small role in killing music buy changing it from an artform to a cheap plastic commodity.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Which matters if the end goal of the artist is to "make it big", in the sense of a nationwide presence and the top of the charts. But a lot of the musicians I know or encounter have a different goal: "do well enough to quit the day job." Which many of them have managed, through a combination of paying gigs, CD sales online and at those gigs, and free or cheap song downloads.
You have always needed a label to be a "big star", but it's only recently that you could actually make a living on your own, and that's the goal for many or most.
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
There is still a lot of money to be made.
But they have made the "official" channels very painful in their lust for the last dime of profit.
For example, this morning during my 25 minute drive to work, one of the radio stations never had a song on. I kept switching to it because I like the style of music but never got a song. They wanted money so much that I ended up not listening to any adds for more than the 3 seconds to determine.. yup.. still no songs. If I could count on 30 seconds of ads and then another good song- I might actually stay through the ad. but once the ads start, I know it will be a few minutes so I skip on over to other radio stations.
Same thing for TV. We've gone from 8 minutes of ads to 20 minutes (some times 22 minutes) of ads per hour. And we can skip the ads by touching a button. They have to be insane to think we are watching the ads. Sell fewer ads for more money. Have shorter ad blocks so we won't leave.
The music industry has a great potential for a lot of people to make six figure salaries. But that's not good enough for them. So they keep pushing until it becomes so unpleasant that we go elsewhere.
I can easily spend an evening on YouTube or watching DVD's (Mission impossible season 2 for christmas so another 20 hours there without commercials).
If they are the most expensive entertainment possibility, they are the most likely to be cut.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
And even when younger people listen to older music, they HEAR it differently. When I listened to Black Sabbath in the 80's, I wasn't hearing Vietnam protest music (like my uncle heard it). And when a kid listens to MY stuff today, he hears it as "classic metal" (not the way I hear it).
No one likes to think of themselves as out of touch and no longer young and hip. But it eventually happens to us all. Trying to fight it only makes you look pathetic (think Warren Beatty trying to rap in "Bullworth").
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I call what you're talking about the "Radio Shack" effect.
Many years ago (probably before most of you were even born), Radio Shack used to employ salesmen who actually knew about electronics. They could read a resistor color code, they could solder; heck when you brought in something to repair (from the "REALISTIC" brand), they would actually fix it in the store. As you might expect, this type of help commanded more than minimum wage.
Some president of Tandy said "Gee, why am I paying so much for sales help. I could offer high-school kids minimum wage and save $millions this year!" which was true, but also eliminated a lot of reason people went to radio shack. So they fired the guys who could actually help you, and hired kids who could find the battery section if you helped them.
So here's where the "Radio Shack Effect" starts... You have customers coming in looking for expert help that is now gone. It takes customers a while to catch on fully, and so over the next 6-36 months, customers don't come back. You're reduced the reason for people coming into the store for parts.. But not before the CEO just added to the bottom line of year 1. Never mind that years 2->forever will have negative growth... that's the next CEO's job to worry about.
And by the way... for some unknown reason, Radio Shack could no longer sell electronics parts. Funny how that worked. So they got rid of the parts, too. I went in the other day looking for fuses; they only had a handful and suggested I go to "Home Depot". Ouch. Tell me again why people go to Radio Shack these days?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you