Slashdot Mirror
Musicians Have Many Money Options Online, Says Talking Head
Time Slows Down writes "Scottish born musician and former record label owner David Byrne says the future of music as a career is wide open and identifies six different distribution models now available to musicians in an article in this month's Wired magazine. At one end of the scale is the 360, or equity deal, where every aspect of the artist's career is handled by producers, promoters, marketing people, and managers. At the other end of the scale is the self-distribution model, where the music is self-produced, self-written, self-played, and self-marketed."
movies
seriously, the internet is seriously fucking with the music and movie industry in some really important and earth shattering ways
i for one look forward to a fracturing of culture: where before there were a few number of portals where people can find new music/ movies (a few radio stations, a few movie houses), now we will see a million online portals for all sorts of subgenres
in a way its interesting how this will also reshape culture and a sense of identity: you belong to group a, because everyone in that group shares your interests and knows the same media you consume. everyone knows seinfeld jokes, everyone knows star wars references. whereas in a more fractured world, more subcultres are created, and more borders between groups of people not knowing commonalities between each other evolves
interesting time folks. i look forward to it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Not exactly it's easier than it ever was which is a double edged sword. Now almost anyone can release an album. That severely dilutes the market. I saw this happen in independent film. Low budget horror films virtually turned into a non profit industry because everyone with a video camera started making them and Blockbuster and other vendors starting accepting crappy ones because they could pick them up cheap. I used to be a fan of the genre but I don't even bother to rent them anymore because they're all bad. It used to be that if you were going to shoot a film you needed half a mill to a mill so you had to maintain a certain quality or no one would touch it. Now large numbers are made for 10K to 50K and a 100K to 500K are considered real budgets. It's going to get harder and harder to get recognized as the market floods. Lets says there are 10X as many bands that now can get their music out there. In five years it'll be 100X and in ten years it'll be a 1000X. There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of garage bands in this country alone. How many hours a day do you have to listen to music? Yes some of the good ones will shine through but the irony is it probably just got radically harder to succeed. People may find it easier to hear your music but it's going to get harder to make a living at it and instruments and recording equipment cost money.
The Almighty Institute of Music Retail cited in the article actually exists. It's like the marketing and promotion part of a record label, but without the label.
I scanned through the article, and didn't see mention of this option:
A subscription and/or ad based supposed set of central sites where artists post their music to from $0 and up, or as I preferred with AllofMp3, per unit of bandwidth -- with multiple codec options. And then said artists play music at concerts, small performances etc... ie. play for their supper. This may reduce the number of hummers that some artists can purchase, but I think it would be worth the loss. Maybe I could actually find new music that I like again.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I agree with you wholeheartedly. However, I would add that I think the whole point of his article is that there is a massive shakeup going on in the industry, as anyone who reads Slashdot knows, and he was basically pointing out just some of the various new ways a musician has at his/her disposal to distribute their music. He broke it down into six, but I don't really think his intention was to make his six examples the only options. Those were just the biggest options right now. It's way too soon to say which models will be the "new" models in the future. But this was an excellent start and a great introspective into what exactly is going on from the business side. I personally can't wait to see what the new models end up being in the long term and I have no sympathy for the greedy machine that the music industry has so obviously become. They made their bed and now they get to sleep in it. Maybe their really IS such a thing as karma.
David Byrne's article is well thought out, but quite unimaginative. There are many other ways to produce music and make a living with it.
For instance, since 2001, Einstuerzende Neubauten has been exploring new ways to produce records and interact with their public while producing the album. Their last 3 albums were produced by a subscription (like Mozart used to do in the 19th century!). As supporters, we could attend the recording sessions via webcam, chat online with the band members, or use the forums to discuss about the directions taken by the band ; we obtained early versions of the songs, and attended private concerts. Unanimously agreed as a great experience!
They've been fairly successful so far, though they still want to polish their formula. There is a nice interview about their latest album and the issues they face in going "label-free".
from the article:
"Recording costs have declined to almost zero. Artists used to need the labels to bankroll their recordings. Most simply didn't have the $15,000 (minimum) necessary to rent a professional studio and pay an engineer and a producer. For many artists -- maybe even most -- this is no longer the case. Now an album can be made on the same laptop you use to check email."
As much as I used to like the Heads, Mr. Byrne, like most of his ilk, exists in a vacuum. (Not his fault, really)
If one defines "album" as a collection of "sound organizations" (or songs), then the above is certainly true. But he should talk to all the singers, songwriters and musicians out here that want to do "different" things - like have a real string quartet or chamber orchestra, or a really good gospel choir, or record the interplay between a great jazz drummer and an insane guitar shredder, or do an HD video release of the recording session, etc. etc.
Not to say there aren't lots of really great things that actually are produced on a laptop (I've heard some really cool stuff on MySpace, believe it or not), but there are still about as much costs involved if one really needs to take one's endeavor "to the next level" (ugh - I hate that phrase, sorry)