Why the RIAA Really Hates Downloads

wtansill recommends the saga of Jeff Price, who traveled from successful small record label owner to successful Internet-era music distributor. His piece describes clearly what the major record labels used to be good for and why they are now good for nothing but getting in the way. "Allowing all music creators 'in' is both exciting and frightening. Some argue that we need subjective gatekeepers as filters. No matter which way you feel about it, there are a few indisputable facts -- control has been taken away from the 'four major labels' and the traditional media outlets. We, the 'masses,' now have access to create, distribute, discover, promote, share and listen to any music. Hopefully access to all of this new music will inspire us, make us think and open doors and minds to new experiences we choose, not what a corporation or media outlet decides we should want."

Comments

RIAA doesn't hate downloads!

[FeldOfBuzztown]

Where do you get this misinformation? Rich Internet Applications Anonymous loves downloads. Can't get enough of them. http://riaa.buzztown.org/

D'uh from these quarters too.

[The Ancients]

I wrote a (very) short piece on this a while ago, in response to an article on El' Reg.

Again, looking at the list of 'discoveries' there, and at the reasons given here, it's hard to believe that the industry hasn't already fallen over in a big screaming heap. The only thing propping it up thus far are multi-album recording contracts, and their McDonald's inspired ability to foist very average fair on to the average user.

In the last couple of years with GarageBand etc providing the ability for anyone to make reasonable music at home, the iTunes Music Store and it's ilk providing the ability for almost anyone to publish their work, and social networking sites providing the marketing (often viral), it's time these commercial dinosaurs went the way of their reptilian cousins did millions of years ago.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[thegrassyknowl]

From the tomes of Slashdot's quote at the bottom of the article on this one:

Your wise men don't know how it feels To be thick as a brick. -- Jethro Tull, "Thick As A Brick"

I thought it was quite accurate.

The recording industry are just a bunch of puffed out suits beating their own chests in response to the threat of something surpassing them. They'll get bored eventually.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[Niten]

it's time these commercial dinosaurs went the way of their reptilian cousins did millions of years ago.

I think you're missing the subtle distinction between "evolve and grow feathers" and "get tarred and feathered".

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[QuantumFTL]

The only thing propping it up thus far are multi-album recording contracts.

A friend of mine moved to LA and recently got his band signed to a record label. He contends that the major factor propping them up at the moment is ringtones, of all things.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[baboo_jackal]

The only thing propping it up thus far are multi-album recording contracts, and their McDonald's inspired ability to foist very average fair on to the average user. ... In the last couple of years with GarageBand etc providing the ability for anyone to make reasonable music at home
Sweet. I can't wait until my car radio has 10,000 stations and I have to wade through them all to try to find something that doesn't suck.

You know, I think that the increase of accessibility of both creators and consumers of music is a Good Thing. That the internet is providing the medium for this free exchange is also a Good Thing. I also think that the efforts of the "dinosaurs" to prevent everyone from figuring out the baseline reality of the music industry in it's current state (i.e., completely free exchange) is Pretty Stupid.

But... Dammit. Let's not get too overzealous in our condemnation of the value the Music Industry provides. They historically provided, out of economic necessity, whatever music was (subjectively) "the best."

In order to do that, they had to try to figure out what artists would appeal to the largest number of people in order to maximize their profits. It wasn't an Evil Conspiracy to prevent your buddy's shitty band from "making it big."

Imagine a world without Evil Corporations providing that service - listening to the radio in your car suddenly becomes like a Google search for not-crap, every time you try to use it. You can say all the mean things about people who actually *enjoy* top-40 radio you want, but that doesn't change the simple fact that more people would rather listen to Britney Spears than ObscureCollegeBand.

Now, while I may or may not prefer Britney Spears to ToePhunkGrooveMaster 3000, I definitely do *not* have the time or inclination to wade through the previous 2,999 iterations of their crap to find something I like. I want someone else to do that for me.

I mean, I compose music, myself. I know what I like. I have an extremely eclectic taste in music, and I appreciate the ability to pursue that taste. But sometimes I just like being able to turn on the radio without having to hope that Zach Braff will swoop down from the heavens and "change my life" by making me listen to The Shins. Sometimes, Britney will do. And so I think there's a place for those Subjective Gatekeepers in the world. (just as soon as they can give up the financial reins, and figure out what value it is they *actually* provide).

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[nihongomanabu]

You're right in that a service was provided by these gatekeepers, but now that archaic corporate model needs to change. There will still be gatekeepers, but the new gatekeepers will be bloggers and other online communities that promote music they've heard and appreciate. People who then in turn like the music being promoted from one source, or "gatekeeper" will come back to them for further recommendations.

Some of my favorite bands have never been on the radio. I've heard about them through friends or through reading online. This new promotion style will more closely mirror this "organic" model of promotion.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[Jarik_Tentsu]

There will still be gatekeepers, but the new gatekeepers will be bloggers and other online communities that promote music they've heard and appreciate. I think a good example is the trance DJ, Armin Van Buuren. He mixes the weekly 2-hour trance mixes called "A State of Trance" which has tens of thousands, more likely even hundreds of thousands of downloads.

It's played on proper radio stations, but is also available free online from many, many places at around 192kbps. He becomes the 'gatekeeper' almost - putting together good selections of recent music that the audience can be exposed to - some of it is obscure, some of it are big trance releases, but in either case, it's one source where the public can filter through all the crap and freely be given a good choice of music.

Could this be a potentially good model for other things as well? Podcasts and radio shows becoming the next big thing - played both on real radio and available online? A State of Trance is a model that really, really works well - I wonder if things like this can be expanded to other genres...though, obviously certain genres and types of music - like post-rock concept albums, or really unique Progressive Metal bands, might suffer from the inability to be juxtaposed with other music.

~Jarik

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[CRCulver]

If the subjective gatekeepers haven't led you to Youssou N'Dour, you just haven't been paying attention. He's the only West Africa musician highly promoted in the West, he's gone gimmicky crossover efforts with a number of Western musicians, and he's been signed to Western major labels.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, don't know about the US but song ringtones are huge in the UK mostly due to teenage girls who feel the need to have shitty R&B playing at all times. (Including on public transport, yay.) A few years ago some tune (by Girls Aloud or the Sugababes?) had the dubious honour of being the first to sell more copies as a ringtone than a single, and this trend has continued.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[Ollabelle]

No, I believe the new Gatekeepers will be the ISP's who will throttle and promote various websites in an internet version of Payola. Net Neutrality will be neutral in name only.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[plover]

The problem is not "will I be able to find a good gatekeeper whose musical tastes I agree with", but one specific to FM radio and publicly broadcast music. There are simply a limited and finite number of frequencies available, and these reach many more people daily than the average Shoutcast stream. Highly specialized tastes in music target a tiny audience, but radio is broadcast to hundreds of thousands of diverse listeners, and has to appeal to a broader audience.

The radio audience is definitely different -- in many ways, they're more "captive." They're on their way to work in their cars, or agreeing on a shared radio station at the dentist's office, or playing a radio at an impromptu picnic. Frequently they're mobile, which for most citizens still means "no internet", or at least not enough with the bandwidth to play music.

In a car, that doesn't matter as much. iPods and podcasts can give that measure of control to people who think that choice of music is important. But most people don't care about their music enough to mess around with podcasts -- the "pop" or "country" station is good enough to meet their need for an auditory background during their commute. And for many people, the DJ with the morning news becomes a personal friend. Again, podcasts lack that touch unless you're extremely diligent with syncing your iPod every morning moments before heading out the door. (That's still way too much effort for the average listener.)

iPods also fail miserably in the case of crowds joined for reasons other than music appreciation. I promise you that there isn't enough music on my nephew's iPod that I could sit through for 30 seconds. (Actually, that's true for all the music choices of my nephews and nieces, and most of my siblings-in-law.) I'd likely sabotage the damn thing before the end of the first George Strait song. Similarly, my collection of electronica and trance would be nothing but noise to him. A "classic rock" station may be bland enough as to not offend either of us, but neither of us may have any classic rock on our iPods. So where do you find a classic rock station at the beach, or on a picnic, or in a car? The answer today is still broadcast radio.

Perhaps in this new world the role of gatekeeper doesn't have to be a hand-picked RIAA payola jockey, but there are only a handful of frequencies to fill, and the public still wants "generic bland" music readily available. How are those few gatekeepers/DJs selected? Who identifies the DJs for the mass markets?

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[samjam]

Maybe thats why the *AA are scared.

People aren't paying attention and still finding what they want.

Sam

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[R2.0]

"The recording industry are just a bunch of puffed out suits beating their own chests in response to the threat of something surpassing them. They'll get bored eventually."

No, they won't. Their livelihood is threatened, and no one gets "bored" in the face of rapid loss of income. It's definitely going to get worse before it gets better.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[R2.0]

"There will still be gatekeepers, but the new gatekeepers will be bloggers and other online communities that promote music they've heard and appreciate."

Oh, well, that's a relief - for a minute there I thought the gatekeepers were going to be self important blowhards with little taste and no style.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[sm62704]

They historically provided, out of economic necessity, whatever music was (subjectively) "the best."

You're wrong.

When I was a teenager I walked into a record store and the most amazing music was playing. Song after song. I asked the sales clerk who it was. "A new band, Led Zeppelin". I bought the album right then and there.

The critics panned them and they never got any airplay; at least until non-critics and non-radio people found them.

My crazy friend Tom Egbert called me up one day after school. "Man, you GOT to hear this album! It ROCKS!" He was right: the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced kicked ass! He never got any airplay, either.

The Yardbirds never got airplay. We all found out about them from the local bands covering their songs. Meanwhile when you turned on the radio you got what they called "bubblegum pop". Yummie yummie yummie I got love in my tummy" - pure dreck, not unlike what you hear on the radio today, very similar to the kind of absolute crap put out by the likes of Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys.

My oldest daughter is mentally handicapped. She likes the rap they play on the radio. My youngest (just turned 21) otoh is "gifted". She listened to punk and ska - and you didn't hear either of those genres on the radio (and never have outside the college stations).

In short, the major labels and the radio stations they bribe with their cocaine payola never had a fucking clue what young people want, and still don't.

to the radio in your car suddenly becomes like a Google search for not-crap, every time you try to use it.

It's like that now, and always has been. Thank God and technology for CD changers.

Sometimes, Britney will do.

No, Britney will NOT do. Britney is a talentless bimbo. John Lee Hooker will do (he never got airplay either). Led Zeppelin will do. Tchaikovsky will do. Merl Haggard will do. Bob Marley will do. The Pietasters will do. The Dead Kennedys will do.

Britney spears will NOT do. The Backstreet Boys will NOT do.

You would have loved The Archies. Sorry dude but you have no musical taste whatever.

Re:D'uh from these quarters too.

[monxrtr]

Yes, we are the cusp of Disc Jockey Super Competition. DJs used to be the Gatekeepers. But that role faded fast when Clear Channel owns the bulk of Top 40 radio stations across the USA, and the same set lists play on repeat 90% of the time for 90% of the big market big stations.

You go out to a dance club, and hear music you have no idea who the artists are. That will change. And there will be new money and new fame for new talent, for new different artists and new different gatekeepers.

Those pushing Payola music will have their clocks cleaned by those pushing new raw talent not inhibited by restrictive play lists. Sure, some Payola music is good, but some of it is just old model artificial scarcity pushing of tired formulaic drivel.

I never understood why information in the music industry is so far in the dark ages. It's not at all easy to even know the name of the artists and songs which are playing on the radio. How many times have you heard a good song and it takes listener effort to discover who the artist is? You see tons of internet threads asking for help finding the artist/song with "...lyrics...".

once upon a time

[circletimessquare]

a few spaniards got on some boats, and with some fancy new technology, subdued entire noble ancient civilizations in central and south america

technological progress was not fair to the aztec and incan nobility. you wonder what they thought when they looked upon the gun, the horse, the metal armor, the smallpox. well, if you work for the riaa or a major label, you know more of what it is like to be on the losing side of technological progress like perhaps no other class of people in the western hemisphere right now

so here's to you, music label suit

heres to your vanishing jobs, to the jobs of blacksmiths, to the jobs of chimney sweeps, to the jobs of telegraph operators, to the jobs of steam ship engineer

to the dustbin of history with all of it

please no banging on your coffin while we nail it shut. thanks

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[Threni]

> If this were NOT what it has all been about, then I would be interested to hear any other intelligent suggestions.

Uh.. perhaps it's about them losing money from people downloading music for free instead of paying for it? The record companies only deal in music which'll make them money. There are many more unsigned bands/acts which sell their own music at shows or play for free. If the mindset in the article were to be believed, the large companies would be blindly signing literally everybody who made music so it could control them. This isn't true - it's hard work to get signed, and then a fair amount of pressure is put upon you to produce airplay friendly tunes etc.

Dear RIAA,

[Ethan Allison]

We win. You lose. Hugs and kisses, Everyone

Reminds me...

[_Hellfire_]

"...not what a corporation or media outlet decides we should want."

I never thought one could get pithy one-liners from a video game, but I think the GTA writers had the nail hit on the head with one of the radio station's advertisements (I think it was from Liberty City):

"We tell you what's good! Then play it 'till you like it!"

I think that sums up the Label's business methods quite succinctly.

Re:there not out yet...

[LaskoVortex]

once there is a system set up that lets users filter content that is as effective as the lables, then they will be really screwed.

One already exists in the format of a moderation system. Take a look at slashdot for a reasonable approximation of how such a system might work. Applying it to music should be no big leap.

You know...

[CSMatt]

I originally thought that the whole reason the RIAA hated P2P was not because of money but because of a lack of control. Namely, the lack of an ability to measure success and popularity. Because the systems are inherently decentralized, they could no longer figure out what the latest "trends" were in music and so they no longer had any way to know what artists to sign and what music was profitable.

But then I found out about Big Champagne, and that much more reasonable rationale for their fight against the Internet went right out the window.

It wasn't the cannons man!

[Cordath]

The Spanish conquest of the Americas is often overly dramatized. In all instances I am aware of, it was *not* Spanish technology that carried the day.

Takes the Aztec's for example. Many story tellers will spin a glorious yarn about the siege of Tenochtitlan. Most of those will be glad to talk about how Moctezuma revered Cortés as a god. Most will also completely gloss over the fact that the Spaniards were only a small percentage of the force that laid siege to Tenochtitlan. The Aztec's were not very popular amongst their neighbors, so when Cortés marched on Tenochtitlan the Aztec's enemies came in droves to capitalize on a change to take them down. The Inca's were smack in the middle of a civil war over succession when the Spaniards arrived on the scene, and by pure luck, managed to kidnap the heir apparent. (They held him hostage for gold and then executed him.) Their timing was fortuitous, to say the least. However, the capture of Cuzco was the real fall of Peru, and by that time the Spanish had again picked up indigenous allies to fight for them.

Finally, there is the Mayans. If you watched Apocalypto then you probably got the impression that the Maya were living in big cities and making a mess of things when the Spaniards showed up and conqured/saved them. Nope. They had abandoned their cities centuries before. Even with their civilization an echo of its former glory, the Maya put up more resistance against the Europeans than, perhaps, any other indigenous people in the america's. Unlike the Aztec's and Incas, there was no single Mayan center which could be attacked and neutralized. The Maya were spread out in some of the densest, nastiest, most brutal jungle on Earth. The Spaniards would capture one town and move on to the next only to find that they had to recapture the previous town all over again the next time they went past it. It took centuries to subdue just a *portion* of the Mayan population.

Now, it would seem that we're way off topic, but we can draw some pretty interesting parallels actually. RIAA is a centralized body, much like the Inca or Aztecs. All it would take is for one major record label to withdraw their support to RIAA and that would be their end. Likewise, a change to copyright law could doom all the labels overnight. Music pirates, on the other hand, are by their very nature decentralized. You can squash as many individuals with lawsuits as you want, but the P2P network lives on. Finding those individuals and gathering enough evidence to bring a lawsuit that has a chance of winning if they don't cave and settle is also not an easy task. They are like the Maya. Hard to find, difficult to suppress, and resilient. If RIAA and the labels somehow managed to keep going as they are now, it would take centuries to bring piracy to and end at best.

Anyways, I'm at the point where I just want easy access to good music. If the labels brought back Oink in all it's glory at $30/month I'd be their first customer. If they insist that I have to spend $10 an album for lossy DRM'd tracks on iTunes or $15 for a CD, neither of which net the artist more than $0.15, then no deal.

The way I see it, there is an answer to music distribution. Say that somebody created a private torrent tracker site where the members paid a monthly access fee. Artists could seed their music on this torrent site and be paid a percentage of the gross according to how much their stuff is downloaded. No middlemen. No record companies. Just the artists and the torrent site. Potentially, artists could make a lot more money than they are now. However, there are problems. Perhaps the stickiest is that little issue of critical mass. If a handful of independents got together and did this, they'd fail miserably. Such a site would need a *massive* catalog to get off the ground. It would have to include a very large number of artists from day 1. Still, it is a beautiful dream.

Re:It wasn't the cannons man!

[S3D]

The Spanish conquest of the Americas is often overly dramatized. In all instances I am aware of, it was *not* Spanish technology that carried the day.

Arn't you forgetting something ? How Spaniards got into Americas in the first place ? Anyway I'd heartily recommend "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond to understand the situation better.

Re:It wasn't the cannons man!

[aproposofwhat]

I've read 'Guns, Germs and Steel', and found it interesting and insightful.

GP, however, gives a perspective on the campaign that wasn't addressed by Diamond - I'd hesitate to dismiss his post out of hand.

Yes, there were benefits from the posession of technology by the Spanish, but the indigenous people weren't rolled over quite as easily as popular history reports - indeed, there are still indigenous peoples in South America that are still resisting 'civilisation'.

Re:It wasn't the cannons man!

[Mantaar]

The way I see it, there is an answer to music distribution. Say that somebody created a private torrent tracker site where the members paid a monthly access fee. Artists could seed their music on this torrent site and be paid a percentage of the gross according to how much their stuff is downloaded. No middlemen. No record companies. Just the artists and the torrent site. Potentially, artists could make a lot more money than they are now. However, there are problems. Perhaps the stickiest is that little issue of critical mass. If a handful of independents got together and did this, they'd fail miserably. Such a site would need a *massive* catalog to get off the ground. It would have to include a very large number of artists from day 1. Still, it is a beautiful dream.

First of all, let me tell you that I agree with you in almost all points regarding the recording industries and found your explanations about the indigenous people of America really interesting - however, there's a slight problem in your last paragraph, I highlighted it.

It's not that easy. I'm an artist myself - I'd love to create content just like that, seed it on The Pirate Bay, announce it on last.fm and thus get people to listen to my music (since I'm major in a CS-related subject, I don't even care that much about the money - I'll have job some day... hopefully). But boy is it hard.

When you have a deal with record company it's not just the money you - as an artist - get out of them. Friends of mine have a really successful band - one of their singles peeked the German charts at 4 - and I'm really jealous... not about the publicity they're getting, but about their possibilities. See, to make a record it's not like the only thing you need is a guitar. You need a place to rehearse with your band. You need a good studio to record what you have rehearsed over the past weeks/months/years. The studio's not empty: you need a professional sound engineer, you need someone to master you records, mix everything... You also need a producer - or at least, it's better if you have one. Let's make a comparison: when you write a novel, the publishing house - before publishing - hire an editor to proof read what you've written. Because you missed out on some stuff, for sure. It's just goddamn impossible to be perfect (sic!). You need someone objective, and who's closer to the audience. That's what the producer is good for. He'll have totally new ideas, he'll have suggestions and most of all: he's likely to have a lot more experience than you have. You'll need that.
My friends have all that, because they have a record deal. I don't have that, so I have to stick with my NI external sound card, my laptop, my (bass) guitar, microphones, and the hydrogen drum computer. I've not recorded anything in months, because it takes at least a day to prepare all this, nevermind making a good recording. And then mixing it! Don't tell me you can do that by yourself in Audacity or Ardour. You can't. Mixing a record is a hard job and it really takes quite some experience to do it properly.

Now, I see record labels as some sort of governments: you (the artist/the people) pay them (your share of your copyrights/taxes) and you're getting the infrastructure in return (studios, sound engineers, whatnot/streets, police, judicial system). You're also getting PR out of the record labels. So they are useful to the artists, even in their current form. Not every band can have a genius among them, or several ones, to assume the different roles of the guys the label will provide you with. And who the fuck wants all musicians to be singer-songwriters, because that's the only music that's easy to just do all by yourself?? We'd have a whole cult of Jack Johnsons! What a nightmare...

Now, I'm not telling you "respect the record companies, they help the artists". Not at all. They're bitches, most of them. They are capitalists, most of them. And thus we artists hate them, for being capitalists and c

Please stop & think a moment

[pandrijeczko]

I am in no way defending the RIAA or the major record companies but, looking at this purely from the perspective of a music enthusiast, I personally have no problem with the way things currently are with music distribution. I have more than enough good music to listen to and to go buy in the future, so please take this post as an observation rather than any gripes I might have with the music industry.

Firstly, I'm pretty happy with the price of CDs. Because I research my music well and, yes, I do use BitTorrent and Usenet to preview any albums I intend to buy that I cannot hear otherwise, I always buy a CD that I know will be good before I buy it. And then I source it online as cheaply as possible, usually below £10. That means I'm never disappointed by any CD and, before anyone accuses me of doing anything wrong, I own over 1200 of them.

Secondly, I do listen to some modern music but generally I listen to (mainly British) hard rock, rock, psychedelia and blues from the late sixties to the present day. Currently, a lot of this stuff is enjoying a resurgence - not only are existing popular albums being expanded & remastered (for example the back catalogues of Jethro Tull, Yes, Black Sabbath, etc.) but also a lot of very obscure albums from the late sixties and early seventies are being released onto CD for the first time. Currently, I am totally spoilt for choice as to what to buy next and I think the record companies a doing a pretty good job with this.

Thirdly, I'm sure there are a lot of good independent artists out there but, in my mind, whether the big four record companies are there or not won't change a thing for them. Okay, so the record companies are too narrow-minded and money-orientated to give these artists recording contracts but either way, they are still faced with the problem of self-promotion and getting people to their web sites to buy their music. And in my own view, I'm more than happy to listen to some of these artists and buy a CD of theirs - but there's no way, I'm afraid, that I am going to pay for downloadable music. The fact is, I like my music in the best quality I can afford on a reasonable hifi and compressed downnloads don't do it for me.

Fourthly, the younger generation may have a hankering for downloadable music but please do not confuse this with them having a discerning music taste. The fact is that they are the "now" generation with short attention spans and a complete lack of interest in putting any effort into anything. The fact that the charts are filled with plastic manufactured music shows that the majority will buy anything that is put in front of them purely because it is deemed fashionable and is easy to obtain. Anyone who believes these same people will go searching the the Internet for new independent artists rather than just going to iTunes for the latest fad music has no understanding of the way marketing and hype works on the minds of the younger generation.

Yes, the major record labels are killing their own industry because they're not interested in anything new but the latest Leona Lewis clone. Personally, I don't care, there's a huge back catalogue of older stuff to go out and listen to which I suggest the "discerning youth" should also go and explore a little rather than whining about modern music.

But downloadable music is also contributing to that death because it's turning music into a disposable commodity - don't like it any more? Then just wipe your iPod's hard drive and start again...

I Am The RIAA's Worst Enemy

[MichaelCrawford]

They're not afraid so much of losing CD sales to downloaders - they're afraid of being cut out of the business entirely.

I'm working on changing careers into music. But I'm not trying to get signed with a label; I've got my own damn label, thank you. I've got a business license, resale license, fictitious business name statement, checking account and everything for Ogg Frog.

For a few hundred dollars - a grand tops - a solo artist can purchase digital recording gear that puts the best of what the Beatles had back in the 60's to shame.

Any Slashdotter here who wants a free CD of my album - autographed! - just email your postal address to support@oggfrog.com My first batch goes out in the mail Thursday.

I've given away almost two thousand so far. my manifesto explains why I'm doing this.

You could really help me out if you shared my music over the Internet.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[infonography]

They are farmers, and the musicians are livestock.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[aproposofwhat]

What it has all been about, is the exploitation of 'popular artists' by a bunch of scheissters who add no value apart from promotion.

There's no controlling of tastes, merely a promotion of fashion.

Now that there exists a means of subverting the business model of said scheissters, they are upset, and will tickle the tummies of their tame congresscritters with green until the law prevents the distribution of independent music.

It's the Jaffia, stupid!

The Korean Answer for Legal P2P

[Anonymous Coward]

Soribada. A P2P network you pay a few bucks a month for membership. Korea. Files authorized to be distributed by the program are tagged with a special code in the file and only files tagged as such will be recognized by the program. Except that, MP3s flow like water and most artists in Korea have signed on so the catalog is chock full of almost every major Korean artist... Most of it lossy (but high-quality) MP3 but some are FLAC and APE files...

Broadcasters are not publishers

[Saint Fnordius]

In fact, there has always been a sort of uneasy truce between those two groups. In the beginning of the relationship, the music publishers cried bloody murder about radio stations playing their songs for free, since there was no legal requirement then to cover a case like that. Then, once a royalty system was finally in place, some studios realised that "air time" had a positive effect on sales, and payola was born. Today, there exists an equilibrium due to cartels on the publishing side and on the broadcasting side, and companies like Clear Channel ruling over a publisher-friendly airwave monopoly.

That's why I prefer internet "radio" when at home, listening to streams that friends make for friends. I don't want a gatekeeper to keep me from being flooded, I prefer a guide to help me to navigate on my own. Making it all about gatekeepers twists the argument, hides the fact that the self-appointed gatekeepers want to control all traffic, and aspire to be not merely bouncers but also jailers.

But hey, if you want to defend your employers, go right ahead. Just don't denigrate the fact that I prefer to listen outside of the prison they have prepared for me.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[polar red]

the large companies would be blindly signing literally everybody who made music so it could control them. I think a major factor for the music industry is also the control the music played on radio stations. There are few independent bands in the charts because the industry keeps them out of the air waves --> No Competition --> high CD prices ! http://thekeyinfluencer.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/truth-about-the-music-industry/

Re:Don't worry about it.

[aproposofwhat]

I'm 43, you insensitive clod.

Get off my lawn!

Music is for everyone - it's just that they don't make decent music anymore ;o)

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[PFI_Optix]

The control of media means more money for the record company.

When I ran the music department of an independent store, I learned first-hand just how much control they exercise over the music industry. I knew six months in advance what songs were going to make the charts, because those songs were the ones the labels pushed off on radio stations. The line from the salesman would sound something like this:

"This is the next album from Blonde Dance Clone #4. Tracks 5 and 8 are going to be all over the radio before it comes out, and 5 will probably be in the top 10. We plan to have five million copies distributed for release. We've got endcaps, freestanding displays, placards, hanging signs, and posters. Later we'll have a pile of promotional goodies."

What downloads do to that industry even with no impact on sales is they make demand less predictable, which means their margins are reduced. That's what scared them from the start...the loss of their ability to dictate our tastes in music and control the top 40 charts. Napster especially meant that they could no longer shove their choice of music down our throats via radio because radio was no longer a primary source of new music for millions of users.

A record label that sells hundreds of millions of albums a year doesn't care about someone who might move 10,000 or even 50,000. It's not even that an artist wouldn't make money that they don't sign them...it's that the artist wouldn't make *enough*

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[johndmann]

Uh.. perhaps it's about them losing money from people downloading music for free instead of paying for it? I don't believe this for a second. There have been several studies done which will inform you that the people who are downloading music that they have not purchased, would never have bought the music to begin with. People who are willing to pay for their music do so, the rest pirate it. Several of my friends even choose to download pirated copies of their favorite bands before they are released, but purchase an actual copy of it when it comes up for sale, because they support those bands. Thus, the people selling the music are losing very little, if anything, from those who pirate.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[NickFortune]

If the mindset in the article were to be believed, the large companies would be blindly signing literally everybody who made music so it could control them.

If course, that's only true if signing a band or musician has zero overhead. If there's a cost to the label for each signing, then they have finite capacity, and will want to pick and choose.

There's also scarcity economics at work at this level as well. If every high school wannabe rock band had a contract with EMI or Sony BMG, then the perceived value of that contract would plummet. Similarly, if every museo you met had a contract, and was nevertheless practically penniless, then no one at all would sign up, since they'd be taking on obligations with no expectation of recompense.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[PopeRatzo]

Blonde Dance Clone #4 is my favorite band. I didn't know they were on a major label, but then again, I download all my music from torrents.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What???? (on Piracy)

[n.nyl]

It does seem that most people downloading music are true fans of the artists. The RIAA seems to have a closed mind when it comes to P2P file sharing. It does not see the need/desire for quick access to music and even faster promotion through online means.

The RIAA doesn't have to pay one cent for these virtual "employees," i.e., average Americans acting as independent online marketing teams on behalf of various artists, yet it reaps a number of benefits that they might not want to realize. Although, it has come around a bit with the popular iTunes model and other similar companies.

Perhaps the upcoming younger execs of these music corporations will have a better sense of how to "join" P2P technology and not "beat" it.

Re:Don't worry about it.

[bhima]

Oh, 'They' are still making great music... mountains of it in fact.

What is happening is that only formulaic music is marketed.

Current Radio Gatekeepers are Whores

[AioKits]

I'm going to try and not give off a tone of 'holier than thou' with this, but I have not listened, truly listened, to radio in about a decade. When things started becoming Clear Channel I noticed another change becoming more pronounced: More advertising. Sometimes it felt like ten minutes of music with 20 minutes of adverts. Since where I lived the only stations that didn't sound like you were trying to reach Alpha Squad with a WW2 radio were Clear Channel owned, it ment they pretty much had your ears by the balls. What ten minutes of music I was allowed to hear was the newest 'hot new song from X!' that was played at least once an hour. I just stopped listening to radio then. The gatekeepers which I had pretty much trusted since childhood to introduce me to new music failed.

Around that time I started discovering Napster and 'other' means by which to find new music. A friend goes "Hey man! Check out X by this band, their lead guitar kicks ass!" or "Pick up a song or two by Y, they have a female lead and her voice will make you cream your pants!" and I will most likely try it on their recommendation... My friends are the new gatekeepers and I am probably one of theirs. Now I listen to a lot of bands I probably would have never found it if weren't for listening to friends or just trying something new I see off of a Napsteresque style program. Whenever possible, I try to buy the CD from the band themselves, and if I really like them, buy t-shirts and the like. (I am not sure who they are with now, but I still love Nightwish.)

Does anyone know of any good metal band with a female lead vocal? Just askin...

Re:Don't worry about it.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Music is mostly for adolescents. Eventually you'll grow out of it, like the rest of us over-30s. Y'all go ahead and mark him troll. Me, I'll just pity the poor sod.

The Recording Label's Four Services

[Jason Levine]

The Recording Labels used to provide four services to the artists and public:

1. Production. They would hook up artists with the equipment to produce professional sounding albums. A few decades back, this equipment was pricey so the artists could only dream about having access to it outside of a recording contract. Nowadays, though, you can buy equivalents to most of the equipment off the shelf for around $1,000 or so. You might not get a "100% professional" sound, but you'll get an album that sounds professional enough for 90% of the listening public. So a recording label isn't really needed for this anymore.

2. Distribution. If you wanted your album to get on the radio and in the stores, you needed contacts. This meant that you needed the recording label to contact the right people for you and set up the distribution channels. With digital distribution, though, any artist can upload their own music to their own website and instantly be their own distributer. If they want to parter with someone else, they can use a service like eMusic, iTunes, or Amie Street to distribute their music. They give up some of their revenue to do this, but not nearly as much as the recording label would take. A contract with a major label is no longer needed for this.

3. Filtering. Also could be called Separating the Diamonds from the Coals. Traditionally, the labels would promote the good music and filter out all of the bad stuff. With the Internet, the "bad stuff" problem grows exponentially since anyone can put their awful attempts at making music online. However, services like Amie Street are already coming up with ways of letting users themselves act as filters. (Amie Street's model increases the price the more people buy the song, to a maximum of 98 cents. So a bad song won't rise in price much, but a good song will rise in price quickly.) There's also an argument to be made that the traditional labels have failed in this service recently by releasing so many bad albums and so many bad artists.

4. Promotion. The labels would market new artists to get their names out and encourage people to buy their albums and attend their concerts. While Internet marketing and word of mouth might be nice, this is the only area that I can see a future for the labels. I think that they will eventually change into glorified marketing firms. Of course, their reduced roles will mean that a lot of fat will be trimmed from their organizations. It will also mean that they will have to accept less control over artists. I predict that, eventually, they won't seize the copyrights of the artist. Instead, they will enter into deals with artists to get a cut of album sales. (A much smaller cut than they currently get.) Artists will also be free to leave labels at any time if they are unsatisfied with their performance without worrying that all of their old music is "tied up" in the old label. I think that our grandchildren will grow up with music promoted by record labels, but will look at us oddly when we describe the power that record labels exerted over artists when we were their age.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[ouder]

I have long maintained that the label's real concern is loss of control, not the money that is lost. The major labels have managed to snuff out the minor labels and effectively control the industry. Once they got control they have perpetuated formula bands and contracts that favor the label over the artist (it has always been that way, but the current contracts pretty much reduce the "artist" to a minor contract employee). The Internet is a huge threat because it is hard to control. The labels did manage to get rid of a lot of the small music streaming sites, leaving them with a smaller number of larger players. But P2P and torrents are largely uncontrollable and represent the major threat.

Re:Don't worry about it.

[SkyDude]

I'm 55 and still listen to the music I liked 20, 30 and more years ago, and I'm not the only one. While many of the artists that produced that music are retired, dead or just not interested in being in the business, I'd still be BUYING similar music if someone would make it, produce it and make it available for download so I could put it on my MP3 player, in my car or office player - just like I used to do with my vinyl before the digital age.

I've said it before on here and it's worth repeating - the music and movie industries are leaving a whole lot of money on the table by not marketing to the over 40 audience. We bought the hot stereos, put them in our dorm rooms, later in our cars and apartments. We didn't stop loving the music - it stopped loving us, or more correctly, the industry ignored us. We've got the dough, we own iPods and all kinds of digital stuff. Now we need legal, quality content. The business may never be like the old days, and that's probably a good thing, but there is a business if some smart 20-something wants to be the next digital millionaire. The music and movie industries will be in their final death twitch asking "what the hell happened?" and we'll be saying "you didn't sell to your long time loyal customers, you jerks". Hell, even my parents' generation got more attention from the music industry than us boomers do. All the Sinatra, Bennett and Welk albums in my collection came from them.

So, if you're going to hang out on my lawn, I'll provide the suds and dig out the old Harmon Kardon stereo but you bring some good vinyl and we'll have a hell of a party.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[sm62704]

the large companies would be blindly signing literally everybody who made music so it could control them

Intelligent musicians are now turning the labels and their thieving contracts down. I believe this may explain the dearth of much listenable RIAA music this century; the bands with talent realise they have no need of the majors. I know at least one local guy who told two major labels to go fuck themselves, and I'm sure for every Joe Frew there's a thousand more non-idiots out there.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[WingedEarth]

The New World Order is more interested in control than in money. Money is just one means of control they use. This is why, for example, they hate Google Book Search. Google Book Search is very lucrative to Random House (Bertelsmann), but it threatens big publishing's control over what information gets disseminated by the public. Giving people better tools to find older, published material has the danger of people breaking from from the NWO's brainwashing.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[The End Of Days]

It just seems like there's a serious assumption at the core of this, and a rather elitist (and therefore suspicious) one at that. In order to accept the premise that the RIAA "controls" music I'd have to accept that people don't decide for themselves what they like. I reject that as grousing by disenfranchised nerds who habitually reject anything anyone else likes as "not obscure enough."

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[rocketPack]

This also keeps alive the myth that independent music is of poor quality, and only appealing to a small group of people. The truth is that a lot of people aren't aware of the struggle that most bands went through to get on the "local" corporate stations, and that they were at one point, most likely, an independent artist trying desperately to get noticed!

Anecdotal example: Death Cab for Cutie. Most people are shocked to learn that they have more than one album when I ask them which one they favour. Most people are MORE shocked to learn that the band has been around longer than their children have been alive...

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Humans are primates, and are social animals that form groups. Primate groups are united by "group calls" (somewhat like wolf packs). Whatever music you hear over and over again is subconsciously recognised as your group call, and you instinctively want to hear it more. What the record industry does is saturates your aural space with particular tunes, which your monkey brain then picks up as "your" group call. You could "choose" which group you belong to by picking particular radio stations, within strict limits. Nowadays, that's been shattered by the internet (thank fuck), but it's a genie they _really_ want to put back in the bottle.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[moxley]

Great post that I think illustrates a greater point -

" That's what scared them from the start...the loss of their ability to dictate our tastes in music and control the top 40 charts."

This is not only true for the music industry - it is even MORE true for journalism in general - because, right now I think anyone who in an even halfway savvy media consumer, (or really anyone who doesn't have blinders on) can see that the mainstream media is operating almost EXACTLY in the same way...

Blogging and other indie media have allowed the masses to get and produce news that is REAL news and that is relevant to them, not that "infotainment" Paris Hilton bullshit.

The government and MSM (via their symbiotic partnership) both do not like this - they lose ability to control the agenda, to list the plausible opinions which the sheep can debate at the water cooler - as I have heard said often back in school "the media doesn't tell you what to think, the tell you what to think about, they set the agenda" - Well, I would go further, I would say that now, for most Americans who are brain dead television receivers - they set the agenda as well as providing a "multiple choice" format what what the possible opinions of the public can be - then reinforce this with bullshit polls.

If you take it to the core of what I am saying - it is information in general, and the ability for the masses to access it readily, unflitered, and to share and create it in the same manner without it being sanctioned, filtered, and controlled by authorities (be they govt or corp) that the powers that be are goign to try to destroy.

When you look at the corporations and governments we have on earth right now, how long do you think we have before they find a way to subvert the freedom of the net? I have already seen the fear campaign is in full force from all angles - whether it's "Hackers shutting down the pwoer grid" to "Pedaphiles are EVERYWHERE on the net looking for your children" to "identity theft is everywhere" to "terrorists use the net to learn about nukes," - then you see the economic control side - the debate about "net neutrality" etc....Personally I wouldn't cal America a democracy or a democratic republic anymore. I would call it a corporatist feudal system....and there are many synonyms for such a system.

Re:Uhhh.... Duhhh..... What????

[electrictroy]

No don't mod parent up.

As someone else already noted, the record industry uses Radio to control what we hear. There might be some great garage band out there, which would go straight to number one on the charts, but since they don't get any airplay they don't get heard. Thus the average citizen remains blissfully unaware of many great artists, simply because the record companies don't play them.

The corporations control what we hear.

Internet sharing puts the control back in OUR hands (we can try whatever we feel like trying).