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That Digital Music Service You Love Is a Terrible Business (fortune.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes an article from Fortune:
Rdio goes bankrupt, Pandora hangs out a 'For Sale' sign and then gets rid of its CEO, artists and labels ramp up their criticism of YouTube. Now we have Tidal in acquisition talks with Apple, while Spotify complains about Apple treating it unfairly... the digital music business is becoming an industry in which only a truly massive company with huge scale and deep pockets can hope to compete... Rdio went bankrupt last year in large part because it couldn't afford to make the licensing payments the record industry requires of streaming services. Deezer, a European service, postponed a planned initial public offering partly because its business is financially shaky for the same reason... [Rhapsody] is still racking up massive losses... Spotify has found it almost impossible to make money, primarily because of onerous licensing payments...
[A]ll the available evidence seems to show that the digital-music business, at least the way it is currently structured, simply isn't economic. The only way for anyone to even come close to making it work is to make it part of a much larger company, like Apple or Amazon or Google. That way they can absorb the losses, they have the heft to negotiate with the record industry, and they can find synergies with their other businesses. In other words, music as a standalone business appears to be dead, or at least on life support.
The article links to an essay by a former eMusic CEO arguing high royalty rates make it impossible to have a profitable business, and the music industry "buried more than 150 startups -- now they are left to dance with the giants."
[A]ll the available evidence seems to show that the digital-music business, at least the way it is currently structured, simply isn't economic. The only way for anyone to even come close to making it work is to make it part of a much larger company, like Apple or Amazon or Google. That way they can absorb the losses, they have the heft to negotiate with the record industry, and they can find synergies with their other businesses. In other words, music as a standalone business appears to be dead, or at least on life support.
The article links to an essay by a former eMusic CEO arguing high royalty rates make it impossible to have a profitable business, and the music industry "buried more than 150 startups -- now they are left to dance with the giants."
Instead of working closely with the smaller companies to create a diverse and competitive market, their predatory (legal) and greedy (bad business) tactics caused the shutdown of many music startups, angering music lovers, and ultimately, they are shooting themselves in the foot because when only have Apple and Amazon to deal with, they will:
1. Negotiate terms that leave the music industry with lower profits
2. Eventually launch their own music labels, mimicking what Netflix did with Movies & TV series, to create further leverage
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
The better way this can work is reset copyright back to its original length of time - 14 years, and also set maximum royalties that they can charge for the privilege of their copyright. The industry might suffer a bit (boo hoo), but the artists will come out ahead since self publishing is much easier now. Their royalties would climb dramatically without the industry skimming so much.
Of course the best way is to abolish copyright altogether, and artists get paid for performing their work like the rest of us. Getting paid when a machine plays a recording is ludicrous!
Mozart had to take on private students to pay his bills, so can Justin Bieber, if he can find any paying students.
Musicians getting rich was a historical aberration caused by the technology of the day. They can all get day jobs and cover their beer with tips when playing at night for all I care.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What's so terrible about Bandcamp (which is the digital music service I love)?
They seem to be doing pretty good, they're growing as well as being profitable.
Best part (IMO) is that they also have lots of artists saying they appreciate Bandcamp. Here are some comments from that blog post:
Bandcamp is the greatest platform for independent artists. I am glad to be a part of it, without it getting new fans would be difficult.
We release small independent music compilations since three years here on BC. We worked together with more than 200 artists in these years. The most of them publish their music on BC too. I can confirm: More people buy the music on BC. That is what the musicians say in talks. And even our pay what you want releases have a really good perfomance.
I've bought a lot of really great music on Bandcamp, the artists like it. So yeah, what's so terrible again?
The topic was music, but maybe he can sell hats.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Although copyright is not required to sustain a living, it helps. A lot.
However, copyright as it is - effectively indefinite - is basically stealing. From the public.
The entire reasoning for the "limited monopoly," as specified in at least the United States Constitution, is to encourage the development of works for the public benefit. It is by definition for a limited time, because copyright, at its core, is an INFRINGEMENT on the rights of the general population. It is a TOLERATED violation of basic principles laid out there.
As-is, copyright is an abomination, and people who want to suck on it for the rest of their lives and assert dominion over whatever they wrote or sang or belched have made it both dangerous and far more trouble than it was ever worth. Back it down to a duration that will be WELL within the lifetime of most of those who see the work in the first place, and not "maybe my grandchildren if Disney doesn't pay for another extension," and it will contribute to society again. As-is, it's just an impediment to just about everything it was designed to help with, from storytelling to software development to innovation of all kinds. And it is this kind of encroachment that is being used to justify forbidding fixing your tractor, reselling your car, and a host of other ridiculous things. These new stipulations on copyright, however, say nothing of the far more vast damage that it does to other intellectual works. Society is built upon that which came before, and it does it without rental fees. Giving a cut to the person who advanced it is fair. Giving them control in effective perpetuity is anything but.
As a final note, this is usually replied to with, "you wouldn't work for free, would you?" As a matter of fact, I would, if I had the skill. And fortunately for all of us, hundreds of thousands of people do, as is evidenced by this web site, which wouldn't even exist if it weren't for projects like Linux and Apache, which are but a relatively small portion of the wealth of open source software available. And if you look around the Internet, there is plenty more talent to contribute that in fact does it out of love, only it doesn't have the corporate backing to dump it in everyone's face, nor the corporate lawyers to ruin the lives of anyone who even looks at them funny.
No, IMO, the problem is that there are too many middlemen. The Internet service takes its cut, followed the the performing rights organization (e.g. ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC), the publisher takes at least half of what is left (and probably more), and the tiny crumbs that remain get divided between all the composers and lyricists. The artist probably gets nothing unless he/she is a singer-songwriter or there's some other specific arrangement with the publisher. Either way, the more middlemen you have leeching off your music, the less you'll make from it.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yeah, nobody actually WRITES music, it's just people on stage singing whatever and playing random notes.
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