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Music Streaming Hailed as Industry's Saviour as Labels Enjoy Profit Surge (theguardian.com)
Not long ago, the music industry was losing money left and right. Recession, rampant piracy, falling CD sales and a fear that "kids just don't buy music any more" had giant record labels, once oozing wealth, counting the pennies. But that all changed this year, and the industry's saviour is not what many predicted. From a report on The Guardian: Profits from music streaming, first championed by Spotify and now offered by Apple and Amazon, have given some labels their largest surge in revenue in more than a decade. At the beginning of December, one of the world's biggest labels, Warner Music, announced revenues of $3.25bn this year -- its highest in eight years. More significantly, $1bn of that was from streaming, more than double its download revenue and more than $100m more than its physical revenue. The surge in profits is being seen across all the major labels. In the first half of 2016, streaming revenue in the US grew by 57% to $1.6bn, and worldwide digital revenues overtook those from physical sales for the first time in music industry history, mainly because of streaming. This year's most-streamed artist was Drake, with 4.2bn streams.
Piracy was only ever a symptom of the problem, not the cause. What's the problem? Music labels sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring changes to the consumer landscape. They were so used to dictating terms that they thought they would always get away with it. So much so that they continued trying even in the face of lost profits and outright consumer hostility.
Not that I ever thought piracy was ever that big of a contributor to the losses, mind you. I think they lost more from folks like me who started refusing to buy full albums for a single song, or pay 15-20 for a single album altogether.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I'm not going to say Swift doesn't have any talent, I do believe she does, but in general I agree with your observation. As the labels have become more and more simply a department of larger corporate machines, the willingness to go out on a limb has faded. There are no more Led Zeppelins, or even U2s. It's just a bunch of autotuned R&B acts.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Of course the best outcome is everyone goes indie and the RIAA dies quickly, but that's just a dream.
And here's why it's a dream: One of the common death throes of a dying company is copyright, patent, or trademark assertion. Once bands start owning their own compositions and recordings, the music publishers that share a parent company with the major record labels will start suing bands on grounds of accidental copyright infringement: "Your song sounds too much like one of our songs. Pay us." What's a good way to avoid such lawsuits other than becoming a licensed cover band or leaving music altogether?
The goal needs to be the complete *destruction* of the music industry as we know it. We cannot rest until 100% of the profits for music go to the artists (including sound engineers and all that) who create that music. We must keep fighting until the RIAA and all its members are bankrupt. This is far from over.