This is/. - who knows which posts of mine are being read?
I'm just being precise. To just drop "the Corrs" in might not even be understood, since they're not the most well-known band in the US. They're huge everywhere else in the world, but not in the US. Everybody I've mentioned them to in the past have never heard of them.
OTOH, that doesn't seem to stop everybody else from mentioning bands I've never heard of, so maybe you're right.
Yeah, the Dead do seem to be a model for how it should work.
I also just read an article yesterday about how bands are operating in Belem, Brazil. Here it is:
Tecno Brega Monday, September 26th, 2005
Tecno Brega
A music scene called Tecno Brega making use of an alternative business model has emerged in the city of Belem in Brazil. This parallel music industry has been active for years and has achieved great success. Several hundred new Tecno Brega records are produced and released every year by local artists, with both the production and distribution taking place outside of the mainstream music industry. The tecno brega model is simple: the music lies outside the realm of traditional copyright and is used as a method of marketing events. Every weekend the "sound system" parties attract thousands of people to the outskirts of Belem to listen to the Tecno Brega music. The parties are advertised by the distribution of the music itself. The numbers are incomplete, but the Belem scene alone brings in yearly revenues of several million US dollars.
The Tecno Brega music is "born free" in the sense that copyright protection is not a part of the business model developed by its creators. The CDs sold are utilized as marketing material- advertisements for the highly popular weekly "sound system" parties. The Tecno Brega CDs are sold by local street vendors as per arrangements with the local recording studios. At a mere US$1.50, the CDs are highly affordable by the local population, thus providing greater access to the music at a grassroots level.
The goal is not for artists to make money on conventional CD sales. Instead, the price charged works exclusively as an incentive for the local vendors to sell the CDs and in effect market the tecno brega parties. The artists thus make money through innovative business models related to the sound system parties. One such example consists of artists recording their live concert sets at the parties in real time and then selling the recordings at the conclusion of the event. This enables the audience to go home with a souvenir of the concert they have just attended. Another technique utilized by the artists is to acknowledge the presence of various people and neighborhoods in the course of the live presentations. Hearing such acknowledgment is greatly valuable to the audience- naturally people want to hear a "shout out" to them, their friends, or their neighborhood. As a result, thousands of people buy copies of the live CDs to have a permanent memoir of this form of homage.
Actually I suspect quite a few people use Outlook as their primary email client, at least at work. Home users presumably use whatever their ISP supports (Earthlink, AOL, whatever) or they use something like Eudora or Thunderbird. But corporate people use Outlook to tie into Exchange (if they're not using Novell Groupwise or Lotus Notes or something else.) And they use Outlook not only for email, but especially for calendar scheduling and the like. This is why people are looking at the new Zimbra open source email app as it seems to be considered a drop-in replacement for Exchange and works with Outlook.
So replacing Outlook with Gmail isn't on the radar for corporations.
The same issue applies to Microsoft Word. Word gets tied into things like Access or SQL Server databases or Excel spreadsheets for mail merge and imbedded Excel spreadsheets in Word docs. Where OpenOffice can do most of that, my understanding is it doesn't do it as well as Office and it doesn't work with Office in this respect as well as it does in terms of document formatting. I could see adding mail merge as not that big a deal in terms of the process, but the issue then is where is the database located? Most companies, despite the ASP concept, are not happy about putting their critical databases on a third party's server they don't control.
As for the first point, other business partners still dealing in Office documents, this still seems like a chicken-and-egg issue. Even if A government demands OpenDocument format, there will still be scores of thousands of businesses that don't do that much business with the government more than they do with each other and they will still be using Office formats (except for law firms who are still using WordPerfect in many cases.) OTOH, I suppose that if the Federal government demanded OpenDocument, that would force most LARGE businesses to go to it, and THAT would force most of the smaller businesses that do business with the large companies to do it as well - a "trickle-down" effect.
But it's going to take the Feds to do it, I think - or at least a lot more states than Massachusetts.
And that whole issue STILL doesn't solve the tech problem of building a complete Office system that works seamlessly over the Net. I don't doubt it can be done, but I suspect it won't go anywhere until the OpenDocument-Office fight is influenced by some external factor like the government demanding OpenDocument format.
And if the government DID demand that, Microsoft would have no choice but to comply - which in turn would slow down the need to switch from Office to a net-based office suite.
Plus, there are two separate issues here - first, whether a Net-based office suite can be as functional as a rich client suite, and second, whether people want to store their documents on the Net in the first place - and if so, which documents and how.
Do people really need to access documents "from anywhere" - or would they really just rather be able to access their home or work computers from anywhere and keep the documents under their control? I think the latter is more likely - and there are already ways (most of them complicated for home users, though) to do that.
So I'm basically still asking: what would be a KILLER app to change that behavior pattern? Is something like Google Search added to an office suite enough?
I just seem to see a huge inertia issue here that isn't being considered.
"What does this imply for cosmology and particle physics, both of which have been worrying about other aspects of dark matter?"
It implies that nobody is even close to knowing, so making a big ado about such theories is a waste of time for everybody except the ones making up the theories - and that only because they're under "publish or perish" and loss of grant threat.
In my lifetime, the estimated size of the universe has probably expanded by several orders of magnitude. Which means most of the relevant scientists during my lifetime were wrong at least part of the time.
When somebody can produce useful technology from these sorts of theories, I'll take them seriously.
Yes, it does. "Wrong" can mean a lot of things. If I put something together that doesn't work right because the parts are out of place, it's "wrong", not "morally wrong."
wrong (rông, rng) pronunciation adj.
1. Not in conformity with fact or truth; incorrect or erroneous.
2.
1. Contrary to conscience, morality, or law; immoral or wicked.
2. Unfair; unjust.
3. Not required, intended, or wanted: took a wrong turn.
4. Not fitting or suitable; inappropriate or improper: said the wrong thing.
5. Not in accord with established usage, method, or procedure: the wrong way to shuck clams.
6. Not functioning properly; out of order.
7. Unacceptable or undesirable according to social convention.
8. Designating the side, as of a garment, that is less finished and not intended to show: socks worn wrong side out.
You'll notice that only two of the eight meanings above have anything to do with morality or social convention.
In other words, you're the one who doesn't understand English.
No surprise -/.'er loses argument, resorts to pedantry. A daily occurrence here.
When I say "wrong", I'm not talking "morality" (which I don't happen to believe in at all.)
I'm talking "correct". Which means what works and keeps on working for the benefit of everyone involved.
"If they were actually ripped off than that's a CRIME, and can be pursued legally."
Wrong - civil suits mostly. Hard to prove outright fraud - although the music industry has had to settle price-fixing lawsuits brought by various state governments. Also, what the contract says and how the contract is interpreted by the label are two different things entirely.
I'll agree, however, since it was MY point, that artists are stupid to sign such contracts.
"No, it's just stupid. Or desperate. Or both."
Exactly what I mean by "wrong." Thank you for comprehending belatedly.
Over thirty million albums sold worldwide and multiple platinum albums says a lot of people are NOT shuddering - including Nelson Mandela, Bono of U2, and the Rolling Stones, all of whom are fans of the Corrs.
"maybe some bands can't be bothered with the stress, boredom, physicality of touring"
Which is why I suggest live concert broadcast over the Net. Cheaper, easier, reaches more people for less cost, and is more profitable.
"Maybe they don't like having to perform live."
Then don't expect to get rich when the technology is against you.
"Maybe they play music that doesn't translate well to a live environment."
Enya overdubs a few hundred times. Sure, that makes it hard to tour unless you're dragging a long a full orchestra - OR maybe you just program your concert into the machines and play along with them. Hardly a problem with some imagination and work. Nobody expects you to physically reproduce your sound the same way you produce it on a studio album. Irrelevant to the concept.
"Maybe they should be able to earn a living from the work they put into recording, mixing and producing their albums."
And maybe we should just throw money at them. The world doesn't work that way. You produce what's needed (or what you can convince people is needed). If they want to just sit back and produce studio albums, they'd better come up with a business model that get them paid without live performance, because the existing one doesn't work without coercion from the law.
"They've released a live album. It's just not as good as their three studio albums. There's no way they can use studio recordings as a loss leader for the live performance, as they'll just end up making a loss."
What on earth does producing a live album have to do with what I stated? It's an ALBUM! I'm talking about live performance in person or over the Net. And who says their live performances aren't as good as the studio albums? Obviously somebody thought differently or they wouldn't have produced a live album.
Of COURSE a live album isn't going to be as good TECHNICALLY as a studio album.
Neither is the "Live In Dublin" CD from The Corrs as good as the "Live in Dublin" VIDEO made of the same show because of exactly that live vibe you talk about - which is what I'm talking about.
Not what I said at all. Try to read before posting. I didn't say EVERY company produces crap, just that in every industry there ARE companies that DO. I might even go so far as to say, via Sturgeon's Law, that most of them do. But not necessarily all of them.
Ray Charles? Seen his bio movie?
It's not wrong for labels to sign artists who are potential money makers. It's wrong for labels to sign crap artists and then try to turn them into money makers through propaganda. It's wrong for labels to sign good artists and then not support them with the promotion they deserve (as Atlantic has done with The Corrs in the US). It's wrong for labels to sign good artists and then rip them off as they did with dozens of old time artists who later sued them.
And it's wrong for artists to sign their asses over to a label and (if they're lucky) get fifteen percent in exchange for production, advertising and distribution, all of which is both spotty and haphazard and made obsolete by the Internet.
A music scene called Tecno Brega making use of an alternative business model has emerged in the city of Belem in Brazil. This parallel music industry has been active for years and has achieved great success. Several hundred new Tecno Brega records are produced and released every year by local artists, with both the production and distribution taking place outside of the mainstream music industry. The tecno brega model is simple: the music lies outside the realm of traditional copyright and is used as a method of marketing events. Every weekend the "sound system" parties attract thousands of people to the outskirts of Belem to listen to the Tecno Brega music. The parties are advertised by the distribution of the music itself. The numbers are incomplete, but the Belem scene alone brings in yearly revenues of several million US dollars.
The Tecno Brega music is "born free" in the sense that copyright protection is not a part of the business model developed by its creators. The CDs sold are utilized as marketing material- advertisements for the highly popular weekly "sound system" parties. The Tecno Brega CDs are sold by local street vendors as per arrangements with the local recording studios. At a mere US$1.50, the CDs are highly affordable by the local population, thus providing greater access to the music at a grassroots level.
The goal is not for artists to make money on conventional CD sales. Instead, the price charged works exclusively as an incentive for the local vendors to sell the CDs and in effect market the tecno brega parties. The artists thus make money through innovative business models related to the sound system parties. One such example consists of artists recording their live concert sets at the parties in real time and then selling the recordings at the conclusion of the event. This enables the audience to go home with a souvenir of the concert they have just attended. Another technique utilized by the artists is to acknowledge the presence of various people and neighborhoods in the course of the live presentations. Hearing such acknowledgment is greatly valuable to the audience- naturally people want to hear a "shout out" to them, their friends, or their neighborhood. As a result, thousands of people buy copies of the live CDs to have a permanent memoir of this form of homage.
"However distributed thin web applications allowed you to do 'new and better things than the Office package and more.'"
If most of your customers are still dealing in Microsoft Office documents, and they won't switch to OpenOffice because of "compatibility" concerns, how are they going to switch to Net-based documents? There would have to be a really "killer app" to make them do that, right?
What would be an example of a Net-based "killer app" that would cause someone to stop using Microsoft Word, for example? Anybody got any ideas?
I mean, this whole business of Microsoft compatibility is either a red herring or a real issue for any given company. If the latter, there has to be a technical solution to it. So what is it (other than AI which we don't have any idea how to create at the moment)?
"the major record companies are the only place to get that kind of cash."
As oppposed to say, software?
I seem to recall a dot.com boom (which turned into dot.bomb, of course, but the point stands.)
Prove you have talent, you can get money from anyone who has money if they see a profit.
The idea that record labels are the only people who support artists is another myth they want the artists to believe. It's a like a pimp telling his whores they can't work for anyone else.
The Corrs got a record deal - only because they were invited to the US by the US Ambassador to Ireland who saw them and liked them. They could just as easily been seen by some rich guy who decided to bankroll their first album.
And there are other ways to raise capital. If you don't know how, pay for a consultant to tell you. The bottom line: artists needs to take responsibility for their own success. And in the last ten or twenty years, there are a number of books out that tell them exactly how to do that and why they should.
The opposite problem, however, is that if the band IS talented, the processing can water them down.
My favorite band, The Corrs, is like that. While their processed music is okay, Andrea's voice is sometimes totally different on the recorded album than live. And she's "better" - or at least more "real" - live, even discounting the eye candy effect of her looks. Seeing her perform is far more interesting than listening to her perform. And the same goes for all the others in the band.
I watched a video where Jim Corr explained how the track "Would You Be Happer" was created. It started out with a few simple chords played by Caroline on the piano. Then it went to a few tracks on the mixing board with drums, vocals, guitars, etc.
It ended up with the entire mixing board - maybe sixty or seventy tracks - being filled.
And yet, it sounds just as good - or better - LIVE in concert as it does on the CD. By "just as good", of course, I'm not talking about "sound quality" or any technical issues. In fact, the point is that "technical issues" are IRRELEVANT to live music (to some degree, of course - you need a sound tech and some processing to get live to sound good at all - I tend to not be that big a fan of "strict" acoustic sound, although a lot of people are.)
There's nothing wrong with engineering a musical piece to sound a certain way, but the engineering per se shouldn't have anything to do with the length or anything else that isn't related to the concept of the music. And it really shouldn't be used to cover up lack of talent. OTOH, "lack of talent" is pretty subjective - almost anybody, no matter how crappy, has got fans of their music.
That's the real problem - the labels think it's all about processing, "manufacturing", marketing and distribution. It's not about the music at all.
It's sad that artists allow themselves to be part of that, just to get a shot at making a living having people hear their music.
Depends on who you mean by "people". If you're talking radio shows with a set formula and advertising breaks, yeah, probably true.
I don't think the average listener cares whether a song is three minutes or ten minutes, as long as he likes the song. I've listened to very long stuff and liked it.
For example, I once heard a radio station broadcast a live version of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" which was only available as a promo to radio stations. It's over eleven minutes long and has live quality, not engineered quality. I searched high and low for that song on P2P until I found it. It's way better in my opinion than the usual version heard on the radio.
Of course, if every song was half an hour long, people would get pissed if ten songs in a row on the radio were songs they didn't like - and would change the channel.
So in a sense, it's radio technology that determines the length of songs. That and the size of a CD - it's better for marketing to say the CD has ten songs than two. Why? Because people do NOT pay for quality of music - they pay for quantity of music.
On the other hand, people do go see classical music where the orchestra plays for a long time.
If you look at fans of bands, as well, they are always hunting down raw tracks and recorded jam sessions, even if most of it isn't that good compared to the finished product. And a lot of musicians hate that, since they only want stuff they feel is "finished" to be heard by their fans.
Which only goes to show how screwed up the whole process is and how everybody wants to control what everybody else thinks and does based on some theory or some "consultant's" "analysis".
These morons (artists and labels) don't control anything - they just think they can. They don't know what will sell and what won't, so just put the shit out there and let the chips fall where they may. Concentrate on controlling what you DO control - your own actions.
The Corrs have eight members of the band alone, and that's not counting the roadies and techs.
You have to pay for all those people on tour, plus the cost of transporting a trailer truck (or two) full of gear (two of everything in case one breaks, including speakers, lighting, instruments - how many guitars do you think Jim Corr uses in one night? Multiply by three for Anto and Keith - and so forth.)
But, yeah, you can tour for less than that. Most bands without label contracts do, of course.
The real opportunity is live concert broadcasts over the Net from a studio via subscription - cheaper than touring, more profitable and no limit to the number of people that could get to see you (depending on how much you charge and your basic talent, of course).
"Heck, I think the Instant Live thing they are doing now is pretty cool (you get a professionally recorded CD of the show 20 minutes after it ends)."
Yeah, that is a good idea. In fact, a great idea. Even better would be a download available immediately.
Even better would be a professionally-produced DVD of video of the live show. Even less professionally produced would be good. Even if it didn't come out until a week or two later.
My favorite band, the Corrs, have had a video photographer following them around since day one, documenting their career. And they've made a number of DVDs of live performances.
But why they don't have a video camera taping EVERY show is beyond me. I have to rely on the amateur vidcams and phone-cam recordings, much of which is lousy quality.
They could be taping every show, making it available for download over the Net for some small fee, and massively improving their audience contact and marketing. The Corrs are excellent live, and live performances from them are MUCH more interesting than their recorded music (not even counting the eye candy effect of three beautiful women and five good-looking guys).
My favorite band, The Corrs, played all over Ireland for several years until they happened to play in a venue where Jean Kennedy Smith, the US Ambassador to Ireland, saw them. She invited them to play at the Kennedy Library in the US.
While in the US, they shopped for a record deal - and got absolutely no takers until they met Jason Flom at Atlantic, who liked them and wanted them to meet with David Foster, the biggest producer in the industry at the time.
Foster was producing an album with Michael Jackson at the Hit Factory in New York and was unavailable. So the Corrs gate-crashed the session wearing evening gowns and a lot of Irish charm and got to see Foster and play for him. Foster was "blown away", according to their manager, John Hughes.
They got a record deal the next day, spent the next six months producing their first album with Foster at his mansion in Malibu, and the rest is history (over thirty million albums sold over the last ten years, making them the 240th biggest selling band in music history, and the second biggest band out of Ireland after U2.)
But, yeah, without that sort of luck, name recognition (and talent) is important. And the Internet is a good way to get name recognition these days.
Direct concert broadcast over the Net by subscription.
Cheaper than touring, and more people can see you.
The way of the future. Bandwidth is only going to get cheaper and on-demand provisioning of optical bandwidth as well.
Which is not to say live tours aren't still a good idea, provided you can do them profitably (which is hard, by the way, given the cost of transportation - especially if you're an international band - and the cut the venues and promoters take). But if you can build up a subscription income from broadcast concerts first, that would help pay for live tours, as well as promoting the live tour.
"They are increasingly advertising the the artists they think can make the most money, not necessarily the artists that make the best music."
Elide the word "increasingly" - they've always done it this way.
The labels started out by appropriating the music of live performers and monetizing it via phonograph records. Only when they realized they needed new product did they decide to start enslaving artists to "record deals".
Then they quickly realized that crap could be marketed and sold just as much as quality - like many other companies in every industry.
Of course, there are limits to all this - which is why, when technology enabled it, some consumers started first recording music off the radio on cassettes, and then ripping CDs, and searching for indie musicians rather than just the current label favorites.
But the labels, like every so-called "businessman", wants to control their consumers totally. So they reach for the state in the form of DMCA/DRM laws, lawsuits, etc., to prevent their consumers doing anything that doesn't directly increase their profits.
None of this is a surprise - typical human behavior.
The sad part is how many truly talented people allow themselves to be whores working for pimps. A group like my favorite band, The Corrs, could be huge all by themselves with a little imagination, especially with today's technology, and the head start they have by already being a success under the current system. They could dump their label and continue to be successes.
As a related aside, I've always wondered why a good-looking woman would work as a whore for a pimp. From hearing some pimps (or wannabe pimps) in the Federal joint, I think I have an idea.
Actually we get a lot of crap because the labels DO NOT CARE about the MUSIC. What they care about is advertising, promotion, marketing and distribution.
To them, music is a COMMODITY to be hawked. The quality of that commodity is irrelevant to them. The people who run the labels are not musicians or even music lovers - they're businessmen and financiers. They love money, not music. Half of them probably don't even own a CD player or a stereo system. The peons under them have to have some clue, but not the guys running the companies who set the policies and make the decisions.
I'm surprised we get as much good music as we do under the current system.
Under this system, it doesn't matter whether a band is crap or not. The only issue is whether the label thinks they can be SOLD.
Companies exist in all industries that sell crap products - the music industry is no different. Some people who get to run big companies think quality just doesn't matter compared to marketing and price. And there are enough consumers out there who either are forced to agree by not being able to afford quality, or who don't care about it either.
Label bands are basically whores working for pimps. And everybody knows you get lousy sex from whores.
My point exactly - recorded music should be a LOSS LEADER for live performance.
Music has throughout human history been live performance. When technology enabled the phonograph record, record labels appeared, appropriated the music of live performers and began monetizing it. When they realized they needed more product than currently existed, they set about hiring the artists in peon contracts to produce more. Seduced by the celebrity notion, artists signed up, and benefited to some degree by taking a cut of the recorded music - when they weren't screwed out of the royalties entirely by the record labels - as many of the early artists were. But their cut was miniscule compared to the record labels.
Over the ensuing decades, people bought phonograph records because that was the only way to get the music, aside from the radio which didn't allow control over when you could listen to the music.
But once tape recorders (reel-tp-reel and then cassette) came in, people started taping and exchanging music from the phonograph records and using the technology to control their access to the music.
Then came the CD and the personal computer, which made it easier to record and control and exchange the music.
In other words, the technology now allows the consumer to do to the record labels what they once did to the artist - appropriate the music without compensation.
And the record labels don't like it.
From the artist standpoint, they need to realize that the technology now allows them to produce and distribute music at low or no cost as a LOSS LEADER to entice people to attend their performances - which, depending on their skill at using the Internet to magnify their reach to their potential audience, can be much greater than just touring around to clubs.
And subscription-based access to live concert performances are the way to monetize the live performance beyond anything possible in the past.
Bands who don't follow this approach will either continue to be whores working for pimps or be left behind by bands that do follow this approach.
But most artists - especially those already signed with labels and especially those who are significant successes already under the current system, like my favorite band, The Corrs - don't seem to comprehend the economics and technology or even the history and dynamics of their profession.
In other words, they're afraid - afraid of losing their place in the pantheon, afraid of losing their toys, afraid of losing their pimps, basically.
"Even the 'real' artists depend on the record companies for advertising and marketing."
Two comments about that.
First, it's obvious that people have NEVER paid for music - except when the only way to get it was via phonograph records and tape recorders hadn't been invented - and therefore every music buyer is basically paying for CONVENIENCE in obtaining music when they buy a CD. Also, it should be obvious that people are not paying for the MUSIC, but in fact are paying for the advertising and marketing. Certainly that's the way the labels see it, which is why we get crap music - they assume that the music doesn't matter, it's all about advertising and promotion. Which, to a large degree, as any indie artist will tell you, is true.
Second, it should be obvious - but apparently isn't - to artists that, aside from the sports and entertainment industries - where agents are the norm - most industries don't hire themselves out to somebody else for advertising and marketing, and accept a fifteen percent cut of what's left after it's done. Instead, they produce their own content and then hire experts internally or externally to do the advertising and marketing. Just because artists don't know how to do it doesn't mean it can't be done by other people for a specified rate on contract.
Artists need to stop selling their asses out as peons and take responsibility for their own success. They may make less money - but they will be more able to live with themselves by not realizing that they're basically whores working for pimps.
"Ever hear a performer thank their label when winning an award?"
Actually, my favorite band, The Corrs, were dumb enough to do that when they won their first international award in Spain back in the mid-90's.
In fact, they've been slavishly worshipful of Time-Warner and Atlantic Records, praising them in numerous documentary videos.
Today, guess what? Jason Flom, the head of Atlantic and the guy who discovered them, is out, the Corrs have been relegated to Atlantic.UK and gets no release for their new album, "Home", in the US - and their manager, John Hughes, admits publicly that they're looking for a new record deal.
In other words, having been screwed by Atlantic, they are now looking to sign themselves up for another screwing because they don't have the imagination to see that distributing their own music and live concert broadcasts by subscription - in other words, a return to live performance, the basis of music historically - is the way to go. Even though they're probably one of the best live concert acts in the world and their ticket demand at the end of last year's tour, according to Hughes, is the highest it's ever been.
With the development of nanotech-based computers, that time will be cut to probably less than fifty.
The real problem of course is getting access to the stuff that isn't digital already. Still, nanotech will probably enable more effective scanners in the next fifty years as well. Rather than using once or twice removed stuff like lasers and IR beams, mechanical scanners will actually crawl the object to be scanned - meaning that anything will be scannable, including three-dimensional objects eventually.
Waste of time to make predictions about the future when you don't know what technology is feasible and what isn't.
Of course, CEOs - even those like this guy - haven't a clue about areas outside their specific field.
Slashdot Mirror
This is /. - who knows which posts of mine are being read?
I'm just being precise. To just drop "the Corrs" in might not even be understood, since they're not the most well-known band in the US. They're huge everywhere else in the world, but not in the US. Everybody I've mentioned them to in the past have never heard of them.
OTOH, that doesn't seem to stop everybody else from mentioning bands I've never heard of, so maybe you're right.
Yeah, the Dead do seem to be a model for how it should work.
I also just read an article yesterday about how bands are operating in Belem, Brazil. Here it is:
Tecno Brega
Monday, September 26th, 2005
Tecno Brega
A music scene called Tecno Brega making use of an alternative business model has emerged in the city of Belem in Brazil. This parallel music industry has been active for years and has achieved great success. Several hundred new Tecno Brega records are produced and released every year by local artists, with both the production and distribution taking place outside of the mainstream music industry. The tecno brega model is simple: the music lies outside the realm of traditional copyright and is used as a method of marketing events. Every weekend the "sound system" parties attract thousands of people to the outskirts of Belem to listen to the Tecno Brega music. The parties are advertised by the distribution of the music itself. The numbers are incomplete, but the Belem scene alone brings in yearly revenues of several million US dollars.
The Tecno Brega music is "born free" in the sense that copyright protection is not a part of the business model developed by its creators. The CDs sold are utilized as marketing material- advertisements for the highly popular weekly "sound system" parties. The Tecno Brega CDs are sold by local street vendors as per arrangements with the local recording studios. At a mere US$1.50, the CDs are highly affordable by the local population, thus providing greater access to the music at a grassroots level.
The goal is not for artists to make money on conventional CD sales. Instead, the price charged works exclusively as an incentive for the local vendors to sell the CDs and in effect market the tecno brega parties. The artists thus make money through innovative business models related to the sound system parties. One such example consists of artists recording their live concert sets at the parties in real time and then selling the recordings at the conclusion of the event. This enables the audience to go home with a souvenir of the concert they have just attended. Another technique utilized by the artists is to acknowledge the presence of various people and neighborhoods in the course of the live presentations. Hearing such acknowledgment is greatly valuable to the audience- naturally people want to hear a "shout out" to them, their friends, or their neighborhood. As a result, thousands of people buy copies of the live CDs to have a permanent memoir of this form of homage.
Actually I suspect quite a few people use Outlook as their primary email client, at least at work. Home users presumably use whatever their ISP supports (Earthlink, AOL, whatever) or they use something like Eudora or Thunderbird. But corporate people use Outlook to tie into Exchange (if they're not using Novell Groupwise or Lotus Notes or something else.) And they use Outlook not only for email, but especially for calendar scheduling and the like. This is why people are looking at the new Zimbra open source email app as it seems to be considered a drop-in replacement for Exchange and works with Outlook.
So replacing Outlook with Gmail isn't on the radar for corporations.
The same issue applies to Microsoft Word. Word gets tied into things like Access or SQL Server databases or Excel spreadsheets for mail merge and imbedded Excel spreadsheets in Word docs. Where OpenOffice can do most of that, my understanding is it doesn't do it as well as Office and it doesn't work with Office in this respect as well as it does in terms of document formatting. I could see adding mail merge as not that big a deal in terms of the process, but the issue then is where is the database located? Most companies, despite the ASP concept, are not happy about putting their critical databases on a third party's server they don't control.
As for the first point, other business partners still dealing in Office documents, this still seems like a chicken-and-egg issue. Even if A government demands OpenDocument format, there will still be scores of thousands of businesses that don't do that much business with the government more than they do with each other and they will still be using Office formats (except for law firms who are still using WordPerfect in many cases.) OTOH, I suppose that if the Federal government demanded OpenDocument, that would force most LARGE businesses to go to it, and THAT would force most of the smaller businesses that do business with the large companies to do it as well - a "trickle-down" effect.
But it's going to take the Feds to do it, I think - or at least a lot more states than Massachusetts.
And that whole issue STILL doesn't solve the tech problem of building a complete Office system that works seamlessly over the Net. I don't doubt it can be done, but I suspect it won't go anywhere until the OpenDocument-Office fight is influenced by some external factor like the government demanding OpenDocument format.
And if the government DID demand that, Microsoft would have no choice but to comply - which in turn would slow down the need to switch from Office to a net-based office suite.
Plus, there are two separate issues here - first, whether a Net-based office suite can be as functional as a rich client suite, and second, whether people want to store their documents on the Net in the first place - and if so, which documents and how.
Do people really need to access documents "from anywhere" - or would they really just rather be able to access their home or work computers from anywhere and keep the documents under their control? I think the latter is more likely - and there are already ways (most of them complicated for home users, though) to do that.
So I'm basically still asking: what would be a KILLER app to change that behavior pattern? Is something like Google Search added to an office suite enough?
I just seem to see a huge inertia issue here that isn't being considered.
"What does this imply for cosmology and particle physics, both of which have been worrying about other aspects of dark matter?"
It implies that nobody is even close to knowing, so making a big ado about such theories is a waste of time for everybody except the ones making up the theories - and that only because they're under "publish or perish" and loss of grant threat.
In my lifetime, the estimated size of the universe has probably expanded by several orders of magnitude. Which means most of the relevant scientists during my lifetime were wrong at least part of the time.
When somebody can produce useful technology from these sorts of theories, I'll take them seriously.
Yes, it does. "Wrong" can mean a lot of things. If I put something together that doesn't work right because the parts are out of place, it's "wrong", not "morally wrong."
wrong (rông, rng) pronunciation
adj.
1. Not in conformity with fact or truth; incorrect or erroneous.
2.
1. Contrary to conscience, morality, or law; immoral or wicked.
2. Unfair; unjust.
3. Not required, intended, or wanted: took a wrong turn.
4. Not fitting or suitable; inappropriate or improper: said the wrong thing.
5. Not in accord with established usage, method, or procedure: the wrong way to shuck clams.
6. Not functioning properly; out of order.
7. Unacceptable or undesirable according to social convention.
8. Designating the side, as of a garment, that is less finished and not intended to show: socks worn wrong side out.
You'll notice that only two of the eight meanings above have anything to do with morality or social convention.
In other words, you're the one who doesn't understand English.
No surprise -
A daily occurrence here.
When I say "wrong", I'm not talking "morality" (which I don't happen to believe in at all.)
I'm talking "correct". Which means what works and keeps on working for the benefit of everyone involved.
"If they were actually ripped off than that's a CRIME, and can be pursued legally."
Wrong - civil suits mostly. Hard to prove outright fraud - although the music industry has had to settle price-fixing lawsuits brought by various state governments. Also, what the contract says and how the contract is interpreted by the label are two different things entirely.
I'll agree, however, since it was MY point, that artists are stupid to sign such contracts.
"No, it's just stupid. Or desperate. Or both."
Exactly what I mean by "wrong." Thank you for comprehending belatedly.
Bwahahahahahah!!! And your favorite band is - Hooty and the Blowfish, right?
Wait, I know - the Spice Girls!
Oh, no, don't tell me it's Britney!
Over thirty million albums sold worldwide and multiple platinum albums says a lot of people are NOT shuddering - including Nelson Mandela, Bono of U2, and the Rolling Stones, all of whom are fans of the Corrs.
"maybe some bands can't be bothered with the stress, boredom, physicality of touring"
Which is why I suggest live concert broadcast over the Net. Cheaper, easier, reaches more people for less cost, and is more profitable.
"Maybe they don't like having to perform live."
Then don't expect to get rich when the technology is against you.
"Maybe they play music that doesn't translate well to a live environment."
Enya overdubs a few hundred times. Sure, that makes it hard to tour unless you're dragging a long a full orchestra - OR maybe you just program your concert into the machines and play along with them. Hardly a problem with some imagination and work. Nobody expects you to physically reproduce your sound the same way you produce it on a studio album. Irrelevant to the concept.
"Maybe they should be able to earn a living from the work they put into recording, mixing and producing their albums."
And maybe we should just throw money at them. The world doesn't work that way. You produce what's needed (or what you can convince people is needed). If they want to just sit back and produce studio albums, they'd better come up with a business model that get them paid without live performance, because the existing one doesn't work without coercion from the law.
"They've released a live album. It's just not as good as their three studio albums. There's no way they can use studio recordings as a loss leader for the live performance, as they'll just end up making a loss."
What on earth does producing a live album have to do with what I stated? It's an ALBUM! I'm talking about live performance in person or over the Net. And who says their live performances aren't as good as the studio albums? Obviously somebody thought differently or they wouldn't have produced a live album.
Of COURSE a live album isn't going to be as good TECHNICALLY as a studio album.
Neither is the "Live In Dublin" CD from The Corrs as good as the "Live in Dublin" VIDEO made of the same show because of exactly that live vibe you talk about - which is what I'm talking about.
Not what I said at all. Try to read before posting. I didn't say EVERY company produces crap, just that in every industry there ARE companies that DO. I might even go so far as to say, via Sturgeon's Law, that most of them do. But not necessarily all of them.
Ray Charles? Seen his bio movie?
It's not wrong for labels to sign artists who are potential money makers. It's wrong for labels to sign crap artists and then try to turn them into money makers through propaganda. It's wrong for labels to sign good artists and then not support them with the promotion they deserve (as Atlantic has done with The Corrs in the US). It's wrong for labels to sign good artists and then rip them off as they did with dozens of old time artists who later sued them.
And it's wrong for artists to sign their asses over to a label and (if they're lucky) get fifteen percent in exchange for production, advertising and distribution, all of which is both spotty and haphazard and made obsolete by the Internet.
The Tecno Brega Brazilian music scene proves what I've said: that recorded music is - or should be - just a loss leader for live performances.
From the OpenBusiness site http://openbusiness.cc/category/models:
Tecno Brega
Monday, September 26th, 2005
Tecno Brega
A music scene called Tecno Brega making use of an alternative business model has emerged in the city of Belem in Brazil. This parallel music industry has been active for years and has achieved great success. Several hundred new Tecno Brega records are produced and released every year by local artists, with both the production and distribution taking place outside of the mainstream music industry. The tecno brega model is simple: the music lies outside the realm of traditional copyright and is used as a method of marketing events. Every weekend the "sound system" parties attract thousands of people to the outskirts of Belem to listen to the Tecno Brega music. The parties are advertised by the distribution of the music itself. The numbers are incomplete, but the Belem scene alone brings in yearly revenues of several million US dollars.
The Tecno Brega music is "born free" in the sense that copyright protection is not a part of the business model developed by its creators. The CDs sold are utilized as marketing material- advertisements for the highly popular weekly "sound system" parties. The Tecno Brega CDs are sold by local street vendors as per arrangements with the local recording studios. At a mere US$1.50, the CDs are highly affordable by the local population, thus providing greater access to the music at a grassroots level.
The goal is not for artists to make money on conventional CD sales. Instead, the price charged works exclusively as an incentive for the local vendors to sell the CDs and in effect market the tecno brega parties. The artists thus make money through innovative business models related to the sound system parties. One such example consists of artists recording their live concert sets at the parties in real time and then selling the recordings at the conclusion of the event. This enables the audience to go home with a souvenir of the concert they have just attended. Another technique utilized by the artists is to acknowledge the presence of various people and neighborhoods in the course of the live presentations. Hearing such acknowledgment is greatly valuable to the audience- naturally people want to hear a "shout out" to them, their friends, or their neighborhood. As a result, thousands of people buy copies of the live CDs to have a permanent memoir of this form of homage.
"However distributed thin web applications allowed you to do 'new and better things than the Office package and more.'"
If most of your customers are still dealing in Microsoft Office documents, and they won't switch to OpenOffice because of "compatibility" concerns, how are they going to switch to Net-based documents? There would have to be a really "killer app" to make them do that, right?
What would be an example of a Net-based "killer app" that would cause someone to stop using Microsoft Word, for example? Anybody got any ideas?
I mean, this whole business of Microsoft compatibility is either a red herring or a real issue for any given company. If the latter, there has to be a technical solution to it. So what is it (other than AI which we don't have any idea how to create at the moment)?
"the major record companies are the only place to get that kind of cash."
As oppposed to say, software?
I seem to recall a dot.com boom (which turned into dot.bomb, of course, but the point stands.)
Prove you have talent, you can get money from anyone who has money if they see a profit.
The idea that record labels are the only people who support artists is another myth they want the artists to believe. It's a like a pimp telling his whores they can't work for anyone else.
The Corrs got a record deal - only because they were invited to the US by the US Ambassador to Ireland who saw them and liked them. They could just as easily been seen by some rich guy who decided to bankroll their first album.
And there are other ways to raise capital. If you don't know how, pay for a consultant to tell you. The bottom line: artists needs to take responsibility for their own success. And in the last ten or twenty years, there are a number of books out that tell them exactly how to do that and why they should.
The opposite problem, however, is that if the band IS talented, the processing can water them down.
My favorite band, The Corrs, is like that. While their processed music is okay, Andrea's voice is sometimes totally different on the recorded album than live. And she's "better" - or at least more "real" - live, even discounting the eye candy effect of her looks. Seeing her perform is far more interesting than listening to her perform. And the same goes for all the others in the band.
I watched a video where Jim Corr explained how the track "Would You Be Happer" was created. It started out with a few simple chords played by Caroline on the piano. Then it went to a few tracks on the mixing board with drums, vocals, guitars, etc.
It ended up with the entire mixing board - maybe sixty or seventy tracks - being filled.
And yet, it sounds just as good - or better - LIVE in concert as it does on the CD. By "just as good", of course, I'm not talking about "sound quality" or any technical issues. In fact, the point is that "technical issues" are IRRELEVANT to live music (to some degree, of course - you need a sound tech and some processing to get live to sound good at all - I tend to not be that big a fan of "strict" acoustic sound, although a lot of people are.)
There's nothing wrong with engineering a musical piece to sound a certain way, but the engineering per se shouldn't have anything to do with the length or anything else that isn't related to the concept of the music. And it really shouldn't be used to cover up lack of talent. OTOH, "lack of talent" is pretty subjective - almost anybody, no matter how crappy, has got fans of their music.
That's the real problem - the labels think it's all about processing, "manufacturing", marketing and distribution. It's not about the music at all.
It's sad that artists allow themselves to be part of that, just to get a shot at making a living having people hear their music.
"people want 3-minute tracks"
Maybe, maybe not.
Depends on who you mean by "people". If you're talking radio shows with a set formula and advertising breaks, yeah, probably true.
I don't think the average listener cares whether a song is three minutes or ten minutes, as long as he likes the song. I've listened to very long stuff and liked it.
For example, I once heard a radio station broadcast a live version of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" which was only available as a promo to radio stations. It's over eleven minutes long and has live quality, not engineered quality. I searched high and low for that song on P2P until I found it. It's way better in my opinion than the usual version heard on the radio.
Of course, if every song was half an hour long, people would get pissed if ten songs in a row on the radio were songs they didn't like - and would change the channel.
So in a sense, it's radio technology that determines the length of songs. That and the size of a CD - it's better for marketing to say the CD has ten songs than two. Why? Because people do NOT pay for quality of music - they pay for quantity of music.
On the other hand, people do go see classical music where the orchestra plays for a long time.
If you look at fans of bands, as well, they are always hunting down raw tracks and recorded jam sessions, even if most of it isn't that good compared to the finished product. And a lot of musicians hate that, since they only want stuff they feel is "finished" to be heard by their fans.
Which only goes to show how screwed up the whole process is and how everybody wants to control what everybody else thinks and does based on some theory or some "consultant's" "analysis".
These morons (artists and labels) don't control anything - they just think they can. They don't know what will sell and what won't, so just put the shit out there and let the chips fall where they may. Concentrate on controlling what you DO control - your own actions.
Uhm, not exactly.
The Corrs have eight members of the band alone, and that's not counting the roadies and techs.
You have to pay for all those people on tour, plus the cost of transporting a trailer truck (or two) full of gear (two of everything in case one breaks, including speakers, lighting, instruments - how many guitars do you think Jim Corr uses in one night? Multiply by three for Anto and Keith - and so forth.)
But, yeah, you can tour for less than that. Most bands without label contracts do, of course.
The real opportunity is live concert broadcasts over the Net from a studio via subscription - cheaper than touring, more profitable and no limit to the number of people that could get to see you (depending on how much you charge and your basic talent, of course).
"Heck, I think the Instant Live thing they are doing now is pretty cool (you get a professionally recorded CD of the show 20 minutes after it ends)."
Yeah, that is a good idea. In fact, a great idea. Even better would be a download available immediately.
Even better would be a professionally-produced DVD of video of the live show. Even less professionally produced would be good. Even if it didn't come out until a week or two later.
My favorite band, the Corrs, have had a video photographer following them around since day one, documenting their career. And they've made a number of DVDs of live performances.
But why they don't have a video camera taping EVERY show is beyond me. I have to rely on the amateur vidcams and phone-cam recordings, much of which is lousy quality.
They could be taping every show, making it available for download over the Net for some small fee, and massively improving their audience contact and marketing. The Corrs are excellent live, and live performances from them are MUCH more interesting than their recorded music (not even counting the eye candy effect of three beautiful women and five good-looking guys).
There are exceptions to this.
My favorite band, The Corrs, played all over Ireland for several years until they happened to play in a venue where Jean Kennedy Smith, the US Ambassador to Ireland, saw them. She invited them to play at the Kennedy Library in the US.
While in the US, they shopped for a record deal - and got absolutely no takers until they met Jason Flom at Atlantic, who liked them and wanted them to meet with David Foster, the biggest producer in the industry at the time.
Foster was producing an album with Michael Jackson at the Hit Factory in New York and was unavailable. So the Corrs gate-crashed the session wearing evening gowns and a lot of Irish charm and got to see Foster and play for him. Foster was "blown away", according to their manager, John Hughes.
They got a record deal the next day, spent the next six months producing their first album with Foster at his mansion in Malibu, and the rest is history (over thirty million albums sold over the last ten years, making them the 240th biggest selling band in music history, and the second biggest band out of Ireland after U2.)
But, yeah, without that sort of luck, name recognition (and talent) is important. And the Internet is a good way to get name recognition these days.
Direct concert broadcast over the Net by subscription.
Cheaper than touring, and more people can see you.
The way of the future. Bandwidth is only going to get cheaper and on-demand provisioning of optical bandwidth as well.
Which is not to say live tours aren't still a good idea, provided you can do them profitably (which is hard, by the way, given the cost of transportation - especially if you're an international band - and the cut the venues and promoters take). But if you can build up a subscription income from broadcast concerts first, that would help pay for live tours, as well as promoting the live tour.
"They are increasingly advertising the the artists they think can make the most money, not necessarily the artists that make the best music."
Elide the word "increasingly" - they've always done it this way.
The labels started out by appropriating the music of live performers and monetizing it via phonograph records. Only when they realized they needed new product did they decide to start enslaving artists to "record deals".
Then they quickly realized that crap could be marketed and sold just as much as quality - like many other companies in every industry.
Of course, there are limits to all this - which is why, when technology enabled it, some consumers started first recording music off the radio on cassettes, and then ripping CDs, and searching for indie musicians rather than just the current label favorites.
But the labels, like every so-called "businessman", wants to control their consumers totally. So they reach for the state in the form of DMCA/DRM laws, lawsuits, etc., to prevent their consumers doing anything that doesn't directly increase their profits.
None of this is a surprise - typical human behavior.
The sad part is how many truly talented people allow themselves to be whores working for pimps. A group like my favorite band, The Corrs, could be huge all by themselves with a little imagination, especially with today's technology, and the head start they have by already being a success under the current system. They could dump their label and continue to be successes.
As a related aside, I've always wondered why a good-looking woman would work as a whore for a pimp. From hearing some pimps (or wannabe pimps) in the Federal joint, I think I have an idea.
Actually we get a lot of crap because the labels DO NOT CARE about the MUSIC. What they care about is advertising, promotion, marketing and distribution.
To them, music is a COMMODITY to be hawked. The quality of that commodity is irrelevant to them. The people who run the labels are not musicians or even music lovers - they're businessmen and financiers. They love money, not music. Half of them probably don't even own a CD player or a stereo system. The peons under them have to have some clue, but not the guys running the companies who set the policies and make the decisions.
I'm surprised we get as much good music as we do under the current system.
Under this system, it doesn't matter whether a band is crap or not. The only issue is whether the label thinks they can be SOLD.
Companies exist in all industries that sell crap products - the music industry is no different. Some people who get to run big companies think quality just doesn't matter compared to marketing and price. And there are enough consumers out there who either are forced to agree by not being able to afford quality, or who don't care about it either.
Label bands are basically whores working for pimps. And everybody knows you get lousy sex from whores.
My point exactly - recorded music should be a LOSS LEADER for live performance.
Music has throughout human history been live performance. When technology enabled the phonograph record, record labels appeared, appropriated the music of live performers and began monetizing it. When they realized they needed more product than currently existed, they set about hiring the artists in peon contracts to produce more. Seduced by the celebrity notion, artists signed up, and benefited to some degree by taking a cut of the recorded music - when they weren't screwed out of the royalties entirely by the record labels - as many of the early artists were. But their cut was miniscule compared to the record labels.
Over the ensuing decades, people bought phonograph records because that was the only way to get the music, aside from the radio which didn't allow control over when you could listen to the music.
But once tape recorders (reel-tp-reel and then cassette) came in, people started taping and exchanging music from the phonograph records and using the technology to control their access to the music.
Then came the CD and the personal computer, which made it easier to record and control and exchange the music.
In other words, the technology now allows the consumer to do to the record labels what they once did to the artist - appropriate the music without compensation.
And the record labels don't like it.
From the artist standpoint, they need to realize that the technology now allows them to produce and distribute music at low or no cost as a LOSS LEADER to entice people to attend their performances - which, depending on their skill at using the Internet to magnify their reach to their potential audience, can be much greater than just touring around to clubs.
And subscription-based access to live concert performances are the way to monetize the live performance beyond anything possible in the past.
Bands who don't follow this approach will either continue to be whores working for pimps or be left behind by bands that do follow this approach.
But most artists - especially those already signed with labels and especially those who are significant successes already under the current system, like my favorite band, The Corrs - don't seem to comprehend the economics and technology or even the history and dynamics of their profession.
In other words, they're afraid - afraid of losing their place in the pantheon, afraid of losing their toys, afraid of losing their pimps, basically.
Typical human reaction.
"Even the 'real' artists depend on the record companies for advertising and marketing."
Two comments about that.
First, it's obvious that people have NEVER paid for music - except when the only way to get it was via phonograph records and tape recorders hadn't been invented - and therefore every music buyer is basically paying for CONVENIENCE in obtaining music when they buy a CD. Also, it should be obvious that people are not paying for the MUSIC, but in fact are paying for the advertising and marketing. Certainly that's the way the labels see it, which is why we get crap music - they assume that the music doesn't matter, it's all about advertising and promotion. Which, to a large degree, as any indie artist will tell you, is true.
Second, it should be obvious - but apparently isn't - to artists that, aside from the sports and entertainment industries - where agents are the norm - most industries don't hire themselves out to somebody else for advertising and marketing, and accept a fifteen percent cut of what's left after it's done. Instead, they produce their own content and then hire experts internally or externally to do the advertising and marketing. Just because artists don't know how to do it doesn't mean it can't be done by other people for a specified rate on contract.
Artists need to stop selling their asses out as peons and take responsibility for their own success. They may make less money - but they will be more able to live with themselves by not realizing that they're basically whores working for pimps.
"Ever hear a performer thank their label when winning an award?"
Actually, my favorite band, The Corrs, were dumb enough to do that when they won their first international award in Spain back in the mid-90's.
In fact, they've been slavishly worshipful of Time-Warner and Atlantic Records, praising them in numerous documentary videos.
Today, guess what? Jason Flom, the head of Atlantic and the guy who discovered them, is out, the Corrs have been relegated to Atlantic.UK and gets no release for their new album, "Home", in the US - and their manager, John Hughes, admits publicly that they're looking for a new record deal.
In other words, having been screwed by Atlantic, they are now looking to sign themselves up for another screwing because they don't have the imagination to see that distributing their own music and live concert broadcasts by subscription - in other words, a return to live performance, the basis of music historically - is the way to go. Even though they're probably one of the best live concert acts in the world and their ticket demand at the end of last year's tour, according to Hughes, is the highest it's ever been.
You just can't save some people from themselves.
With the development of nanotech-based computers, that time will be cut to probably less than fifty.
The real problem of course is getting access to the stuff that isn't digital already. Still, nanotech will probably enable more effective scanners in the next fifty years as well. Rather than using once or twice removed stuff like lasers and IR beams, mechanical scanners will actually crawl the object to be scanned - meaning that anything will be scannable, including three-dimensional objects eventually.
Waste of time to make predictions about the future when you don't know what technology is feasible and what isn't.
Of course, CEOs - even those like this guy - haven't a clue about areas outside their specific field.
Making statements like his is just stupid.