The Music Industry's Crisis Writ Large 554
The NY Times has an opinion piece that makes starkly clear the financial decline of the music industry. It's accompanied by an infographic that cleverly renders the drop-off. The latest culprit accelerating the undoing of the music business is free, legal online music streaming. "Since music sales peaked in 1999, the value of those sales, after adjusting for inflation, has dropped by more than half. At that rate, the industry could be decimated before Madonna's 60th birthday. ... 13- to 17-year-olds acquired 19 percent less music in 2008 than they did in 2007. CD sales among these teenagers were down 26 percent and digital purchases were down 13 percent. ... [T]he percentage of 14- to 18-year-olds who regularly share files dropped by nearly a third from December 2007 to January 2009. On the other hand, two-thirds of those teens now listen to streaming music 'regularly' and nearly a third listen to it every day."
Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Film at 11. (Score:5, Insightful)
irony (Score:5, Insightful)
An article about an industry that is dying, published by an industry that is dying. Both are being killed by the same new technology.
Re:Streaming services (Score:5, Insightful)
That aside, streaming music services are at least as bad as the ITMS and similar services for the music industry. Back prior to all that hogwash you were pretty limited in your ability to buy music in single track increments. Sure you could get a single, but you couldn't buy 8 out of 11 songs, and if you wanted a song which wasn't as popular you were stuck with buying the album.
These days, that's not how it's done, you only have to listen to the songs you like without ever having paid for the rest of the tracks. I'm sure that sounds good in theory. But take a look back at previous albums, I doubt most people would've really appreciated the higher quality of Nirvana's Nevermind over their later In Utero, worse in a sense is that if you clip off the non-music from In Utero it's would seem like a better period of work. As things are done more and more like that there is less and less incentive to spread the effort out, rather than focusing on a quality album experience to justify buying the album, that time and money tends to get funneled into a couple of tracks.
That and the generally poor production quality of so many albums pretty much insures that quality music is going to be much harder to come by than it has been in the past. If we get really lucky, all of this will be largely neutralized by the increasing easy of independent groups getting exposure and producing their own work without the suits.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
The words 'music' and 'industry' were never meant to go together. Music should come from the heart, not the wallet. This idea that you can become wealthy by being a musician is a new one and we've suffered for it.
You might like to come live in the current world. Like everything else in entertainment (movies, games, comics whatever), music is entertainment and professionally made. It requires time, effort and money. Just as stupid RIAA's lawsuits against studenst are, pirates reasoning to get content for free are too. Music *IS* industry. You dont get around that as much as you'd like to deny it. Or well, if you like to, stop listening to commercially produced music and go listen in the streets; they're nice sometimes and you can tip those who you think are good. But if you're against commercial music, the answer isn't to pirate it. Answer is not to listen to it all. You're just being hypocrisy and making excuses for pirating if you still listen to them.
And now besides the point, record labels aren't there just to rip people off. Artists actually need them. They actually find the artists that could be something, provide them studio time and sponsor them so they can get their job done, help making the music videos, doing promotion, making sure the actual product is somewhat quality (yeah, quality can be argued!) to actually delivering the products to retailers, tv and radio stations and whatever other places. Lots of times people forget that record labels do lots of other work too and sponsor the bands, and they're not there just to collect money forgefully.
This is why I think the record labels will continue to exist and will be used by artists. Yes, I said used. Its not necessary for artists to use them, noone force's them to. But lets face it, all that usually needs lots of money and time and work. Not a single person can usually do so much, but go work with record labels so they can handle all the other stuff and artists can spend the time on their core thing -- making music.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit.
The latest culprit accelerating the undoing of the music business is free, legal online music streaming.
Counterpoint: the real culprit accelerating the undoing of the music business is:
- anticompetitive business practices (price fixing, etc) that have given potential customers a sour attitude towards music labels
- destruction of diversity in radio broadcasting (something the music industry ironically pushed for) via the death of media ownership regulations mid-'90s
And finally, the main reason:
- replacement of almost all talented acts that produced good music, with hyperproduced kiddie-shit "artists" whose assets are not musical talent or singing voices, but barely-covered bikini bottoms and tits. Just you wait: in 4 years, tops, "Hannah Montana" will be pulling a Britney-style selfdestruct. And neither of them are capable of producing "music" even remotely worth listening to.
The traditional music industry is a buggy whip (Score:5, Insightful)
The artist will win. No more signing away most your rights with shady contracts. No more skimming 99.9 cents on the dollar for CD sales. No more lock in for future albums. Artists are making their money by selling direct to consumers with online distribution channels because it gives the unknown artist a shot. It also promotes better music because when the consumer has better choice, they will choose better music.
The direct sales channels will continue to grow and standardize so I expect the traditional industry losses will accelerate.
The reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let it die. (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't even listen to the radio in the car, just play a CD. Sorry record execs, but your demise cannot come soon enough for me. The RIAA and the MPAA need to go the way of the dinosaurs. JFDA
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi, the 1950's called and they want their arguments back. I know a few musicians who can afford their own studio setups that are just as good as anything you'll find in the 'major labels'. Studio time isn't that big of a barrier to entry anymore.
So do you need big labels for quality? Well, you have me there, no indie label could match the musical genius of somebody like say, Brittney Spears.
The "industry" the GP refers to is the big labels that screw over everybody -- artists and listeners -- in the guise that there's barriers or a scarcity that's just not there anymore. Those are the companies that go away.
"Music Industry" (Score:5, Insightful)
If by music industry you mean anything that is distributed in the form of iTunes or mp3's with a useful half life of a month or so, I'm all for its demise and good riddance.
The vast majority of that sort of stuff is dung. If we are talking about taxing cigarettes and sugary carbonated soda and fast food, no reason to not extend that to this sort of "music" as well.
Once this sort of stuff is gone maybe people will get a chance to listen to real music, in person or played back on high-fidelity equipment.
It might be an epiphany.
Re:The reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
The radio plays those genres? I thought it just played DJ's and ads.
Update the pricing of music (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
You might like to come live in the current world. Like everything else in entertainment (movies, games, comics whatever), music is entertainment and professionally made. It requires time, effort and money
Your argument fails. While feature-length movies are generally the domain of professionals (requires a ton more time), there are entertaining other shorter movies such as Homestar Runner which doesn't even have ads on their site yet has hundreds of videos. Games? There are loads of games that the game itself is free while they use other ways of making a profit. Heck, I can download the WoW client for free ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/wowclient-download.html [worldofwarcraft.com] ) yet I wouldn't say it was unprofitable in the least. Comics? Lets see here, off of the top of my head there are, Megatokyo ( http://www.megatokyo.com/ [megatokyo.com] ), User Friendly ( http://www.userfriendly.org/ [userfriendly.org] ) and XKCD ( http://xkcd.com/ [xkcd.com] ) And XKCD lets you use their comic so long as you attribute to them.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let it die. (Score:2, Insightful)
No, you dont need big labels for quality. But lets face it; most starting bands are low on money, do it part time and if you've ever listened to demo's they suck. Well they dont if you like the band, but at that point you approciate them with different view. Just because a few musicians with their own money to support them can get studio time doesn't mean all the starting bands can.
As much as I know this is heated topic in slashdot -- and i probably get modded down for it -- the big label records AREN'T there to fuck everyone over. They're just best at making everything that work (what i mentioned in earlier post and other). I mean, I like smaller records. Since my teenage years Drive-Thru Records have been my favourite one. They're a small, somewhat known record label thats just luckily stayed on positive balance. I've tried to support them when I can.
Besides the label issues, see my later posts -- I support Spotify and methods for people for free to listen to music legitly. But I think record labels are needed to support the artists.
Re:Let it die. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hope you got it on LP, cause the mastering is compressed to shit on all the other formats these days, and sounds ghastly...
Re:Let it die. (Score:2, Insightful)
The argument that music will go away if the prospect of multi-million dollar recording contracts goes away is completely nonsensical considering that the majority of music in the world and throughout history has been made in their absence. People will continue to make music, and people will even continue to find a away to reimburse artists. This is not the catastrophe some people are making it out to be.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The traditional music industry is a buggy whip (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is some truth in that, but come on. People really stopped buying music because of that?
- destruction of diversity in radio broadcasting (something the music industry ironically pushed for) via the death of media ownership regulations mid-'90s
Wrong. Radio hardly has any influence on what music people listen to these days.
And finally, the main reason: - replacement of almost all talented acts that produced good music, with hyperproduced kiddie-shit "artists" whose assets are not musical talent or singing voices, but barely-covered bikini bottoms and tits. Just you wait: in 4 years, tops, "Hannah Montana" will be pulling a Britney-style selfdestruct. And neither of them are capable of producing "music" even remotely worth listening to.
I doubt very much that the music industry is replacing musicians who would sell more music with those who would sell less. What you or I might consider quality music doesn't come into it at all and shouldn't. If people like "hyperproduced kiddie-shit artists", which they obviously do, then that's what they get. Just like on a typical weekend out of the top 10 grossing movies I would consider 9 or more to be completely unwatchable garbage, but other people obviously have different tastes so how can I say that unless movie industry makes more movies that I would like its profits would suffer? Your personal problems with the music industry are not necessarily the same ones that are causing its troubles.
Streaming in the 80s (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why streaming music is taking over is because radio is crap. Seriously, if you don't like hip hop, pop, country or classic rock, there are -no- stations other than that anymore. If you have musical tastes other than that, too bad.
You could easily write that as: "If you have musical tastes that aren't the same as the majority, too bad." But that's pretty much expected, right? Imagine liking orchestral music when big band took off. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's "crap". A lot of people like Miley Cyrus and don't care if it's not skillfully performed music. Radio, like any limited-spectrum broadcast medium, caters to the majority.
If dislike in radio genres was substantial enough to impact the music industry's bottom line (via "switchers" to streaming media) the radio stations would adjust accordingly.
I think what is increasing demand in streaming media is availability, ease of use, and cost. The state of streaming "Internet radio" 10 years ago was pitiful. Since then we have standardized technologies, better quality, and (however grudgingly) music label support. Along with reasonable costs (free in many cases!), increased access to high-bandwidth Internet connections, and more legitimacy in not owning physical albums, tapes, CDs, etc. streaming becomes a viable media delivery method.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably the only utility the record industry provides to artists is that of promotion. Yes, the Internet makes it very easy to distribute music for next to nothing, but how do you find people to distribute it to? Word of mouth only goes so far, and advertising is expensive.
No, let me repeat that, advertising is very expensive. Go look up the numbers on Google Adsense and you'll see it's not unreasonable for every visitor to cost you (on average) $1. Assuming 10% of those people actually buy something from you (which is a very high conversion rate, more realistic would be 1-5%), and you need to make $10 sales (on average) per person, just to cover your advertising costs!
But, back to the record industry. They have large coffers and deals with all the radio stations, so they can easily push out a $$$$ ad campaign and get airtime for songs they think they can make a return on. They probably don't make huge profits on most artists (indeed, they may even lose money), but in aggregate they still (obviously) turn a tidy profit.
I don't know about you, but I don't have 6 figures to lay down on advertising, so as an independent content producer (of which I am, see Game! [wittyrpg.com]), it puts you in a very awkward position. For musicians, you can sell your soul to the music industry and hope there's some profit left over for you in the end, or you can go it alone and probably reach only a tiny audience, but keep all of the (tiny) profit for yourself. Or, you can lay down for advertising and promotion, which is expensive (as discussed already) and may or may not pay itself back.
Don't get me wrong, obviously the record industry is only interested in turning a profit for itself (and will probably screw over most artists that sign with it in the process), but if the Internet had completely obsoleted the record industry, artists would have wised up by now and the record industry would actually be gone by now.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Record companies decide to "promote" on the basis
of how good looking an artist is, see Brittany Spears or Kylie Minogue for examples.
Getting rid of the "Industry" who are nothing more than leaches would be a very good thing.
Hi. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi. I'm the American actor, violinist, ballet dancer, and sculptor. We have little sympathy. Welcome back to having to make art because you love it, and not because you expect it to be a lottery ticket.
The $250,000 economy car (Score:5, Insightful)
These "music industry" people want the equivalent of 250 thou for a 25 grand commuter car. nuts. They wonder why sales are off, whereas a billion music purchasers know exactly why sales are off, they just don't feel like getting price gouged anymore.
I suggest the "music industry" lay off all the coke and booze for a year or two then come back and rethink their stance on pricing, for digital bits down the tubes or the same digital bits on two cents worth of plastic. Their "per unit" pricing is from decades ago, it doesn't come close to anything rational anymore. When it was very expensive to make a copy for sale, sure, it was understandable, but now, today?? Who are they kidding besides themselves?
Tech advances and much cheaper bandwith should have allowed them to both drop prices dramatically, plus increase sales dramatically, instead, they have clung to those old price models like a wino to a jug of t-bird with ten drops left swirling around the bottom. It's pathetic really. I bought music pretty steady from the late 50s until the 90s, that's forty years of being a customer..then...just finally one day got annoyed with the price gouging, quit then, my one guy boycott. I don't pirate, but I won't pay those ludicrous prices either for some digital download copy (a buck for a few megs, who do they thing they are, telco ringtone sellers??), and certainly not a lot of folding dollars for a dime's worth of plastic with some cardboard "liner" nonsense.
OK, maybe the car analogy sucks, how about computers? A decade ago, what did a decent desktop system go for, and what were the specs? Now, today, you can get something much faster, with equivalent increases in installed RAM and larger HDD and better video card etc, and for much less cash. You gets lots more, for less money, because of tech advances. And that's tangible hardware, manufactured stuff.
A decade ago, an album cost how much? And what do they want for it today? Oh ya, the same. And to *download* it they want similar loot? HAHAHAHA
Like I said, "nuts", you lost a good customer for being price gougers. In fact, looks like you lost millions and millions of customers, and the younger folks are starting to not even *be* customers in the first place, because they know even better that those "copies" just aren't worth what you ask.
(S)he who sings by the sword, falls by the sword. (Score:3, Insightful)
The way I see it, the recording/copying technology created the industry in the first place at the cost of local/family musicians. The next iteration of technology made them obsolete. Recording execs are like telephone switchboard operators - one wave of technology created the role, the next wave destroys it. They're just trying to manipulate the law to defy the reality of technology ... why should this be different than any other industry since the start of the industrial revolution? (oh right, nobody's "profiting" off this change - can't allow anything to happen that doesn't make the rich richer, can we?).
Re:Record Industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're saying that we're currently operating on a 'music bubble', where the labels just promote whatever they choose via payola to music stations to make appear popular, then people buy it en-masse, thus actually making it "popular"?
That the industry is too big for the gov't to allow it to 'pop'?
I'm sorry son, we have to listen to this crap. It's to save the economy.
Correlation isn't causality (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to know what titles people were buying as CDs in 1999. New stuff or old?
Could it be that people were replacing their vinyl in 1999 and before, and that the whole peak in 1999 was really an effect of replacing one version of something with another? I'm not saying that the decline isn't real, I'm suggesting that the curve is much less than it seems and the peak is artificially high.
Let's be honest with ourselves... (Score:4, Insightful)
A little bit of common sense is in order for this topic. A lot of people seem to be on the right track, though.
The main consumers of new music tend to be people younger than 30. The average person in that age range, for the most part, grew up with the internet in their home. Napster alone is 10 years old, and how many million people were using that? MP3's were around and traded long before that, too. I myself am a youngin' compared to a lot here on /. and I remember trading .wav files for music swapping before mp3's were the norm.
Let's face it. No one can reasonably believe that the record industry couldn't come up with something better for distribution in the 10 years since Napster. Consumers have become disillusioned and know they're being taken for a ride every time they buy a CD. I have a hard time justifying even walking into a record store, unless it's privately owned. If it's a chain, I laugh at the older people inside as I walk by.
The radio is being programmed by computers based on how much radio advertising dollars can be generated. There is NO variety in the music whatsoever on terrestrial radio, and you'd know it too if you could catch a few songs back to back. But... when's the last time that's happened?
I haven't been able to go 15 minutes on any given station without hearing 5 minutes of commercials. They even have commercials promoting the station you're already listening to. And, to top it off, some of those commercials advertise how few advertisements the station has as compared to the other station in your town that plays the same songs and to complete the cycle of absurdity, you can bet your ass both stations are owned by the same company... Clear Channel. The people who still listen to terrestrial radio do so only when there is no other option. It's the musical equivalent of public transportation.
It's their own fault no one wants to buy a CD to listen to the same garbage they hear every 30 minutes on the radio, too. Who the hell wants to hear the same garbage on CD's, that they're forced to listen to already on the radio. Nothx.
Americans lost the right to choose what they listen to years ago. The internet is giving it back to them. It seems only natural that this would happen to the recording industry. But hey... the recording industry made a SHITLOAD of money, right?
What I can't figure out is how can they still feel sorry for themselves, and how can they expect consumers to feel sorry for them?
What do you get for the music fan who has it all? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a lot of the discussion around this issue ignores the fundamental fact that most of the activity in the music industry for the past twenty years has been due to the need for the music-consuming public to 'catch up' on the music that has been produced in the last 500 years or so. The industry went out of its way to force us to re-acquire this back catalog first on tape (replacing vinyl) and then cd (replacing tape). The bottom line is that the actual amount of salable new music produced each year is tiny compared to the amount of new material being produced.
I view the late 90s as an enormous aberration in history. The back catalogs of western music were basically thrown open to the public and there was just this frenzy of buying as well as looting (piracy). Now the cat is largely out of the bag, and the industry (in whatever form it survives) will have to get back to reality and balance its expenditures with whatever it actually is producing. Unfortunately for them, without some massive disruption in continuity of digital information, they will never have an opportunity to re-sell that many hundred years of human labor again.
(The previous two paragraphs are based on conjecture, anecdotes, and my own reasoning. I think my conclusions are fairly pedestrian, but if anyone has any statistics or studies as to the revenue generated by back catalog, I'd be interested to see them.)
Re:Let it die. (Score:2, Insightful)
What happened t that Fat Tail? (Score:4, Insightful)
80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That's less than one percent of the songs.
So much for the internets "fat tail".
I am predicting that the book industry will soon find itself in the same boat as devices like the Kindle become more.
chemlab.org (Score:3, Insightful)
I listen to music the RIAA does not own, but they'll still shut them down because they think it's infringing on their bottom line.
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, sounds like a deal... wait... is there a downside to all this?
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't nearly every distribution method on the internet have a "if you like A, 70% of everyone who does also like band B" Most of the entertainment I buy these days comes from those suggestions, since I replaced my stereo with a USB stick and haven't heard radio in about 3 years.
I suppose somebody could still bribe video makers to feature songs in the background of their stuff, maybe 10% of my audio comes from that still.
Resurgence for FM Radio? (Score:3, Insightful)
I read in a few of the comments posted here that many of the users here believe that this bodes ill for FM Radio. As someone that was just recently laid off from the interactive portion of a large radio broadcaster here in the states, I can tell you the only thing that will kill FM radio is FM radio.
What I mean by that is that the broadcasters themselves, like the rest of the music industry, have largely been highly resistant to change. Be it the embracing of interactive advertising, or even recognizing that they now have a lot more competitors than just the other radio stations across the street (Hi Internet Radio!!).
The way I see it, this is an amazing opportunity for music in-general to become much more highly diversified and with more emphasis on bands being local/regional sensations rather than the end-goal of national/international sensations (although that possibility will always be there). Anyway, local FM radio stations could very well be positioned to be the thought/taste leaders when it comes to which local/regional bands become "big." A hearkening back to the hay-day Program Directors and DJs had in the 80s where they pretty much ruled the roost in radio stations and had much more weight in determining which bands became popular. It would allow each radio station to become a sort of... mini-label in and of itself.
However, FM radio has been moving away from local largely due to Clear Channel and its crowd-sourcing, cost-cutting efforts of sharing content across stations/regions. But perhaps with how the economy has been kicking CC's butt, this trend could change. But it will take time, and it will take some of the larger broadcasters taking a risk. Will it happen, I don't know. But the opportunity I think definitely exists.
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, because a band that plays that loud is usually extremely hearing impaired. If they turn it down they won't be able to hear themselves.
So kids, if you do that "band thing" remember to use ear protection. Too bad so many musicians think they don't need it. Many end up being so deaf that they have problems hearing stuff even when the monitors are at max.
In the racing industry the professionals don't think they're too cool to wear safety gear. Yes it does negatively affect their performance a bit, but it's worth it in the long term.
Re:You Only Rip Me Off Once (Score:4, Insightful)
I refuse to give up culture just because it is a one-sided deal.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Word of mouth only goes so far, and advertising is expensive.
In the days of people having 100s (if not1000s) of "friends" on sites like Facebook, "word of mouth" is a hell of a lot more effective than it ever was before - and that's likely to remain true going forward.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't think so. She's from a country music family. They've got a whole different style of self destruction.
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Insightful)
As much as I know this is heated topic in slashdot -- and i probably get modded down for it
Yeah, you will. Evidently 'flamebait' and 'troll' are the new 'I disagree with this person and am too lazy to write a good rebuttal' mods.
the big label records AREN'T there to fuck everyone over.
See, I was with you until you said that. I find the anti-business sentiment around here to be annoying and naive but I can likewise find no redeeming value from the big record labels. Their specialty seems to be litigation and lobbying, not music. They've run their business into the ground with a series of stupid decisions and if it wasn't for their lobbying clout and deep pockets would probably have been replaced by more nimble competitors a long time ago.
But I think record labels are needed to support the artists.
I would agree with that to a certain extent -- but I still refuse to give any RIAA member a penny of my money. I also agree with you that it's not really fair to pirate their product just because you don't like their business model. I've done my share of filesharing in my younger days but nowadays it's just not worth the hassle -- particularly when better stuff is available for a fair price from non-RIAA record labels.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
The overtly corporate and hopelessly generic radio stations across the country
It's fucking sad, isn't it? I can literally set my watch by the music that is played on local radio stations. Umm, Nickelback, it must be 4:30.......
Wow, so that is what delusion looks like (Score:5, Insightful)
The records labels screw EVERYONE over, including themselves. If this wasn't the case, why do SO many artists start their own labels or fight long legal battles to get out of the constricting contracts they signed when young?
Why has the music industry not leapt on digital distribution from the beginning? They could have totally controlled the market by just creating iTunes before iTunes.
But they don't because the music industry is NOT about promoting artists or giving customers the best value for their money. it is about making the maximum amount of money for the least amount of work. Now you might call that sensible business, but it isn't.
McD sells you mayo for your fries as an extra, that is sensible. Selling you the salt as extra isn't and would just turn customers away.
The music industry would wish that you had to buy a CD for your stereo, a seperate MP3 for your portable, another CD for your car, a ringtone for your phone and then also pay them a fee for any blank CD's, hard-disks and media players you buy. That has nothing to do with promiting music anymore, that is pure and simple greed and comes bloody close to strip-mining the industry. Getting the last money out before it all collapses.
Record labels support the artists. My god man, read a book, just once.
music 'industry' (Score:3, Insightful)
That's like saying of the illuminated book 'industry' in 1499 that "the latest culprit accelerating the undoing of the reading business is free, legal printing presses".
The measure of an industry is not the size of its profits (except in the minds of those mythical entities called corporations). It is the extent to which it affects people's lives. I could argue that the recording industry actually diminished the social culture of music, because it meant people could listen to music without interacting with the performer. On the other hand, it did allow more people to enjoy music by the most gifted performers. As does radio. As does the internet.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not quite the case any more, and people are beginning to wise up to it. And the way labels have treated artists [salon.com] doesn't make people want to support them.
Re:Decimated... (Score:3, Insightful)
Every single time someone uses the word "decimated" online, this comes up. Actually your definition is misleading to the point of being useless. "Decimated" didn't refer to the mere LOSS of ten percent of soldiers, as if toppled by enemy forces. It was unique form of punishment inflicted on mutinous legions which involved selecting 10% of their ranks by lot to be killed, and forcing the remaining 90% to execute the sentence. This punishment no longer exists, so the word has been repurposed to mean any large-scale ruthless culling. Why is it so objectionable for a word to change meaning over 2000 years?
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
THIS.
The music industry's days are numbered. They've shown themselves to be nothing but a boatload of evil over the last decade, but that's not why they're going down. They're going down because they have been replaced by technology. As many (and I do mean many) here on Slashdot have noted again and again, the record company's job is two-fold:
1. Production
2. Promotion
As far as #1, a few hundred bucks will get you good low end--but good enough--equipment to put together a few tracks or even an entire album that sounds decent enough to play on the radio. Sure, you'll need some practice and theoretical knowledge of audio production to get a good result. But that's hardly an insurmountable barrier. If an artist can learn the science and art of their instruments well enough to make good music, they can learn too how to record it properly. I totally do not buy the whole "you need an expensive veteran producer to get anywhere" argument.
And for #2, there are multiple outlets locally and on the web for an artist to get themselves noticed. YouTube being a prime example. Technology is making it incredibly easy to self-promote. Social networking sites are freakin' gold when it comes to word-of-mouth style advertising. They're allowing people to share cool stuff with their circle of friends in a way that never existed before. Yes, you have to put in a tremendous amount of effort to distinguish yourself as a signal among the noise, but that's true whether you're signed with a major label or not.
I hope I'm right about the future and that we'll start to see a lot more changes for the better in terms of music culture. From where I stand, the traditional music industry's days are certainly numbered and I believe their actions indicate that they are fully aware of it.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to butt in on this. There is no anti-business sentiment on slashdot. There is an anti-getting-screwed-over sentiment. I don't know when we started equating "not buying their bullshit" with "anti-business", but it's a pretty scary trend.
Personally, I feel that this has been driven by an influx of young republicans (sorry, libertarians) without a lot of real world experience. If you've never worked in a corporate environment, it would be hard to believe how twisted some people are.
Who is RIAA real competition? (Score:4, Insightful)
If we assume average teenager has 100 Euros per month to spend ...
20 years ago, they mainly spend it on music, beer and cigarettes.
Today they spend it on mobile, internet, DVDs, computer games and some for music.
There are so many options beside CDs.
Music industry simply lost entertainment money share.
Few years ago a pool was made in London: kids prefer to stop going out for beer in order to spend last pounds on their mobile phone.
Re:Let it die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You Only Rip Me Off Once (Score:2, Insightful)
Right. But i bet you're not done listening to their music. As other posters above have pointed out, using the "I don't like their sales methods/restrictions and until they give me what i want i'm going to infringe their copyrights" is a pretty self-serving argument.
Except that *they* don't actually own all the music anymore. Small and independent labels have a larger share of the pie. You can still see live performances, listen to the radio and experience the music while following a set of personal restrictions specifically designed to deny revenue and profit to the segments of the industry you don't like. You know, "Walk the walk," like you say.
The problem with the record industry, from my perspective, is that even after I've walked the walk for over a decade, they're still not bankrupt and they still haven't corrected or repudiated their methods. They still believe their best customers are criminals, they still believe locking the schlock they shill up in a hermetically-sealed DRM container will protect the profit-value of their investment. Sure they miss the dollars I spend on other things now, but they are so incompetent that they've invented metrics to rationalize my (and other music lover's) absence from their marketplace. It's a sad state of affairs.
Most artists recognize that myspace and twitter can do for free what used to require a record contract and thousands of dollars in contract debt to produce. Frankly, I think most music fans are ready to embrace building the *new* industry after the current hegemony has been Rasputin'd. Right now, the large labels are just holding back the smaller labels that aren't completely out-of-touch with their audience. That's JMHO, though.
Re:Let it die. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Hi, the 1950's called and they want their arguments back. I know a few musicians who can afford their own studio setups that are just as good as anything you'll find in the 'major labels'. Studio time isn't that big of a barrier to entry anymore."
I have a hard time believing the bolded part... unless these people bought the studio instead of a house, it's unlikely that an unsigned musician (especially a professional one!) can afford to put that much money into a studio. Sure, home recording setups for say under $10k are getting better daily, but there's still a long way to go until they're at studio quality. Most people just don't realize that the acoustic properties of a recording studio are one of the more expensive parts... having a closet full of $100k worth of mics and outboard isn't worth shit unless you've got a decent sounding room :)
Re:Let it die. (Score:1, Insightful)
but how do you find people to distribute it to?
...um, play shows?
music used to be about playing music. everyone here is, for the most part, talking about chances to record and then sell songs.
you go play your ass off if music is what you want to do. maybe you end up making enough money to get by or even do a little better, maybe you don't and you have to give it up.
this idea that you can squeak in some recording time, cut some tracks and sell them for millions is a product of this american idol age we live in. fucking new kids on the block. "paying your dues" was something we used to expect to do, particularly if you were talking about PLAYING music.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets face it, the disposable income of the music buying public has been significantly impacted by many things (IE: mobile phones, Computer Video games
Re:Decimated... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe in Roman times it did. These days it means "drastically reduced", or perhaps "down to one-tenth". Meaning of words changes. Get the f*@k over it already!
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no anti-business sentiment on slashdot. There is an anti-getting-screwed-over sentiment. I don't know when we started equating "not buying their bullshit" with "anti-business", but it's a pretty scary trend.
I'm not a big fan of getting screwed over either. I just don't advocate governmental intervention to deal with companies/industries that have screwed me over. I just don't do business with them. I don't buy music from RIAA labels, I don't do business with credit card companies that have mandatory arbitration agreements, I don't do business with American Airlines (a rather long story but suffice it to say they screwed me over once too), etc, etc.
If you've never worked in a corporate environment, it would be hard to believe how twisted some people are.
I've worked in corporate environments for the last 15 years and my main observation is that they are infested with bureaucracy (too much management), indecision/inertia (we've always done it THIS WAY...) and Dilbert stereotypes (particularly the PHB, marketing guys, and Wally). I don't think most of them are really "twisted" though. I think it's a side effect of any large organization. Take a look at any Governmental agency and you'll see the same thing -- except in those agencies you'll find more Wally's because they know that they have lifetime employment if they don't screw up too bad.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Liberalism rarely survives ones first paycheck and the discovery of how much of your money the Government is taking from you. To borrow a quote, "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."
What is this "liberalism" you're talking about?
Because there's nothing incompatible between liberalism, social freedom and fiscal responsibility. There's nothing illiberal about insisting on a small government that doesn't interfere in people's lives. Hell, classical liberalism is basically a milder form of libertarianism. The fact that it's not represented in politics has no bearing on what it is.
Oh, did you mean the big bad american boogie-man, the liberal who's coming for your guns and wants to give all your money to poor, gay minorities?
Yeah, that's about as much to do with liberalism as the abstinence-only, fundamentalist, intelligent-design teaching US christian right is conservative.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Correct! They are there to make money for their shareholders. Fucking people over is just an side effect. As is producing music, for that matter.
Difficult to really justify that one in this day and age, I can't help thinking. I it's difficult to justify it as an isolated proposition. It gets even harder when you look at the wider picture. Does the labels' patchy, self-interested and outmoded support of their artists justify the ludicrous profit margins that result from the cartel's carefully manipulated artificial shortage? I think not. Does it justify the war of terror they've waged against random people with internet connections? Most people would not say so. Does it justify restricting the flow of music back to pre-Internet levels just to preserve those over-inflated profit margins?
You said in your first post
Allow me to extend to you that same invitation.
Re:Let it die. (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, the struggling musician chestnut. Do you know what? Musicians should struggle, because teachers, nurses, scientists, construction workers, and every other fucker in the economy has to struggle. Musicians, for a brief period of modern history, were able to make income beyond that they were given for their performances. That era is coming to an end, and there is no a priori reason why it should not.
<voice type="neocon bloatbag">
What kind of socialist, troop-hating, liberal terrorist lover do you have to be to suggest that wealth should be distributed by merit in this most glorious capitalist nation! I'll not see our american family values attacked in such an unholy fashion!
</voice>
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to butt in on this. There is no anti-business sentiment on slashdot. There is an anti-getting-screwed-over sentiment. I don't know when we started equating "not buying their bullshit" with "anti-business", but it's a pretty scary trend.
Getting screwed over is business as usual these days. So anti-getting-screwed-over IS anti-business sentiment. Ethical companies that provide high quality services get undercut by those who cut corners, and everyone loses. It doesn't help that every time we try to fix a problem, the Whatever Business Association complains that any regulation will interfere with their racket, er, business.
Re:Let it die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh... I pretty much won't take their stuff if they tried to force it on me, never mind the silver platter. Most of it all is pretty craptastic these days and I pretty much treat the "remastered" stuff like it was infested with the black plague (For more than one reason, even...I don't appreciate being treated like I was a thief or infringer...).
Word has it, though, that Guns and Roses just recently released an album with NO compression and you can tell the quality difference even over the radio. They stand out like a lighthouse during a storm according to the reports from others.
Wouldn't know, though. I've opted out of listening to the Radio because of things like the labels' conduct over the last 10 or so years, the Loudness Wars included in it. I don't buy the stuff they're peddling over the airwaves or in the music stores. I get better from unsigned acts, including folk music artists- and they don't muck with the audio or treat me like a thief.