March 23rd, 2008
It’s Been A While…
But I thought I’d post this comment here, relating to this post at Techcrunch where Michael Arrington comments:
“Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist. Websites that bring that music to listeners are doing artists a favor. In fact, they’re doing them a favor that they should (and will) be paid for. Young artists and songwriters in particular benefit from these services - Until a few years ago they had almost no way to break into the mainstream without getting a label to promote them. Now those walls are being torn down, and Bragg has the audacity to complain about it.”
My reply to this is that one word comes to mind when I hear all of the web2.0 types talk about the next generation of music and how artists and labels should not expect to be compensated for recorded music.
Carpetbagger.
Yes. The old fatcats at the top of the music biz totally f’d it up with Napster. That’s ancient news. But they also screwed it up with terrestrial radio and MTV- building huge conglomerates on “promotional” music. To be fair, the biz was making enough money selling discs for it not to matter.
But it does now. We’re wise to Bullsh!t2.0, where some small team of founders and initial investors make millions in funding from selling to Newscorp, Yahoo, Google or CBS. Don’t blame the artists and labels for adapting to the new playing field. Music helps these companies acquire customers who have a lifetime value. So they need to shut up and pay.
These guys are still just as greedy as they claim Doug Morris and Edgar Bronfman are, the just hide behind the popular mantra that music should be free. Free to the consumer? Sure. Free to those who make a windfall? No way.
I suggest anyone in a band or from a label read the post and leave a comment on it.
Written by Bill Wilson
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On March 24th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Dan said:
Done and done. That guy’s a tool.
On March 24th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Tim H said:
The whole music 2.0 movement is very interesting. As an indie on the outside looking in, it is a bit frightening to think that the primary movers in our industry (i.e. the majors) are considering a whole gamut of initiatives to further devalue recorded music (black box, preloaded ipod, imeem, etc). For the most part, these are the same people that denied the whole napster movement as a fad that could be crushed.
I think that all of us realize that free downloads are a part of the future of the music biz (2.0, 3.0, 6.9 or whatever), but there still has to be a way to get some sort of value from everybody’s hard work.
The real question is, are the people that are making the decisions in it for the best interest of the industry or for their own pocketbooks (see: Lyor Cohen’s new contract, god bless him). I think we all know the anser to that.
In the meantime, I am still waiting for the Kazaa settlement check for my labels and artists.
On March 24th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
bill said:
I think the “all you can eat that expires with the device” sucks. As a customer, I want to buy it once, at an inexpensive price so I can consume more legally. I want it to be interoperable with all my devices without having to get some shareware program to rework it for me.
That’s why I like the eMusic model with some variations. Buy more, cheaper.
But I don’t think the labels have lowered the value of music here. There is basic oversupply in the market, and coupled with uncontrolled distribution via free streaming and P2P, devalued the music by itself.
On March 24th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Josh said:
Sorry, your argument doesn’t wash; musicians put their music up on social networks because it’s a avenue for promotion. They’re already getting something out of the deal; imagining that they should be paid twice is a joke.
The techcrunch post is spot on; the music industry supply chain is broken, and the price that people will pay for music will continue to drop until it approaches free.
On March 25th, 2008 at 11:30 am
bill said:
artists put their music up as an investment in themselves, hoping for a larger payday. that payday is getting harder to come by, and anyone who doesn’t want to get compensated from the ground up is a fool. If they’re happy with the eyeballs they get as compensation, I’m happy for them. But collectively they are doing themselves a disservice.
if my content makes you rich, i want my cut.
On March 25th, 2008 at 11:58 am
bill said:
also, I’m not saying that music should not be free to the listener. Someone makes money by aggregating it and selling ad space on it needs to figure out a viable mechanism.
No company which exploits music as a part of their business model, especially Rupert Murdoch, should ride for free. And it looks like MySpace is paying attention as there is public discussion of a supposed “hulu for music” they are setting up to monetize streams.
On April 11th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Julian said:
Maybe late, but..
Last year I started a netlabel. The idea is to promote punk bands from South America in the US.
I know that is crazy, but that is the idea and the only way right now that I have is creating a netlabel offering free music, but protecting the copyrights of the artist using Creative Commons.
And don’t think that any US indie label will be interest in sign a band from Argentina or Chile although the band does great punk music.
On April 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Howdy Doody said:
Any US label that signs and invests money in a foreign band that can’t come here and work their tits off is nuts.
Arrington sounds like a total douchebag. While the internet has certainly helped many smaller bands and labels, it’s in no way a substitute for a label.
On April 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Pat Dryburgh said:
Why does it have to be one way or the other? Why do we have to choose between whether is free or if it has monetary value? Why can that decision not be up to bands, labels, fans, etc? I think one of the main downfalls of the current/past music industry is that it was all based on one model. Everyone was playing with the same few tools. Now, we have the opportunity for true entrepreneurial exploration in the music industry because the music industry is (finally) listening.
We have this mentality that we need to find a “one-size-fits-all” solution to every problem we face in this world. With the vast array of musical diversity represented in North America alone, why can’t there be the same diversity in business models?
Pat
On April 25th, 2008 at 7:25 am
bill said:
There are going to be different models and I welcome all of them. Is the flat rate going to work? who knows. Is it an opt-in subscription service that offers “more than music” but also a connection to the artist? It’s an exciting time. It’s up to the artists really- if they want to follow their own path, sign to a label, or try some kind of new structure like Sellaband. There will always be aspiring talent and a business structure surrounding them.
On April 30th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Max said:
The whole situation is pretty disheartening for musicians. I’ve played in a number of bands over the years and it used to be that label support, even from very small labels, was enough to get you heard by some level of audience. Bands that I’ve been in have put out records on Mordam (back when they were a label and not just distro), Unclean, and Vinyl Communications. Yeah, I know… peanut labels, but we sold (low) thousands of pressings through those labels and would get decent attendance at shows as a result, at home and on tour. These days, it’s so easy to be in a band and put out music that can be distributed everywhere through web 2.0 type sites that there’s an overwhelming amount of material out there to compete with. Getting heard above the din is almost impossible. In that sense even the ‘liberating’ quality, the so-called ‘free promotion’ that comes from venues like myspace doesn’t really do much good for most bands. What percentage of myspace users don’t even accept add requests from bands, because bands mindlessly hit up any, and everyone, with requests? Indy/punk music has practically become a new form of junk mail.
Add to this illegal music distribution and the fact that labels, particularly small labels, are really suffering and I think you’ll find that getting label support is actually harder than ever. All of this seems to be making it more difficult for bands to get beyond the base level. If you want to be in a punk or indie band these days I think that you really do have to produce music simply for the love of it. Any hope of getting more than a couple free drink tickets for playing a small club primarily to your own personal circle of friends, is dim.
On May 27th, 2008 at 1:56 am
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