Why the Record Industry Doesn't Stand a Chance

Newhouse News Service ^ | Aug. 19, 2003 | JAMES LILEKS

[WOSG]

"We kill the music industry, and we wipe out a HUGE contributor to the socialist democrats in this country. We also wipe out a huge negative influence on popular culture. We minimize people like Madonna, Sheryl crow, etc by wiping out the music industry. After that is accomplished we can wipe the floor with the movie industry. This would be a good thing for the same reasons. "

Interesting point!!!

[WOSG]

"And unlike every product on earth, the RIAA doesn't feel that music get's less valuable over time. Why is the Beatles 'White Album' still selling for $29?? Don't tell that it's due to 'advertising costs'."

Yikes... at least let's cut the copyright time limits back down to what they were before Disney paid off Congress to make it 90years. That is absurd.

[WOSG]

Nice pic of the great Beethoven. I saved it ... ooops, is that theft?? :-)

[WOSG]

Consider:

With MP3 format, you can put 10x the music on a CD-R disc.
Each CD-R (writeonce) disk costs only 10 cents.
So ten albums in one disk. 100 albums on $1 of discs.

I put my entire classical music inventory of scads of CDs into 6 CD-Rs. And on my computer. far more convenient than lugging all the original CDs around.

Once they make a DVD format for music (or just put mp3s onto a DVD disc?) you are talking huge amount of music on one format.

No change? How long can RIAA charge $15 for something that a kid can do 10 times as much of for 10 cents?

[George W. Bush]

I don't feel like an invulnerable superman, I just know Gannett. If they felt they could make money sueing FR they'd do it. They aren't, that means they don't think they'd win. I'll believe Gannett's lawyers over you, no offense but they've got a proven track record.

But DTV waited a number of years before it started on lawsuits. It had no better legal basis by waiting except it could go after Canadians a little better. However, the servers just fled to the Caribbean or Europe or Asia. Didn't help anyway. But the waiting did increase the size of the final haul. In cases like this, you make more money by letting more people expose themselves to the liability.

I'm not sure if you understand how this works. It's a lawyer-assisted con game. You just don't think like a lawyer who is after millions.

RIAA and DTV provide a strong track record for big corporations and their lawyer partners to pursue the kind of legal strategy I'm outlining here. You're basically saying that if they haven't sued us yet, they never can. I think that's too optimistic. To say the least.

[WOSG]

"Besides, protecting the outdated business model of an industry that exists by sucking vast sums of money from entertainment that glorifies copkilling, rape, defying parents, using drugs, sluttery, illegitimacy, etc. while giving the artists almost nothing but the right to make money from touring shouldn't really head the list on the conservative agenda."

I agree that ending the dominance of the Hollywood/media culture may indeed be GOOD for our culture.

[George W. Bush]

My grandmother has about 100 pounds of those German sheet music books, they're the source of much family consternation in the eventuality of her demise (none of us want them, the only family member that inherited any of her talent is estranged from the family). Maybe I'll look you up.

Please, please do. But your own family member, even if estranged, should be given consideration to receive them. They would have a special meaning for them.

I'm preserving my great-aunt Leota's music books from the 1920's and 1930's already including some rare copies of The Etude, a music teachers/concert performers magazine of the era.

Old sheet music always can find a home with me.

[WOSG]

"Clear Channel is pretty close to a monopoly. Within talk radio they aren't so bad, but within music radio they're terrible, very vanilla. They use cookie cutter concepts and don't like their channels to take listeners from each other pushing to get all their channels within a genre roughly the same number of listeners. As bad as music radio was before Clear Channel makes many whistful for that time."

If you dont like 'em turn 'em off, or get XM or Sirius, or listen to your own burned CDs, or listen to internet radio, ...

sounds like you are there already. i like bluegrass and could never hear it, but they an internet station that has it.

[upchuck]

The RIAA is cryin' about copyright. But that's just a cover. They are really cryin' about all the money they're loosing to downloaders.

But they're STOOPID!!

If the RIAA sponsored a humongous data base of just about every song ever recorded, would you pay $1/song to download? I would, gladly. And the RIAA and the recording artists would make a ton of money.

The RIAA and the airline industry have the same problem: Their business model is broken and they're too dumb to figure out a fix.

[general_re]

That's not what I was indicating, don't twist my words

Easy, FRiend. I know that's not what you meant - it was just fun to jump on that little logic train for a minute ;)

We seem to wind up having this same discussion every few months or so for some reason, but I still don't see any reason why recorded music can't become effectively a loss-leader for musicians, released purely for the sake of promotion - recording and editing equipment in this digital age has gotten cheap enough that you can put together a very decent little home studio for under $10,000 these days, rather than paying some talentless putz $250 an hour for the privilege of borrowing his space. And then the real source of income becomes live performances - club dates, music festivals, and so forth - and merchandising. T-shirts are already a pretty fat moneymaker for many artists, since they can usually negotiate a much more lucrative arrangement on that sort of thing than with the kinds of contracts the record companies hand out. Free music from the web and P2P networks, t-shirts, posters, keychains and other trinkets, and CD's from online sales. Local clubs and concerts to start building a following, and word-of-mouth for the rest, or finance your own ad campaign if you want. Save your nickels and send out demo CDs to clubs and festivals around your area, your state - and if you're ambitious, around the country - to set up your own bookings. Hire yourself out as a songwriter - lots of classical music was written on commission for wealthy patrons, as you noted. And have a day job if you need to - nobody has a right to have a full-time career as a musician, just the right to pursue a full-time career as a musician.

No, nobody's ever done it that way from the ground up - Jimmy Buffett has a model that's very close to this nowadays, but of course he had a record company backing him at the beginning. But that's hardly proof that it can't be done from scratch too. The only way to know for sure is to try it and see - essentially, the only major difference is that musicians will be a lot more like any other small businessman than they ever have been before. Some will have the talent and luck to make it big and break through on a national or international level, some will have a devoted band of hardcore fans, some will do it as a sidelight, without worrying too much about the money it doesn't bring in, and some will never go anywhere and fold up shop - pretty much just like it is now, except without the middleman. It's been done before in other artistic fields - I have a couple of friends who are in the process of building a full-blown performing-arts company, including recruiting performers, finding rehearsal and production space, promoting themselves, and drumming up the funding they need. Music, dance, theater - they're doing the whole nine yards here. And if stuff like that can be done - and it is being done, all the time - then there's no reason that four or five guys with a decent backbeat can't do the same sort of thing.

It'll be fat times for concert promoters and organizers, at least. Not that concert promoters don't have their fair share of A&R-type scumbags either ;)

[upchuck]

They're located in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank.

Jenin is NOT a refugee camp. Jenin is a full fledged city with streets, houses and probably running water and sewers.

[George W. Bush]

I agree that ending the dominance of the Hollywood/media culture may indeed be GOOD for our culture.

Exactly. And this is why it's a good topic for FR.

The liberal media machine can't spew liberal venom and give money to Dim candidates for long if we destroy their business model.

And isn't the whole celebrity/rockstar/moviestar business so twentieth century, so passé? It's schlock, a bad hangover from the Fifties and Sixties. For that alone, it deserves to die.

Besides, the industry's manufactured product has so little variety or novelty considering all the time and money wasted on it.

[HP8753]

An analog recording off MTV or VH1 seems of better quality than a lot of the MP3's you can download from some of these sites

[Havoc]

Something the morons from RIAA overlook is that I subscribe to digital radio from my cable provider. I pay for the right to hear music day after day. I can record it from there, I can record it off the radio or I can download an mpg and listen to it. If I'm paying for the service to begin with, then this isn't about whether money is being made or not. Indeed, I have 2 200 cd albums full of original music bought and paid for, plus over 500 cassette tapes. And they're bothered that I should have mpeg versions of the stuff I've already paid for - in some cases two or three times already.

This isn't about them losing money, it's about control. Just as with the DVD market. Shouting about lost profit is the same ploy used in the MPAA case against CSS. It wasn't about profit, it was about control. The MPAA didn't want
someone making an open source driver for the dvd format to be viewed on the Linux platform. They wanted to license the player. And you can't license something that someone else produces. They only want you to be able to listen to music in ways they define. Period.

Treating me like a thief because I have originals of All of Billy Joel's albums on Cassette and CD and decided I'd like MP3's too is unacceptable. Riaa can blow it out their ear.

[general_re]

So what you're saying is that you've borrowed what I rightfully stole, eh? ;)

[quietolong]

Now can anyone tell me why albums that sold for only a few bucks 30 years ago.
Why there CD versions cost $20.00??

[FLAMING DEATH]

"FR has taken their case to court and been upheld according to fair use of copywritten material....political discussion. And no one could say that it isn't political discussion."

So, in your opinion, as long as the COURTS say that you're not breaking God's commandments, then it is OK. What if the courts ruled that embezzlement wasn't stealing? You're putting a lot of faith in your fellow (and probably atheist) men, to interpret religious laws for you.

"There are no modifying clauses in the 8th commandment."

Apparently, there is..."Thou shalt not steal unless that activity is approved by a court of law." Remeber, there are lots of things that are LEGAL, but certainly not approved of in the Bible.

Face it, if downloading music can be defined as stealing, so can what happens here at FR, court case or no. The following is obvious:

Whether in music or posting articles here, two things are true.

1) People are taking a product and making it available without the consent of those holding the rights to such works.

2) The people who hold the rights to those works don't want it to happen.

Now, if you consider music and writing to be property, legally under the control of another, explain how one is stealing and one isn't.

Please tell me how the opinion of a third party makes any difference. If downloading is stealing according to the 8th commandment, so is posting articles, regardless of what a "court" says. From everything I've heard, the courts can be some of the most godless institutions on Earth, and should not be used for interpreting biblical law...

"My intent tells it all. My justifications might make me sound innocent."

You're right.

My point is, it is up to YOU to study and understand what you believe, not a secular third party. With that in mind, please tell me in your own terms, or in Biblical terms how taking an article from someone who owns it can be OK, but taking music is violating the 8th commandment.

[George W. Bush]

Thoughtful.

[FLAMING DEATH]

Occasionally, even a blind hog finds an acorn.

[FLAMING DEATH]

"Your remark here reminded me. Since these MP3's are distributed at a much lower bitrate, no one is actually 'reproducing' any identical copies. If the bitrate is high enough, it's close. But more often, a good stereo will reveal that an MP3 isn't the same thing as a CD audio track (and a CD still isn't as good as a good vinyl record and player)."

No matter how many times I've been told that CD's are better quality recordings, "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys still sounds better on my 1952 all tube, monoural Zenith FM.

Sometimes, exact, faithful reproduction of sound isn't exactly the best option for the music you're listening to. If you've ever heard to songs recorded in the 50's and 60's on all-tube equipment, you can appreciate how much BETTER it sounds when played on all-tube sets...it is obvious that the production was geared toward playing on this type of equipment. CD's can't even compare.

Even some of the modern, alt-country artists like the Jayhawks, Son Volt and Wilco (who, by the way are a good example of how filesharing actually helps musicians) sound way better played on tube equipment.

I've tweaked the equalization on Windows Media Player to try to approximate this, but I can't even get it close.