Music Industry Spins Falsehood (music download issue)

USA Today via Drudge ^ | Oct 23, 2002 | Janis Ian

[narby]

The recording industry says downloading music from the Internet is ruining our business, destroying sales and costing artists such as me money.

Costing me money?

I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing: If a record executive says he will make me more money, I'd immediately protect my wallet.

[narby]

The recording industry as we know it today is a horse and buggy manufacturer in an automobile world.

I think Janis has keyed in on the music industry of the future. Lots of smaller artists, freely offering their music on the net for the purpose of promoting live shows where they make their money.

And who knows. Maybe it will clean up the music industry a bit. Ridding us of the Rap and Grunge etc. that's been promoted by the industry over real entertainment.

[Wolfie]

Its apples and oranges. Major labels are ticked because they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to force feed "artists" to the public via radio and MTV, and they want their ROI via record sales.

[gaijin]

Piracy is patriotism!

Screw Hollywood....

Go ahead and screw them with zest!

[dfwgator]

If a record executive says he will make me more money, I'd immediately protect my wallet.

I wonder if she feels the same way when a liberal proclaims that a government program can create prosperity?

[bluester]

Grunge has been long dead. You probably mean the NU-METAL look-alikes :)

[narby]

Its apples and oranges. Major labels are ticked because they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to force feed "artists" to the public via radio and MTV, and they want their ROI via record sales.

It's a different business model. The days of spending hundreds of thousands to promote someone should go the way of buggy whips. There's virtually no cost to promotion via the net, so no real investment should be required.

Thus, smaller artists can make it out into the real world. I think the entire music world will be the better for it. There may not be any more "Beatles" making megabucks. But we will have good music. And there will be plenty of artists making a decent living with their craft.

[martin_fierro]

I always wanted some heavy-metal band to do a high-energy cover of Ian's "At Seventeen".

They could wrap it up by singing, "At seventeen I learned the truth ... BUT I GOT OVER IT!" <|:)~

[SamAdams76]

Radio stations have extremely narrow playlists and they have taken to playing nothing but "lowest common denominator" music that appeals to certain age groups be it Top 40 (the 12-25 age group) or classic rock (35-50 age group). Most radio stations have a playlist of less than 150 songs with 20-25 of them in "heavy rotation" at any given time. That severely limits the amount of music that an average radio listener is exposed to and limits it to those recording artists who have big-money promotional dollars behind them. That's why the bland music of Backstreet Boys sells in the millions while the sensational music of Nickel Creek (another teen band) barely registers on the pop charts.

The internet has greatly increased the ability for lesser known artists to get exposure - those without the million dollar promotional budgets.

I would agree that this phenomenon HAS hurt the major recording artists because now people can be more selective about what they buy. They can sample the music first and decide not to buy that new album by REM because well, other than the one or two songs they play on the radio, it stinks. (I'm just using REM as an example.) Consumers are no longer getting burned on mediocre product like they used to in the old days. And this is a good thing for music lovers because pressure will be put on the record companies to deliver a better product that people will actually want to buy.

[Grig]

It really sounds lame when they are crying the blues after having so much success in fighing file trading. I miss audiogalaxy, you could find anything there.

If I want something bad enough (like the LOTR soundtrack) I'll buy it, but there is a lot of old stuff you can't buy anymore. I almost finished replacing my LP's with MP3's of the same songs. If some company put their whole library of music online in MP3 (or say everything older than 2 years) and charged 5$ a month for unlimited downloads, I'de pay for it happily.

[martin_fierro]

If you miss AudioGalaxy, have you tried WinMX yet?

[narby]

Grunge has been long dead. You probably mean the NU-METAL look-alikes :)

Oh, well. See how long its been since I've paid attention to music. I'd really like to see some good stuff out there for me to listen to.

Even on the radio. I'm not sure of the process, but I think that radio stations are forced to pay for every song they play. So they do wierd things like play relativly long sections of good songs back to back and call it "promotion" for their stations. Thus, they don't have to pay money for the song sections, and they use the good songs in the promotions. But when they play actual songs at length, they're the lousy songs, because they're cheaper.

I'm not totally sure it works this way, but it appears so.

I live in Phoenix, and being a large metro area, there are lots of stations competing, and lots of people. So I believe that the cost per song might be quite high. But when I've traveled in rural areas, there often is one or two stations playing really good stuff. Better than I can find here. And I think this is because rural areas cost less per song.

Just lots of speculation based on a few articles I've read over the years. But bottom line, I don't like any music stations I can find here in Phx. So political talk radio is the only option.

[Grig]

yes, and kazza lite, they are OK, but nowhere near what AG was.

[Centurion2000]

If some company put their whole library of music online in MP3 (or say everything older than 2 years) and charged 5$ a month for unlimited downloads, I'de pay for it happily.

I'd actually go for that in a big way ..... let RIAA come all together and off a subscription service. 5-10$ / month and I would gladly pay that for downloaded music.

[Wolfie]

Actually, its the other way around. Record companies pay to get the songs on the radio. Just don't call it "payola", that would be illegal.

[SamAdams76]

The recording industry definitely needs to reconsider their price structure for their back catalog. There are hundreds of albums from the 1960s and 1970s I would happily buy today if they didn't cost anywhere from $12 to $15 each. It's crazy. Especially since the consumer now knows just how cheap it is to burn a CD (pennies). Even if they charged $5 for the old stuff, they'd make a hefty margin. They have to be losing millions of dollars this way.

[alrea]

can you say cut out the middle man and go directly to the people

[narby]

Actually, its the other way around. Record companies pay to get the songs on the radio. Just don't call it "payola", that would be illegal.

Maybe that would explain it. They pay stations to play the lousy stuff the record companies are trying to promote. While the good stuff only gets played in the promos to keep listeners.

Makes sense....

[Wolfie]

Pay-For-Play

[Banjoguy]

Without numbers to back it up, most of this is just a lot of opinion.
However, if I as an entrepreneur (read record producer) take a risk, and it succeeds, I expect to get the profits from my venture. The RIAA is way for those who produce recordings to band together to try to insure the inevitability of those profits. That doesn't make it an evil organization, but one which stands to serve the members.
I can't understand the sneering contempt directed toward those in the business of producing artists. They are struggling to adjust to changing market condtions the same as the rest of us and all the while trying to sustain profitability.
Additionally let me add, that in the past, it wasn't for these producers and the vertical market system which supports production supply and distribution, most of the crappy bands which wind up on CD's these days would never have seen the light of day.

[ServesURight]

Rap and Grunge

I'm sick and tired of FReepers dissing rap music.

The bottom line is that these people have a talent and they obviously have an audience and are making their money legally.

Who cares if some of their lyrics are hateful, mean-spirited, and deragatory? What about country music and the underlying violence and sadness it promotes?