Record Industry crashes, dies

[RavingLunatic]

Also, re: the filesharing thing helping small but hurting the very famous artists, I think those numbers make perfect sense. One artist going from 1 million records sold to 600,000 records sold can make up for a lot of small artists going from 400 to 600 albums sold.

[Good Intentions]

If that is what is meant by the paper, and I'm not certian it is, it's simply disghonest to call a cut of the magnitudes we're seeing as 'a small drag'.

[joseph scott]

well, joseph, i've been thinking about this for a few years now, and i think one thing we as music fans and makers have to accept is that the record industry is going through a permanent downsizing. there will come a time, not too far in the future, when selling a million records is much rarer than it is now..

"We have to accept it"? Who cares? Is there anyone besides the record execs who honestly care if the big shot artists sell 1 million copies or 500,000 copies?

Well, the many people who will eventually be laid off will care. That's what needs to be "accepted."

That said, I look forward to when it happens. As a fan of music, I think it will be a good thing. (bummer for the economy and for all those people who dreamed of working in the music industry, though.)

[ellaguru]

If that is what is meant by the paper, and I'm not certian it is, it's simply disghonest to call a cut of the magnitudes we're seeing as 'a small drag'.

It's the quickest way to make the numbers jive. The other way to go is to not bother trying to make them jive, and to point out instead the the article cited was published in 2004, so it was likely written in 2003 and possibly based on numbers from 2002. And then to suggest that perhaps the 2007 column shouldn't be citing work that is somewhere between three and five years out of date as good analysis of a trend for which the last three to five years are pretty critical.

[RavingLunatic]

Economist Dean Baker had a good article in TruthOut today:

It's long past time for a little reality check. Copyright dates back to 16th century Venice. It was a mechanism for allowing writers to profit from their work by giving them a state-enforced monopoly. It has continued since that time, with the state-granted monopoly being extended both in scope and duration. Copyrights now cover music, movies, video games, and a wide range of other material. The duration has also been repeatedly extended so that copyrights in the United States now persist for 95 years after the death of the author.

While copyrights do provide an incentive for creative work, they are an extremely inefficient mechanism for this end. It is most efficient when items are sold at their marginal cost. Economists generally get infuriated about the economic distortions that are created when tariffs of 10 percent or 20 percent are placed on items like steel or clothes. In the case of copyrights, material that could otherwise be transferred at zero cost, instead commands prices of $15 for CDs, $30 for movies, and even higher prices for other items, entirely because of the government-granted monopoly. For this reason, the economic distortions created by copyright dwarf the economic damage caused by other forms of trade protection.

There are many other mechanisms for supporting creative work, such as university funding (most professors are expected to publish in addition to their teaching), foundation funding, or direct public support. It is easy to design alternative mechanisms to expand this pool of non-copyright funding, such as the Artistic Freedom Voucher, which would give each person a small tax credit to support creative work of their choosing.

With the entertainment industry getting increasingly out of control, it is important that we start to develop better alternatives to copyright. We need to think of how we should support creative work in the 21st century and not let the entertainment industry drag us back into the 16th century.

The rest of the article can be found here.

[RavingLunatic]

Wow, another awesome article, this time by independent musician David Rovics.

http://www.counterpunch.com/rovics10092007.html

He puts up all his music for free download on his website, and he says that since he has done so, his CD sales have stayed steady while opportunities for playing shows have multiplied. He makes some really good points, and I think he's on the money on just about everything.

[John]

hands up everybody who's heard of David Rovics before Raving Lunatic's post.

[RavingLunatic]

There are a lot of musicians that enjoy a fair amount of popularity that none of us here would've heard. ALso he says: "Every year, over 100,000 songs are downloaded for free from my website, and many more from many other websites where they are hosted in one form or another." So that's a fair degree of popularity there.

[jebreject]

hands up everybody who's heard of David Rovics before Raving Lunatic's post.

* jebreject raises his hand, looks around, puts it down again

[mountmccabe]

I'm going to batch apologize for responding to oldish messages.  Please ignore as you see fit.

It seems strange to me that no one's made ATM-versions of iTunes yet.  You get that connected to some super-fast internet, so that it has access to a huge online catalog.  Each one has a USB port for consumers to plug their MP3-playing devices into, and the consumer can just scurry up to one, plug in, pay some cash, download what they want, and scurry off.

You could put one of these in every Wal-Mart in the nation.  Hell, you could put in a bank of, like, twenty of them, and it would take up maybe a tenth of the space that a traditional CD section occupies.

iPods don't have an official way of getting music off of them, though, right?  I know/have heard that there are hacks but I wouldn't put it past Apple to take care of those "flaws" in their "product."

What I'm saying is this doesn't really have the take it an use it now and still be able to keep it when you want to put different songs on your iPod functionality that buying something from iTunes does.


Though they could offer a receipt with a code that allowed you to dl the file later into your iTunes or somesuch.


Also the more I think about this I can't imagine the various mp3 device manufacturers working together or at least all allowing their products to be used in this fashion... which would mean there'd be a kiosk for Apple and a kiosk for Sony and... one trying to be compatible with everything but failing, etc.

[diesel_powered]

Just to dig this up again...

Motley Fool says litigation isn't a business model, recording industry should be sold short.


"As I've said before, a good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value. If it starts to pursue paying customers -- which doesn't seem that outlandish at this point -- then I guess we'll all know the extent of the desperation. Investor, beware. "

[RavingLunatic]

I would have no idea who the Motley Fool is except that I've stocked their book in bargain. I have a theory that all investment advice is bosh, but since these guys at least wear jester's hats on the cover of their book, I give them my approval.

[diesel_powered]

They're reasonably reputable. I can't really vouch for their advice, but the fact remains that litigation isn't really a valid business model.

[John]

yeah I can't figure this lawsuit theory of business growth

I mean I'm bummed out I can't sell more records too, I understand where they're comin' from there, but to put it in therapeutic terms, they're choosing the wrong outlet for expressing their feelings

[WhereTheSlimeLive]

My friend who works in a record store was trying to explain to me how the RIAA think that Ringles (ringtone singles) are going to be the saving grace of the industry. I was pretty flabbergasted.

[John]

if you'd seen the numbers from ringtone sales in asia you might feel a little less dismissive

not of the term "ringle" though, that's comedy gold obviously

[John]

I have a Gorgoroth ringle, it's the shit

[Illest Waffle]

I hear that's a pretty nasty disease, does your old lady know?

[elpollodiablo]

Don't ringtone sales make up a ridiculous percentage of total music sales worldwide?

[diesel_powered]

Just out of curiosity, what will happen when the world figures out that you can make your own ringtones? Possibly pushed along by the volume of cell phones that already play MP3s to begin with?

[dieblucasdie]

yeah, you can definitely make your own ringtones for free online.

The real money is going to be in ringback music.  Every morning I call the guy I carpool with and have to listen to 15 seconds of DMB's "Crush."

[Maaik]

Blech!

I just want my phone to sound like a phone.  You know, one that rings.  Though I've got a friend whose ring is either "Cut Your Hair" or "Life On Mars" depending on who's calling, and that's pretty cool. 

[YojimboMonkey]

Find somebody else to carpool with



or text him.  or something.  fuck.

[WhereTheSlimeLive]

Ringles are something different.  They are CDs you buy which have like a B-side and probably some code to download the ringtone.

[WhereTheSlimeLive]