Record Industry crashes, dies

[elpollodiablo]

Okay... wait. What point are we arguing again, exactly?

[hannah]

Is music "naive" backwards?

[elpollodiablo]

Seriously, tho: I'm ready to cede more than a couple points in there, but I think the pith of what I'm saying is realistic.

[KJ]

Perfect timing with the bottled water/tap water analogy: David Bowie had a riff a few years ago about how music was going to be like ‘water from a tap’ in the future- essential but invisible and taken for granted. Of course business will survive, but we’re probably going to lose the feeling that music is anything more than leisure choice.

Digital Abundance + 'Business Personalisation' = the Death of Scenes

(actually 'death' is a bit too dramatic, but anyway)

[KJ]

(God, my first post in this thread is so awful. "really interesting article" with a "really interesting statistic"... I hate it when I notice how crap I am and it's too late to edit)

[John]

actually I think under potential new models, micro-scenes might prosper, which could be interesting, but the increasing tendency to listen in isolation instead of communally might play against that

[diesel_powered]

You think for other products, people are excited about paying for stuff?

I'd post a picture of sex, but that would make things NSFW.

[SPACERACE]

i can tell you that if you gave me an iphone or a BMW for free, i would be happier than i would ever be if i had to pay for it.

[KimJuno]

i can tell you that if you gave me an iphone or a BMW for free, i would be happier than i would ever be if i had to pay for it.

I think that money is the appeal to a certain segment of the population; that is, whether they purchased said BMW or not, they want to project an image of affluence that screams "I CAN AFFORD TO DROP THIS MUCH MONEY ON THIS CAR AND ALL THE EXPENSIVE MAINTENANCE THAT WILL FOLLOW!"  So in a strange way, they want to pay for the luxury, even if they don't actually want to part with any money.  Or, to put it another way: the people that have the money want to spend the money, because if whatever they were purchasing was not as expensive as it was, they would not consider purchasing it in the first place.  See: luxury chocolates, specifically some crap brand whose name I cannot recall but their product comes in nice shiny boxes.

And I think that you're probably a bad case example, since I never took you for the Upper-Class image-conscious type.  I could be wrong, however.

It's almost 5:00 am.  I'm drunk.  Who's with me?

[jebreject]

i

[KimJuno]

i

I am, quite obviously, not quite as drunk as Jeb.  I think I need to catch up.  With the birds singing.  And the sun kinda rising.

I don't have problems.  Leave me alone.

[SPACERACE]

oh shit it's fucking bright out.

fuck shit ass christ

[SPACERACE]

by the way kimjuno, i'm pretty bad about shiny shit, the thread for expensive lust is proof.

[Pandeh]

This is a really interesting thread.

My personal perspective is coming from once downloading some stuff to now only ever downloading 'sampler' mp3s from either blogs or small record companies to see if I'll like a certain artist. Over the last few years or so I've increasingly started ordering things off small labels or direct from artists sites, using iTunes (and occasionally actual record stores) to supplement that. To me this is really indicative of the way forward for the 'industry', in that away from the majors at least, a closer relationship with consumers is the future. For the smaller labels this isnt going to be too drastic a change anyway, it's just a change in the way they market what they sell, they've always relied on closer contact with music buyers.

The major labels is another thing however, but they're brought it on themselves through poor management. I'm not sure how they'll go about trying to get themselves out of the hole they've dug but they sure need to try something more creative than what they've attempted so far.  

[Good Intentions]

Branded or not, water's a staple of life, man. Recorded music, however romantic you wanna be about it, is a luxury item. That's a pretty spurious analogy there.

How come the entire Western trading paradigm was built on trading luxury goods?

[Good Intentions]

I think the point where the people who are passinate about music - a lot of us - lose grips with the realities of the market is that when I buy Lftr Pllr's Soft Rock for US$12 and listen to it till my ears bleed, or the Smith's The Queen is Dead for $18 and have it touch me personally and profounfly, less money has changed hands than if some teenager bought Now 24! for $25 (I sold one of those today, and I work at a gas station). The industry profits more from selling more. All the love and attention carries no monetary value compared to every house having a copy of 'My Heart Will Go On'. Music has been a money business since at least the 60s, and in our economy you make money by selling in bulk. pollo has the nail on the head when he talks about how Joe Blogg goes about acquiring music, because even if everybody on this board, lurkers included, bought every album on today's wishlist right now, it wouldn't make a dent in even our local markets. I say that knowing how fetishistic we all are. What keeps record stores afloat is selling lots of copies, not making good music available.

I mean, the thing that keeps your local record store's doors open isn't you scoring some masterpiece, it's you going in every week and buying also-rans, and unless there's a dedication to do this, free artistry is simply going to disappear. God knows, Damien Hirst aside, the rich aren't sponsoring anybody these days, and corporate art is not quite what I think the sole artistic pursuit should be.

The other solution is a socialist society that runs along the lines of voluntary labour, which is my preferred outcome.

[RavingLunatic]

I think the point where the people who are passinate about music - a lot of us - lose grips with the realities of the market is that when I buy Lftr Pllr's Soft Rock for US$12 and listen to it till my ears bleed, or the Smith's The Queen is Dead for $18 and have it touch me personally and profounfly, less money has changed hands than if some teenager bought Now 24! for $25 (I sold one of those today, and I work at a gas station). The industry profits more from selling more.

I would think that economists should be pointing out all the huge economic gains that filesharing leads to. Consumers are getting music that would normally cost them lots of money--and for which they would probably be willing to pay a lot of money--for free. There's money lost on the other side of the equation, but nothing like the gains that come from the insane amount of downloading going on.

Furthermore, you used to have a lot of people buying stuff they thought they'd like only to realize upon purchase that they can't stand it. I'm not all that familiar with the standard economic models, but that's got to be a fucking huge deadweight loss right there. Because of filesharing, that sort of thing is a lot less common now. It's hard to measure those gains, but there's no disputing they're there. But then, 99% of economists are corporate hacks, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

I'm not gonna go as far as Andrew and say that there is no money lost by anybody because of filesharing, but I think it'd be pretty hard to argue that the overall effect is not a good one, unless you're arguing that it leads people to engage in behaviors that are ultimately destructive to themselves (cursory listening, superficially listening to too much, etc.). For people who spend as much on music as they can afford, I think it makes sense to just ripoff major-label artists and allocate your money towards artists who most need the financial help. Like, I really, really like both Radiohead and Elephant Micah, but since I currently have little money to spend on music and can't afford to buy everything I listen to, I'll buy everything of Elephant Micah's and just download the Radiohead. Radiohead's gonna do fine whether I buy their album or not, but Elephant Micah really needs the support. 

[titus a.]

I would think that economists should be pointing out all the huge economic gains that filesharing leads to. Consumers are getting music that would normally cost them lots of money--and for which they would probably be willing to pay a lot of money--for free. There's money lost on the other side of the equation, but nothing like the gains that come from the insane amount of downloading going on.

They're not economic gains though.  Measurements of utility have a role in neo-classical economics as predictors of economic behavior, but ultimately what is being taken into account in an economic study is the process of exchange.  So even though you're having a lot more fun listening to a lot more music, it's not an 'economic gain', because there's no transaction involved, the process has been removed from the grasp of the market.  It would be like someone declaring a 100% pie gain because they threw the other half away.  My first metaphor sucked but I like this one.  Mmm pie.

Furthermore, you used to have a lot of people buying stuff they thought they'd like only to realize upon purchase that they can't stand it. I'm not all that familiar with the standard economic models, but that's got to be a fucking huge deadweight loss right there. Because of filesharing, that sort of thing is a lot less common now. It's hard to measure those gains, but there's no disputing they're there. But then, 99% of economists are corporate hacks, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

Deadweight loss actually refers to losses in transactional efficiency generated by a market in a non-Pareto optimal state.  Googling 'A Market for Lemons' might lead to some interesting reading for you though related to what you're talking about here, if you've got a little time.

[RavingLunatic]

Yeah, I'm not really down with the non-Pareto optimal state stuff. I'm more into the Pareto non-optimal stuff. Because Pareto was the man, you know?

[RavingLunatic]

Notwithstanding my general ignorance you so rudely betrayed, my dear Anrdonicus, isn't it true that copyrights lead to enormous economic losses? And is not filesharing a way of sorts around copyrights? I mean, since there's no direct exchange, may be it's unmeasurable with today's economic tools, but I still think it's pretty closely related to the discipline. I mean the utility and all. Shit, I'm talking out of my ass again. 

[titus a.]

I don't know man Pareto was always kind of a dick to me.

All, "lol d00d ur endowment point is sooo tiny!"

Whatever fuck that dude.

[elpollodiablo]

Whenever there's a thread like this, I count the breaths until t.a. and GI weigh in.

[C of heartbreak]

Wait wait wait GI where did you find Soft Rock for $12?

[titus a.]

Notwithstanding my general ignorance you so rudely betrayed, my dear Anrdonicus, isn't it true that copyrights lead to enormous economic losses? And is not filesharing a way of sorts around copyrights? I mean, since there's no direct exchange, may be it's unmeasurable with today's economic tools, but I still think it's pretty closely related to the discipline. I mean the utility and all. Shit, I'm talking out of my ass again. 

I think it's not such a bad thing to imagine our interactions in non-economic terms.

Whenever there's a thread like this, I count the breaths until t.a. and GI weigh in.

I wonder what you must think of me, Miles.

[RavingLunatic]

Yeah, I just tend to think of things in concrete, mathematical terms, which I think is the only reason economics appeals to me. That and the fact that I want to be able to call bullshit when there's some kind of scam going on to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich.