I just stumbled across one of the most scathing reprimands of the music industry ever to be put on paper… and I wanted to share a few points with you and encourage you to read the article in its entirety. But before you do, allow me to issue the following warning: If you had any qualms about downloading music for free off the internet, prepare to have that conviction challenged…
I tagged along on $1500 artist dinners paid for by the labels. Massive bar tabs were regularly signed away by record label employees with company cards. You got used to people billing as many expenses back to the record company as they could.
Music isn’t thought of as an art form, as it was in the earlier days of the industry where labels were started by music-lovers – it’s a product, pure and simple.
Oink was not only an absolute paradise for music fans, but it was unquestionably the most complete and most efficient music distribution model the world has ever known.… If the music industry had found a way to capitalize on the power, devotion, and innovation of its own fans the way Oink did, it would be thriving right now instead of withering.
I used to reject the wishy-washy “music should be free!” mantra of online music thieves…. But I no longer believe that, because the … ownership-obsessed major labels will never let it happen
So maybe music has to be free. Maybe taking the money out of music is the only way to get money back into it. Maybe in the hands of consumers, the music marketplace will expand in new and lucrative ways no one can even dream of yet. We won’t know until music is free, and eventually it’s going to be.
And, should I otherwise fall victim to the “let’s use someone else’s blog post as my own to make my blog look better (cough… Priscilla)” pithole… allow me to go on a rant of my own…
If the utter disregard for financial realities and wasteful spending is indeed symptomatic of the music industry, then it seems that whatever actions consumers took to correct this market ‘defect’ were justified. The record industries had years to figure out that it’s consumers prefer ipods instead of cd players before they found themselves fighting against mammoths like OINK and the Pirate Bay. If the industry would listen to consumers instead of USE them… they might have been able to save themselves, but it is, alas, too late.
Instead of paying attention to consumers, they raised CD prices. Instead of rewarding consumers who made their artist’s music MORE POPULAR, they brought lawsuits. Instead of letting the consumer marketplace find great artists through it’s collective decision-making … it force fed us garbage in the form of Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, Celene Dion, and New Kids on the Block (remember them?? admit it…). Instead of giving us artists, it gave us sex objects and rappers. Instead of giving us musicians, it gave us models. Instead of giving us art, they gave us the same product… over and over…
Instead of finding real talent, it created “talent”.
Nuff said. Comments anyone?
“let’s use someone else’s blog post as my own to make my blog look better (cough… Priscilla)”
what a stupid thing to say (not to mention childish), like I care how my blog “looks”, I’m not trying to win friends and influence people with my blog, I think thats pathetic (cough to whoever does that), if you have a problem with people circulating the truth, whether it’s via blog, you tube, the news or anything else, well then, thats your insecurity, man up.
oh yeah, and on the music issue, I agree entirely….
just the kind of reaction I was hoping for
yao!
You make my day Priscilla. If you hadn’t already figured it out, I am a professional “string puller”. But maybe you’re right… I shouldn’t goad you on so much… I’ll think about it at any rate…
On the other hand, I WANT to read YOUR opinion when I go to YOUR blog… not somebody elses… so… just trying to help improve your blog that’s all.
I’m glad we agree on the music industry though..
lol. you know I have unresolved anger issues…
goad me as much as you want…as long as you can take in what you dish out, it don’t bother me…I’m fiery, always been will always be.
You already know my opinion. The things I post are to pose another side of the story or issue and to provoke people to THINK FOR THEMSELVES, not many people are doing that these days….(technique I learned from my favorite philosophy professor) and to tell you the truth on some issues my opinion is not fully formed or settled, I prefer to continue to search for the truth and a better way to do something or think about something…rather than to pretend like I know everything….
fair enough… fair enough…
I have to agree. When it comes to buying music the most that I have been buying has been stuff I loved back in the 80′s. These days I can’t bear to watch what they have on MTV. It’s either a bunch of rappers or some formulated band that pushes out some bland music. I used to look to MTV for the next big artist, but not now. And the radio, still haven’t heard anything that I would spend money on. These days I listen to last.fm, and try to find a new band that I can get behind, and then I download their free mp3′s. If I like everything that I’ve heard I try to find their download albums, and I have no problem forking over $10 for it.
Look at Radiohead, of course they are popular enough to walk away from the labels, but what they did was just remarkable. I heard, or read, that they made almost 6 to 8 million dollars on their In Rainbows download. I have to admit to now paying them $8 bucks for the music unheard. Mainly to support what they were doing, but also I knew the music was going to be pretty good.
Labels should pay attention because I know more people that get their music from the independents more then from the commercial offerings. I know I pay more attention to the little guys these days. And in a lot of ways, finding music now is more fun, and I like what I find.
I don’t like the idea of me writing a book and then some d-bag copying every word and page and then distributing it to all of his buddies for free. Nor do I think it right for a website to “host” users who distribute the stuff (even if the host doesn’t actually hold the data on its server) because they profit from the illegal distribution and their business is built for that very purpose. So, they profit, but I don’t. All under the guise of “art should be free”…or “publishers make too much money”. I respectfully disagree.
You have a point. However, I don’t see the same problems in the book industry per-se. They have been more responsive to customer demand then the book industry in my opinion.