The end of file sharing

[Mygodishendrix]

 

There is a company in US that has come up with a idea, that your ISP charges you $20 a year extra and you can download all the music you want. They have a pilot program in China and India and it's working well. There are around 1.5 billion users world wide x $20 = $30 billion a year and rising every year. The 30 billion goes to the music industry. http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/04/music_plan

 

 

 

Thats a good freaking idea...

Why haven't we thought of that in the USA!?

[richardmac]

It "might" be a good idea IF it could be done fairly, which it can't.

 

Think of it this way. Radio stations keep documentation on every song they play. They also pay performance rights fees. So in theory, if I am a BMI member, say, and my song gets played like mad on a local radio station, I get paid, right? Probably not. Because the performance rights agencies take a "sampling" of what radio stations play, and pay artists based on THAT.

 

And that's in the radio business where every station is known and keeps documentation.

 

Imagine the Internet. There's no way to even remotely come close to accurately tracking this stuff. And at the end of the day, using whatever type of voodoo accounting system they decide on, the suits will end up with most of the money, with a smaller percentage being tossed to all of the artists.

[kenlacam]

Here's an idea: shut down the music industry all the way. The labels are finding it increasingly difficult to sell cd's, artists aren't even real talent anymore, just shut it all down. CHRIST!!!!

[Poker99]

 

It "might" be a good idea IF it could be done fairly, which it can't. Think of it this way. Radio stations keep documentation on every song they play. They also pay performance rights fees. So in theory, if I am a BMI member, say, and my song gets played like mad on a local radio station, I get paid, right? Probably not. Because the performance rights agencies take a "sampling" of what radio stations play, and pay artists based on THAT. And that's in the radio business where every station is known and keeps documentation. Imagine the Internet. There's no way to even remotely come close to accurately tracking this stuff. And at the end of the day, using whatever type of voodoo accounting system they decide on, the suits will end up with most of the money, with a smaller percentage being tossed to all of the artists.

 

 

You are right about radio stations... DM are lazy bastards that don't give a f about artists.

 

But on the net, maybe it could be done. Just look what gracenote is doing... You enter your song and once registered, on any computer you play the song, the information (title + band name) will appear. It works, so I guess some kind of tracking is doable.

[BlueStrat]

Once any music is placed in digital form it can always be torrented and gotten for free. No matter what system they come up with it will be circumvented and no matter how cheap they make it, free will always win out.

 

I agree with gtrbass: Music has become Pez. It's primary function has become to sell the Pez dispensers: ipods, docking stations and accessories; sound cards; home recording systems etc etc. I found it ironic that 500 songs I have on my ipod cost me only slightly more than the ipod itself when combined with the belt clip, earbuds, cords and car charger.

 

The music itself has become valueless; it's replaced the toy in the happy meal as the freebie you get at fast food restaurants (Now! FREE MP3's with every Big Mac Combo Meal!) Buy enough Pepsi and get free music. Etc etc. It's the disposable enticement to get you to spring for the hardware/food/clothes/whatever else can be bought.

 

Convincing people that music is something that ought to be paid for once again is going to be a tough if not impossible sell. Much like sausage or jeans or gasoline, music has become a commodity about which few people have any idea what it takes to produce. They just know it is always there and there is plenty of it, therefore it must not be that hard or expensive to make. Musicians themselves don't help matters when they offer entire CDs for free in hopes of seeding a future fan base, as if their CDs were like samples of soup or brownie mix at Costco wherein someone will have a taste, decide they like it and buy 20 more over the next year.

 

The genie is out of the bottle, I'm afraid, and I don't see any way of getting him back in.

[gtrbass]

Music became Pez because the industry allowed it to happen. Steve Jobs and others simply wanted to sell more gadgets and the content is/was secondary to the hardware.

 

You really wanna know why the business imploded! It's simple. I personally have met too many highly paid 'executives' who didn't apply any real business sense to making business. They thought that by simply 'emulating' Clive Davis or David Geffen they would become them. The difference is that people like that earned their reputation by intelligent action.

 

The creativity has been sucked out of the business side of the business through mergers and cowtowing to stockholders. That in turn sucked the creativity out of the artists they promoted because there is a constant myopia in the business.

 

The pressure to sell large numbers out of the gate is unrealistic in ANY BUSINESS. Occasionally you launch a product and it takes hold in a short amount of time. Products with a long lasting lifecycle generally take time and money to take hold in the public consciousness. Most important, the quality of the product is something that the public values.

 

Easy come, easy go. When you make it a paradigm that something is valueless, it will take quite a while to restore a sense of value.

 

I'm sorry but the whole populist vs. elitist issue comes into play here. I don't care who you like, but if your 'heroes' are no more or less talented than you how can you respect their creative output as valuable?

[Goldtopper]

Music as Pez is a good analogy. Mens razors were sorta done like this: give away the handles to sell the overpriced razors.

 

Remember when Sony bought Columbia back in the 80's? IIRC there was one major artist who refused to record anymore (George Michael?) because he didn't like the idea that his music would now mainly exist to sell stereo equipment, or something like that.

[dmuzicman]

Man screw that. The best albums of the year were given away FREE online by the bands, and they have been very successful! I'm thinking of NIN and Radiohead specifically. They see the forest through the trees and know whats up. The past is gone!

[Goldtopper]

I'm thinking of NIN and Radiohead specifically.

 

These are bands that are ALREADY popular after years of major label promotion.

[richardmac]

 

I'm sorry but the whole populist vs. elitist issue comes into play here. I don't care who you like, but if your 'heroes' are no more or less talented than you how can you respect their creative output as valuable?

 

 

I have to agree. There are some artists and bands out there that I do respect. But I think that the big labels have gotten to the point where they pretty much only put out Big Macs and Fries. Or Whoppers and Fries, if you prefer BK.

 

Back in the 70's, you had all kinds of different bands doing different things. Genres like Prog Rock still exist, but they're so far underground you'd think they were totally gone.

 

There are some small signs of hope. John Mayer pissed off everyone when he put out his followup CD to "Rooms for Squares" and it wasn't really pop at all. I was surprised the record company let him do it. But it worked out for him. A more recent example is Keane. Their new CD is not much like previous CD's and I'm not sure how it will do, sales-wise. It has a very retro sound. Like them or hate them, they seem to do whatever the hell they want.

 

Then again, I AM an old fart. A quick look at the top selling songs in iTunes today reveals that every song in the list is what I would consider absolute crap that would be physically painful for me to listen to. Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and so on.

 

But there IS good music out there. It's just harder to find than before.

[Goldtopper]

I AM an old fart. A quick look at the top selling songs in iTunes today reveals that every song in the list is what I would consider absolute crap

 

It's kinda pointless to keep interjecting subjective opinions of music styles into this. There were LOTS of people who grew up in the big-band era who probably thought the guitar rock I grew up with (Rush, Zep, VH) was crap. I think it was even David Lee Roth who said that every generation thinks THEIR music was the best.

 

I look at the charts and I see that the biggest music buyers are female. If I were starting a band today I would almost certainly have a female lead singer (IE: like Garbage or No Doubt back in the 90's)

[soundwave106]

 

I look at the charts and I see that the biggest music buyers are female. If I were starting a band today I would almost certainly have a female lead singer (IE: like Garbage or No Doubt back in the 90's)

 

 

It totally depends what you want.

 

I personally wouldn't look at the charts for my inspiration: top hitmakers today are really models that can sing sort of okay, and can be autotuned to perfection. If I was a cynical business bastard, yes, I would hire that young charismatic hot female lead singer / dancer / model, and then hire a bunch of middle age experienced backup singers, session musicians, songwriters, and studio producers (whatever is required) to actually create the background work.

 

I'd hate doing that sort of crap, though.

 

People do make *okay* (not super-huge, but okay) livings (or supplementary income, at least) in the independent scenes and "second tier" genres, and if I actually cared about making popular music as a career, I think I'd try for something along more these lines.

[BlueStrat]

Man screw that. The best albums of the year were given away FREE online by the bands, and they have been very successful! I'm thinking of NIN and Radiohead specifically. They see the forest through the trees and know whats up. The past is gone!

 

Great. You try it and get back to us about how it works for you.

[pjrake]

 

If I were starting a band today I would almost certainly have a female lead singer (IE: like Garbage or No Doubt back in the 90's)

 

 

so we have a chance of making it, then? woo hoo!!!

 

-PJ

[richardmac]

 

It's kinda pointless to keep interjecting subjective opinions of music styles into this. There were LOTS of people who grew up in the big-band era who probably thought the guitar rock I grew up with (Rush, Zep, VH) was crap. I think it was even David Lee Roth who said that every generation thinks THEIR music was the best.

 

 

I agree that every generation may think their music is the best. To me, though, the big music businesses are desperate for their lives and they're taking less chances and that has resulted in more predictable, formula-based junk. So yeah, I actually DO think that popular music today is not as high quality as in the past. There are some very good artists out there but you probably won't hear them because the big labels will take no chances. They'd rather sell us Big Macs.

[Goldtopper]

so we have a chance of making it, then? woo hoo!!!

 

Go look at the Billboard album and singles charts - it would seem that the top sellers are mostly for a female audience (and Ricardmac makes a good point that the labels are desperate and will only stick with formulas)

 

I noticed on your website that you try to look like a "band" ... I'm curious if you start approaching major labels if they were to suggest that MUCH MORE emphasis be placed on the female lead singer, and the other male members become almost "invisible" much like was done with Evanescence and Paramore?

[nwtsnma]

i will say it again, maybe it will sink in this time. the music industry is over. the music biz is over. the era of selling recorded music is over. it has already happened and there is no way to bring it back.

[Poker99]

 

i will say it again, maybe it will sink in this time. the music industry is over. the music biz is over. the era of selling recorded music is over. it has already happened and there is no way to bring it back.

 

 

Already happened? Millions of cds and downloads have been sold this year. You're a little ahead of time.

[pjrake]

so we have a chance of making it, then? woo hoo!!! Go look at the Billboard album and singles charts - it would seem that the top sellers are mostly for a female audience (and Ricardmac makes a good point that the labels are desperate and will only stick with formulas) I noticed on your website that you try to look like a "band" ... I'm curious if you start approaching major labels if they were to suggest that MUCH MORE emphasis be placed on the female lead singer, and the other male members become almost "invisible" much like was done with Evanescence and Paramore?

 

interesting point. i guess we'll cross that bridge if we get there

 

-PJ

[nwtsnma]

 

Already happened? Millions of cds and downloads have been sold this year. You're a little ahead of time.

 

 

the era can be considered to have ended when its demise becomes inevitable

[richardmac]

 

Already happened? Millions of cds and downloads have been sold this year. You're a little ahead of time.

 

 

Yeah. Don't tell those people who buy CD's at gigs. I still need the money!

 

I just don't agree. Music will always be an impulse buy at a show. You go see a band and you love their music, and they've got their CD there for sale. Or the opening act is unexpectedly great and they're selling their CD.

 

The problem is the amount of MONEY that people charge. CD's are not worth $15 any more. And that's not an impulse buy... unless the band is totally fantastic AND you can't buy (or steal) their music anywhere else. Which is possible but rare.

 

I believe that in the future all the big and not so big acts will charge $10 for a CD at gigs, and the little fish (like me) will charge $5, and the market won't pay anything more. I think that happens within 5 years.

 

However, the sales of music in STORES will continue to shrink and shrink and shrink until it hits the point where it's, say, one small rack in your local WalMart.

[pjrake]

 

Yeah. Don't tell those people who buy CD's at gigs. I still need the money!

 

 

well said. we still do well at our shows also.

 

-PJ

[HKSblade1]

I was a show last week and some guy with a Internet connected ipod or phone whatever found the band's music online. No sales. Talking to the members after the show they said "wtf do people expect us to do? our music is online, our shirts are $10, our cd's are $5 and they still won't buy {censored} anymore"

 

If the music has no value, a shirt means less. Musicians created this monster and have to live with it. They should have asked for laws on the books against servers and illegal pirating and all the other BS and fined the hell out of them. They went with the tide and f'd themselves.

 

Radiohead and NIN would have been in the same bathtub of crap if they used the same business model of today and not had label sponsorship. If they say otherwise, they are FULL OF SH!T

[nwtsnma]

 

They should have asked for laws on the books against servers and illegal pirating

 

 

:poke:

[richardmac]

 

If the music has no value, a shirt means less. Musicians created this monster and have to live with it. They should have asked for laws on the books against servers and illegal pirating and all the other BS and fined the hell out of them. They went with the tide and f'd themselves.

 

 

There already ARE laws. They don't work. Stronger laws would not have worked. Technology makes it too easy to work around such things. You're right about the t-shirt thing, though.

 

But the technology genie is out of the bottle. Technology is to blame. Just like with portraits. Used to be you had to hire a painter to paint your portrait. Then photography came along, and the painters were pissed at the pro photographers. Then amateur photography got better, and the pro photographers were pissed at the amateurs. Now anyone can take their own pictures and print them in any size up to 8.5 by 11 that they want. And for bigger pictures they can take a memory stick to Sam's Club and have them printed fairly cheaply.

 

It's only a matter of time before computers are writing the hit songs. Maybe they already ARE. Hmm. That's one reason I am writing more songs on acoustic guitar lately. Back to the human side of music.