What would happen if the record industry went ka-put?

Great Debates
21

There is no appreciable diference between an “alternative” or “independent” label and a Sony or Arista other than scale.
If I am in a band, I can make money the following ways:

-Charge a fee for downloading my mp3 off the Internet.
-Royalties from airplay
-Money from touring
-CD (or othe premenant medium) Sales
-Concessions, promotion materials (aka T-Shirts, bumper stickers and other crap)

Now assume that commercial radio, the CD or some future variation of the CD and concerts aren’t going to disappear anytime soon. There is a finite amount of music that can be played on the radio (number of stations in an area x (total airtime - advertising and promotional airtime) ). There is a finite amount of shelf space in the music store. And there is a finite amount of booking dates and touring venues. If I want to utilize these channels, I need to build up a certain amount of “street credit”. Stores will not risk putting my music out there for sale if they think the CD will rot on the shelf. Concert promotors will not book my tour unless they expect that I will draw enough of a crowd to cover their expenses. And radio stations won’t play my music until they think that people will tune in to hear it.

Basically it all boils down to “branding”. Making the music is only part of the equation. If you are trying to make money, you need to let people know who you are outside of your circle of friends and a few clubs that cator to niche markets.

22

I don’t think you are giving enough credit to word of mouth advertising of music, especially given the internet. I bought more CD’s last year than I did in the previous ten years combined. EVERY one of them I bought because, A) I heard about it on the net (mostly here), B) I downloaded samples of the music and listened to it for a while and decided I liked it, and C) Research tools like allmusic.com led me to bands I’ve never heard of.

There is synergy between these. Allmusic.com is much more useful when combined with P2P networks, because I can actually go listen to samples of music as I find it.

P2P networks MUST be allowed to survive, because they do for other media what web browsing did for print media. P2P networks are the ‘world wide web’ for music and vide, and that’s important to the culture. That doesn’t mean I believe musicians should have to give their music away for free if they don’t want to, because I’m a strong supporter of property rights. But it means they need to find a new model for makign a living that is more compatible with the new way of doing things.

I don’t know what the final form of the new industry will take, but I’m confident that something will come along as long as we don’t tie it all up in litigation and the heavy hand of government. Perhaps new web sites formed by coalitions of independent artists. Maybe there’s a technological solution - MP3 files that ‘expire’ after six months. Maybe the answer is to give the ‘base’ music away, but sell CD’s that contain videos, high resolution audio versions of the music, and are bundled with free concert tickets.

In other news, the music industry in Australia is reporting record sales this year. So is file sharing hurting, or helping?

23

I give about as much credit as is due. Word of mouth advertising is fine if you never aspire to grow beyond “college alt-rock band” fame. Bottom line - as distastefull as you may find Britney Spears’ music, compare her sales to your typical word of mouth band college band playing weekend gigs at the local bar.

24

I would not deny that the days of the Britney Spears may be over. And I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, other than for Ms. Spears.

But I think even that may be overstated. Look at books - how do books get marketed? How do you buy books? Do you see television ads? Do book publishers spend tens of millions to hawk books? Nope. Aside from the odd Grisham or King book, mass media advertising is virtually unheard of.

But some books still manage to break through and sell in the millions of copies. And I’ll be willing to bet word of mouth is a big factor. Maybe the biggest.

Even in heavily marketed areas like movies, word of mouth seems to be a big factor. There has been no small share of movies that have had zillion-dollar ad budgets and tanked at the box office. Other movies have had modest openings, but then picked up steam as word of mouth spread.

Where there is a need, something will come along to fill it. If record companies vanished overnight, there would be a market gap in both distribution and marketing. How might that be filled? Well, perhaps we’ll see a rise in popularity of music reviews. Notice that there are no music reviewers with the kind of stature of a Roger Ebert? Perhaps that’s because the market has evolved different ways of finding out about music - radio, for example. There is no real analog to radio in the music business, so there is no way to find out which movies are good or not, other than reviews. So we have elevated the importance of movie reviewers. Perhaps we’ll wind up with the same thing for music, with the internet becoming the distribution network.

25

You are assuming people are greedy selfish bastards who won’t pay a cent if they aren’t forced by law. This is exactly the same sort of mentality RIAA and other big associations want us to believe.

Of course, with such an assumption, you cannot explain the shareware model of software distribution, nor can you explain why people give to charities.

26

The Web – witness sites such as rottentomatoes.

27

You didn’t accurately read what I wrote. I said “these people wouldn’t be famous if people didn’t like their music”. I said nothing about how Brittney go to be a star, I simply said if people didn’t like her music, she wouldn’t be a star - which is true. I don’t care how sexy someone is, people won’t buy their records if they hate the music.

28

Ah, yes - the “all my friends” argument. That’s ever so convincing.:rolleyes:

Your logic is already falling apart. First you say your friends bootleg only when it’s stuff they “wouldn’t buy normally” (also known as stealing, BTW). Then you say they bootleg because CDs cost too much. Well it’s either one or the other - can’t be both. If you’re doing (2), then (1) is moot, isn’t it?

And let me be very clear about something; I’m not here to judge anyone. It’s really not my business to do so…BUT - if you bootleg music, you cannot claim the moral high ground. You guys really ought to save us all your flimsy justifications. You want to cheat? Go ahead. Just please don’t act self-righteous about it. I just can’t bear to hear that. It makes me ill.

So you think the consumers should get to set the price, and if it’s higher than they like, it’s o.k. to go ahead and steal it? Holy cow, you can’t be serious.

Nice of you to speak for the record companies as to what’s good for them. Are you willing to back up your “guarantee” out of your own pocket?

So there’s a precise “magic” price, over which consumers will obtain the music for free, but under which, consumers will suddenly become honest and pay for the music? Oh - and you get to set that magic price. Sorry, not buying it.

No, no, no! You aren’t getting the OPs premise. He’s saying, “So let’s say the RIAA is right about home taping killing the music industry”. In other words, LET’S ASSUME THAT PEOPLE BOOTLEG MUSIC TO THE EXTENT THAT IT KILLS THE INDUSTRY. The assumption is implicit in every argument we’ve been making. If we instead assume a LOW rate of illegal copying, then this whole thread is moot.

29

I think you make a good point, Sam, but I find a logical disconnect between what you are saying, and what the OP (and others) are saying. Perhaps the big record labels are behemoths that are destined to go the way of the dinosaur, but what does that really have to do with people stealing music? For the sake of argument, let’s grant that record companies are evil, greedy, inefficient, and they like to kick puppies. What’s the solution to that? Stealing music? No, that doesn’t follow at all. When you bootleg a recording, you are taking money straight out of the pocket of the artist who recorded it. So in the OPs hypothetical, where there’s so much bootlegging that the record industry dies, and bands try to market their music directly to the public, you’re still hurting them when you fileshare.

30

Again, that assumption is necessarily a part of what we are discussing. If people don’t bootleg CDs, and the record industry doesn’t die, then we don’t have a discussion here, do we? Please try to keep up, OK?

31

No, they liked the music because it was all they heard, with the videos in constant rotation and those same slutty clothes (being heavily promoted in all the cool magazines) available right down there at the local mall.

If there is a worse argument for the continued existence of record companies, or the current model of music distribution than “How will anyone ever become a superstar?”, I haven’t yet heard it.

People are herd-like because they are herded, they* all buy the same crap because that’s what is marketed to them. The SUPERSTAR is, to an extent, an unnatural and promotion-driven phenomenon. I’m not saying that, absent the machinations of the evile marketing depts of the record companies, there still wouldn’t be some mass sensations…but given LESS iron-handed control of distribution…

Take all the ‘disposable income’ directed by corporate insistence and marketing to the favored flavor of the year act, and spread it around to the bluegrass musicians, garage band punks, techno-obsessive geniuses and see how many artists will be supported by live performance and quality recordings available cheap. Even allowing P2P.

IF the money goes more directly to the artist, we are talking orders of magnitude MORE for them than the current “Let us steal it all off the top but if you’re lucky you might be the next MEGASTAR!”, RIAA distribution model.

Look at the gross of the music industry. Say P2P cuts it in half. If you have a distribution model in which the artist gets 50% instead of the current, what? 5%?’’, you are still supporting more artists, and, I’m betting more variety and better music.

Or the kids might keep stealing the stuff and using the extra money to buy better drugs…I’m pretty naive sometimes.

*-the people who don’t listen to cool music like me.

32

Yes, they actually hate the music and are being hypnotized into falsely believing that they like it.:rolleyes: You really gonna go with that theory?

Yeah, glad I didn’t MAKE that argument.

So? Nobody’s arguing with you on that point. How is this an argument FOR stealing music?

Sorry, I can’t parse that paragraph.

Again, how is this an argument in favor of bootlegging music?

That makes no sense. You’re saying “If record company profits are cut by 50%, and artists get 45% more, then artists will get 45% more.” The first part has nothing to do with the second two parts, which are a truism." To say that massive bootlegging will somehow magically bring about this improved “distribution model” is beyond naive.

Ha, ha - guess you beat me to the punch.

33

A seriously minor nitpick, since I agree with pretty much everything else you’ve said–what you say is true for very small bands and venues, but by the time you saw Wilco (after YHF), they were almost certainly at the next level, at which they’d be booked by a promoter. The promoter pays an “artist fee” to the artist and sees to it that all the conditions required by the artist’s contract are met. He then makes the arrangements with the venue, sets ticket prices, etc.

What you describe may very well have been true the last time I saw Wilco–in 1997, on the tour for Being There, when I paid ten bucks to stand three feet from Jeff Tweedy at Lynagh’s. (Then again, even bands playing small venues like that one will often work on an “artist fee” basis, with the venue also acting as the promoter.) (Yeah, I’ve done a bit of this.)

Dr. J

34

You haven’t addressed the second part of my post, which rips a big gap in this assumption.

35

It’s not my assumption, it’s the OPs assumption. Why would you want me to address it?

FIRST SEVEN WORDS OF THIS THREAD:

"So let’s say the RIAA is right"

THAT’S what we’re discussing. You can’t selectively apply a conditional premise only to your side of the argument. You can’t say, “Music bootlegging is good because if people bootleg, they will drive the record companies out of business, and then it will be better because people don’t bootleg.” That is nonsensical. You can’t have it both ways.

If the sun goes nova, the Earth won’t be destroyed, because the sun didn’t go nova.:wink:

If, as you imply, people are benevolent towards recording artists, and don’t illegally copy music, then this whole discussion is moot. Also, if people aren’t illegally copying music, then they have no reason to object to anyone telling them not to. If you aren’t doing it, then obviously the record industry’s warnings do not apply to you. So what’s all the hubbub, bub?

(Although I think it would be very telling if we could examine the hard drive of everyone participating in this thread, to see how many music files they have that weren’t paid for.)

36

So far, I’ve presented all sorts of evidence for my case that the RIAA’s legal actions to shut down P2P networks are a bad idea. I’ve posted cites showing that in fact album sales are hitting new records. We have testimony from artists that file sharing benefits them. We have a music industry that seems to me to be seriously revitalized - the combination of P2P, MP3 players, and computers is giving people access to music they never had before.

And that’s the key - access. What gets lost in these discussions sometimes is the fact that, issues of piracy aside, P2P networks give us serious value.

Take my situation. I can afford CDs. The cost doesn’t bother me. I could buy 100 a month if I wanted to. I believe in paying for what I use. I don’t buy into any of the goofy “information should be freeee!” arguments. Nor do I buy the argument that people have a ‘right’ to download music if the record company doesn’t sell it to them at a price they want to pay.

But I am a pretty heavy user of file sharing networks. Why? For the same reason I’m a heavy user of the web. I love listening to new music. I love learning about musical styles. I love browsing music in a directed fashion. This is flatly impossible to do with any other distribution model than P2P.

For instance, I’ll go to allmusic.com and look up a band I really like. The band bio will list influences, roots, covers, etc. I’ll follow an ‘influenced by’ thread to an artist I’ve never heard. Maybe one of the albums has a 5 star review, or is described as being influential for the genre. So I’ll go download it and listen to it while I follow the roots of THAT band. Doing this, you can follow the progression of Rock back through rockabilly, country, blues, etc. You can start to learn how it evolved. This has serious educational value. The only other way I could do this would be to go to the library - and the collection there will be 1/1000 of what I can find online.

My personal rule is that I’ll listen to an artist while I’m researching that thread. When I’m done, the songs will stay on my machine for a week or so. If I find I’m listening to it again, I go straight to the record store and buy the CD. If I really, really like the band, I’ll buy several copies of the CD and give them away as presents, because I like turning people on to new music. I have personally purchased everything Warren Zevon has written at least five or six times. I think I’ve given away three or four copies of YHF.

This year alone I’ve purchased probably two dozen CDs, most by artists I had never even heard of a year before. I’ve been to three concerts, when I had only been to two concerts in the previous ten years. I’m one of those guys who had a CD collection made up entirely of acts from the 70’s and 80’s, plus older stuff like classical and blues. The modern music industry had completely lost me as a customer. The only radio I listened to was classic rock, classical, or blues. P2P networks made me a fan again. I not only buy the CDs again, I also buy concert DVDs, go to concerts, buy magazines like Rolling Stone, etc. File sharing brought me back. I happen to know the same is true for a half a dozen people I know. For us, file sharing didn’t mean the difference between buying CDs or stealing them - it made the difference between buying new music again or simply not listening to any of it.

Whatever the new music landscape turns out to be, if we lose the ability to bring the kind of power and access to music that the web has brought to print and visual media, we will be much poorer for it. That’s why I strongly believe that whatever model the record company comes up with for surviving, it has to include some way to allow people to browse the entire musical landscape. Our culture will be much stronger for it, and the music industry will be stronger for it. Maybe not the big record labels - unless they learn to adapt. But certainly music as a whole will have as much or more influence in our lives as it did before.

And it’s not like the entertainment industry has a great track record of making good decisions around these issues. When cassette tapes came out, the record industry tried to legislate them away. When they finally gave up and embraced the technology they found a whole new revenue stream that made up for sales losses to copying. Not ones to learn a good lesson, they did the same thing with DAT and Minidisc, and pretty much killed that industry before it got off the ground. The movie industry tried to do the same thing with videotape. That didn’t work. So then they tried to sell their movies for $70 a copy, and that fell flat. When video rental stores opened up, the movie industry tried to shut them down with litigation. They failed, and eventually made huge profit from video tape sales. Then DVDs came along, and again the entertainment industry tried to fight that, worried that if people had access to high quality DVDs they wouldn’t go to movies anymore. It turned out that DVD sales just added to their revenue. Now they’re trying to hamstring the HDTV industry with new regulations that make it impossible for people to enjoy content the way they want. They don’t seem to learn.

37

Sam, I agree with you that selling music over the web is a good idea, but I’m a little confused as to your point. You sort of seem to be conflating the 2 completely different ideas of selling music on the internet, and free file-sharing. If I’m not mistaken, the record industry objects to the illegal file-sharing, not necessarily the idea of marketing music on the web. Are the two necessarily inseperable as concepts? It seems to me that if a band wants to sell its stuff on the internet, they set up a web site and charge a fee to download the songs. That’s not at all the same as people sharing files with each other for free. And if a band does wish to give out free samples, what’s stopping them? For example, I heard the band Millencolin on a TV commercial and kind of liked their sound, so I checked out their website where they offer free downloads of their music.

Maybe we’re just agreeing and I don’t realize it, but why isn’t your distribution model feasible without Napster-like sites where people steal the songs?

And by the way, how can you say the RIAA is doing the wrong thing, if as you say - “in fact album sales are hitting new records”? If sales are at record highs, then I would say that’s ipso facto proof that they are doing the right thing.

38

It’s the difference between a library and a bookstore. Books exist in both, but a library has many uses a bookstore doesn’t, because you can browse books in the bookstore, borrow them, read them through, etc. That allows you to do more casual reading than if you had to buy the book outright before you listened to it.

If you charge for the music, then people can’t surf the music space on the web. Just as if you charged for web page views, people couldn’t surf the web.

On the whole, do you think public libraries have increased or decreased book sales?

39

Because file sharing networks are still huge. Their policy so far has not shut down file sharing, and yet they are posting record sales.

40

Quote:

Well…I’m more familiar with my failings than you are.Gives me an advantage. Sadly, I am probably bringing you up to speed on them…ah…kinda nice to be a noob again…