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| T O P I C R E V I E W | | AnonJr | Posted - 29 Jun 2007 : 12:34:52
It seems that Rolling Stone magazine has written an article about The Record Industry's Decline, with a follow up about Speculations on What's Next. It also seems to have captured a lot of people's attention.
For instance, Techdirt wrote the following article (just be warned, if you follow the links to their site, some of the comments get a little... interesting):
quote:
Rolling Stone Writes Obituary For The Recording Industry's Suicide
from the at-their-own-hands dept
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070628/111645.shtml
Yeah, it's not like most of the folks outside of the recording industry didn't recognize this years ago, but Rolling Stone has pretty much summed up the situation in the recording industry by writing what is effectively an obituary for the industry's suicide. There's nothing really new in there, but it hits on a few key points. The music industry is still doing great. There's more music available. Sales of products to listen to music (iPods, etc.) are flying off the shelves. The publishing business, which licenses music to things like TV shows is growing. Concert revenue continues to grow. All of these things were easily predictable back in the Napster days if you recognized that free music made everything else more valuable and expands all those other industries. It's just that the recording industry was unable to recognize this in time to change its business model. The article highlights how its almost entirely the recording industry's own fault. They had a chance to sign a deal with Napster and they backed out, sending people off to tons of other file sharing tools, that were often more underground (just as everyone predicted).
The amazing thing, however, is that the recording industry still doesn't recognize that it did this to itself. The current head of the RIAA, Mitch Bainwol, still insists that piracy is destroying the music industry -- when nothing is further from the truth. The article also quotes his predecessor, Hilary Rosen, who instead blames everyone else. She blames the retailers and the musicians for not letting the record labels change their business models. Of course, she leaves out the part where she lead the charge to sue customers and get Congress to put in place anti-consumer laws that simply drove people away. So, no, there's nothing really new in the article -- but to have the industry's bible declare that the recording industry sealed its own fate is certainly a milestone. Now, can we move on and start focusing on ways to continue to build the new music industry?
| | 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) | | AXEMAN2415 | Posted - 30 Jun 2007 : 01:11:24
Based on most of the evidence that I have read in music magazines over the last 2 decades, the music industry have always had a less than stellar record (no pun intended)of caring for the artist. So this gobbledy-gook that they (the RIAA)continue to spew about the artist's suffering the loss is nothing more than a smokescreen to deflect the fact that they never cared for the artist's well-being in the first place.
How many Blues artists never saw hardly any of their well-deserved compensation for their works during the early days of the Blues? It took white, British musicians to hear, absorb, re-record (or regurgitate) and live high on the hog on the compositions of many a black Blues players efforts. I do not blame the musicians, as they were only paying homage to their heroes, but that seems to be the only pay those old Blues players got. The industry sure didn't give a rat's rear end.... | | Shredhead | Posted - 29 Jun 2007 : 17:27:10
Personally , I like the digital download { i tunes } , it means I only pay for what I want . Back in the late 70's & early 80's when all we had was vinyl or cassettes , I remember saving up my hard earned pocket money to buy a new Kiss album , only to get about 3 new songs , the other 7 or 8 were re-released older ones . Back then , down here an album was $20 , I remember when I was 15 , I paid $20 for Def Leppards' , High & Dry on cassette .
While I disagree with 'file sharing' , & would never condone it , I do wonder if the record industry guaranteed it's success by the above behaviour . Unfortunately , it's often at the expense of the artist , which is something I sincerely doubt the 'industry' cares about . |
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