Re: now music and economics...

[Zenswhen <bushchoked@xxxxxxxxx>]

>I also believe Mark has it.

Kevin:

Yep, that's the one I have. I learned long ago to buy for what's coming rather than what currently exists. With computer stuff that's all the more true, as fast as it gets out of date. I got the Sony for $230 at Circuit City. But one needs to have some sort of capture card or device too, in order to make movies.

>Everyone can be expected to act in their own best interests. 

Lela:

Well, downloading music isn't in their own best interests. How many Who albums would have been made if the first had been downloaded extensively? Probably none. For that matter, if WN-D isn't selling as well because of downloads, why should MCA release anything else? So Who fans who downloaded WN-D are cutting their own throats! Not to mention ours.

>Why buy music when you can download reasonable copies with far greater variety?

I don't know what you mean by "greater variety," but I could reply "Why buy bread when you can steal it?" Downloading is fraught with problems, from the lower sound quality inherent in an MP3 (I know this for a certainty; I've tested ones I made from CDs, set for the highest quality but easily heard as inferior) to getting half the song or a different song entirely and/or a really crappy copy. And to compile a CD takes time. As someone who sells used CDs for $6-7 (which can be found in most places), it just seems easier to get the real thing used instead of dealing with all of that. I mean if supporting your favorite artists isn't enough of an incentive for you. Also blank CDs are more fragile, despite early claims of lasting longer. Put one in a "CD wallet" for a while and see what happens. Of course, I wouldn't recommend putting ANY CD in one of those.

>When the big record labels can't make billions of dollars 

That's another myth. They might make billions gross (I haven't seen that said, anywhere), the net is very much different. Find out how much money is spent promoting a band, packaging it, creating the CD, wining and dining MTV exects...it's not all so cut and dried. A label is a business like any other. They make enough of a profit, hopefully, to keep putting out music for us. But as you cite, most of them are cutting back heavily these days. In order to survive. Cutting lessor bands means less new territory, more copies of what they KNOW will sell, and more mediocrity everywhere. Again taking it back to when The Who started, given a climate similar to today's, do you think they would have been signed instead of yet another Beatles clone band? Times of great profit for the labels were the times when they took more chances, gave us more variety to chose from.

>Artists will still be able to make money as they always have, through performing and selling their music.

Actually, they haven't been doing that (with some exceptions) since the early 70's. The tours have been break-even ways to promote a new product. "Reunion" tours are an exception, although on different levels. The ones which actually generate decent money for the band usually have $30 T-Shirts and programs, the food vendor rights sold, the band having a corporate sponsor. Not within the Rock mentality, if you ask me.

>Promotion, cd recording, manufacture and distribution--but they've always charged these things back to the artists out of royalties.

I think it's fair enough for someone who offers venture capital to actually make some money out of the deal. And given that (estimating here) 20 bands do NOT turn a profit but instead create a loss for every one that makes money, I don't see the labels as doing so incredibly well.

> When artists can make more money by handling their own cds

It's a great concept, but it's very akin to an author who publishes his own novel. How, then, with no contacts does he get the NY Times to review it? Each and every store to carry it? And, if you're talking about a new band, where does the (estimating again) $200k to make and promote the CD in the first place COME from? A bank? Do you KNOW any local bands who have that kind of money? I know a lot, and none of them do. But having done so, how does he get YOU aware of the music, so you can purchase it? How many thousands of songs must you weed through first?

And, of course, if it's any good...someone will put it on the web and he'll get no money ANYWAY.

>force artists to sign away tremendous rights in order to receive 

Oh, it hasn't been that way for a long time. When the Who started, yeah. When I was a roadie (mid-70's), there were no unions...none of us made any money (unless you were a guitar tech or something). Now there are unions. Now artists have protections. A local MB band (Echo 7, nice guys) just got signed to Universal, and they were provided with money to get a lawyer to ensure their rights were protected. This is not to say every deal is 100% legit, but most are these days.

>the record labels have been able to dictate to 
the artists because they held the distribution network.

Yeah, well they ARE the ones taking the risk. If the band doesn't make money, and most of them don't, the label is the only one who loses. Things being as they are, the labels aren't charging more than they have to. You might not like how much they're charging, but that's like those people who want to trade CDs here one for one...I trade two for one. One for one and I go out of business, see? Yet from time to time I have people tell me that I'm "ripping them off" by asking for two. Forget that most used CD stores want 4 or 5 for one.

>business plan built in the Seventies when profits were easily available and it's unworkable now.

That's very well to say, but if you compare the price of CDs now with what they were when they first came out in 1982, they cost less per. And that's even without adjusting for inflation. What other products can you say that about? Not many.

>would they do that if the record company was doing a good job in representing them?

I can't answer that, I'd guess only they can. Maybe because they haven't put out a new album since 1982, and even then it was on Warner Brothers?

>This is from the record label's point of view, of course.

No, that's what happens. That's how it works. No point of view involved.

>Why are they responsible for developing talent anyway?

Because no one else is doing it? And no one would unless they can make some money...and if they don't have a closed system in place, it would probably cost more than it does now. What's the complaint again?

> If they charge all the costs back to the artists, then they break even

They get the money ONLY if the band makes it, remember! They have to eat the costs of the others, the majority, who don't. And, too, if the band makes it then the label will finally get some money out of the deal. And the band, too.

>they're complaining about in the 20 who don't make it. And they want BIG profits.

So do I. Wouldn't you like a lot of money? Why do you work, if not for money? Why do you feel you can tell them how much money they can make? How would you like it if I walked into your office and told you I thought you were only able to make half of what you currently make?

>and K-Mart. Executives have to have their millions.

Whatever the market will bear. If they can make their companies billions, shouldn't they get millions? Ask Michael Jordon about that. And BTW it's Wal Mart (aka Antichrist Superstore) who is putting K Mart out of business, not any corporate excesses.

>This is a characteristic of the monopolistic competition market.

Yeah, well they were doing it in the mid-60's and it didn't hurt the fact that period was followed by the single most creative time in Rock music history.


"I can kill 'cause in God I trust/It's evolution, baby "
                               Eddie Vedder

                 Cheers             ML
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