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.Apples and oranges, I think. The music business is a lot different today than it was in 1965. That's my whole point. I think the recording labels are about to become superfluous because the benefits they can now offer artists are not worth the costs.
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.It's hard to say if it's not selling super well because of downloads. It could be because everybody has five or six copies of WHO'S NEXT already. Or, as you say, it might just be the economy. I do think that fans will continue to support their favorite artists.
>Why buy music when you can download reasonable copies with far greater variety?Than what's offered on the standard CD down at the record store. Say I like this obscure 1940s song and I hunt around for it and buy the CD. Then I've got a bunch of songs there that I don't particularly care for and I have to suffer through them every time to hear the one I want. Or, I can hunt around for that particular song on the Internet, and I've got just that one. Plus, I can find a bunch of other rare stuff that nobody is interested in carrying down at the CD store.
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)I think MP3s are passe. Traders seem to prefer less lossy formats, such as shn.
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.Buying a used CD doesn't support the artist, because there are no royalties paid on resales. I'm not sure that everybody goes to the trouble to make cds, either. Traders in The Who community seem to do that to make trading easy, but I suspect that many downloaders use MP3 players and computer drives to hold their files, and maybe they program them to play randomly like radio or whatever. I notice that large capacity storage devices advertise lots of space for your mp3 collection.
>When the big record labels can't make billions of dollarsBut they charge those costs back to the artist, and it's stuff that might be contracted separately at lower cost. If I were an artist, I'd be very suspicious of their accounting.
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.Pete puts music out for us by himself, as do other artists, on their own label. From what these artists say, it's better to be in control of it yourself.
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.'NSync. Britney Spears. Manufactured entertainment acts are definitely lower risk. But this emphasis makes the labels less useful to serious artists who will be supported by their fans for the long term.
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?No, but again, times they are a changin'. I'm saying that signing shouldn't be taken as the criterion of success these days.
Times of great profit for the labels were the times when they took more chances, gave us more variety to chose from.But the risks weren't the reason for their profit. They had solid control of the recording and distribution network in those days, so they could afford to take chances. Huge profits were assured. Now the labels are in trouble. They've lost control of both recording and distribution, and there's terrific competition for market share in the recordings industry--who's going to beat Elvis? They've gone from supporting artists to ripping them off. It's time for a new system.
>Artists will still be able to make money as they always have, through performing and selling their music.Are you saying that a real rock band wouldn't do these things? It's selling out, right? Do you think Radiohead shouldn't sell their music for soundtracks? Do you think Pete shouldn't?
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.That's true about venture capital. There should be a return on investment that's at least as good as anything else out there. But where is it written that record companies are the only corporations who can do this? It seems Roger and Pete got some from VH1 last year, and some from JBL. Did they get any from MCA? I can't remember.
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 cdsSome friends of mine got some made (guitar and cello) for about $2500 and say they've broken even and are starting to get a slight profit, so they're planning to make another one. These are 40ish folks who can afford a little bit of an investment. I also know some kids who are recording theirs in somebody's basement and editing it on their computer. I don't think they're paying much of anything so far. Pete is selling interesting stuff from Eelpie, and didn't he say he had an income in the millions from the website? (No breakdown of revenue versus profits.) These are smaller operations than the system we've grown up with, but I think that's the trend.
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.Yeah, but the legal costs were charged back to them--it's standard. And what rights have they got to protect? Did you notice the housing bill rider amendment to the 1978 Copyright Bill? Anyone who signs is now "work for hire" and the copyright to their songs belongs to the recording label.
>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.
I'm not sure how much these days. It's an investment risk, sure, as in versus investing in treasury bonds instead, but I think ALL the costs are charged back to the band, even if it leaves them in debt.>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.
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.The price on lots of stuff drops as it becomes obsolete. How much were CD players back then? VCR? Turntables? They're all much less now. Plus, I think the cost of CDs went up just lately. I was thinking it was because the record label cartel was busted for price fixing and they have to pass their fines along to the consumer. Everything I've wanted is in the $20 range.
>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'm a little vague on who owns who, but I think Warner and Universal are the same these days.
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?
>Why are they responsible for developing talent anyway?But they're developing talent so they can keep it in their stable. I agree that it's helpful for somebody to be around to show young musicians the ropes, but management companies could do that just as well, and contract out the production, promotion, manufacture and etc.
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 evenIs this a myth? What costs are they eating? Do you think they write off all the money that bands end up owing them? If so, it's a tax deduction and they get use of it anyway. I think what they're complaining about eating is the loss on investment. If the band doesn't make them a PROFIT, they should have just bought treasury bills with the investment capital.
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.
>and K-Mart. Executives have to have their millions.But they don't make their companies billions. These days, lots of them just grab everything they can and then bail. Notice Enron, followed by other large corporations. Management falsified the financial reports, then voted themselves lots of money, froze stock sales so the employees couldn't unload and then bailed. It seems to be standard operating procedure. It's true that K-Mart made some business errors, but this same scenario played out. It's also already documented at the recording labels. They seem to buy out the exec's contracts the same way they buy out bad artist contracts.
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.Doing what? Lots of artists entering the market? What I'm saying is that there was much less competition from ACCUMULATED RECORDINGS in the mid-sixties than there is now. Any artist that tries to write and record an album isn't just competing for attention with Radiohead and Pearl Jam and Tool. They're competing with Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis and Elvis Presley, and thousands of other files floating around on the Internet. It's a new world.
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.