Sep 7, 2003
The music industry is fucked. Everyone knows that.
The film & TV industry will soon be fucked as well - everyone expects that.
Neither is fucked because of "pirates" though. Both are fucked because of the uncreative leaders who are too scared to admit that their business models are terrible, and are successful only because the few companies that deliver product have conspired to give us shit, and make us pay out the ass for it.
The record companies are terrible business people. How in the world can they justify a success rate (defined by # of artists/year with albums going gold) to being something like 5%!? It is reasons like that that they charge $15 per cd.
All of the statistics regarding the slup in sales is seriously skewed. I have yet to see one article on the issue mention two very important points relating to the slump in CD sales. Both of these happened around the time Napster became popular.
1. CD sales began to slow, not because of a few people downloading songs - it slowed because most of the world had finished wasting their money on replacing their audio cassettes & records with CD's! For the greater portion of the 90's that's what we were all doing. We bought CDs of new bands, but we also bought CD's of all the songs we had! By the end of the 90's most people had replaced everything they had. Obviously CD sales were going to slow!!! This fact being ignored as it was in the press - as well as by the record industry - by them not being ready with another gimmick (like downloading songs) to get us to re-purchase all the music we already owned - was really stupid.
2. The "big-five" record labels decided to stop selling SINGLES! (they still do, but very minimally). I believe this decision was made because consumers were pissed that CD's cost so much ($15-$19 each) and the record labels needed to justify the cost. So they forced us all to buy full albums with ~ 13 songs - so they could say, "you're not paying that much, its almost $1/song." The point they missed is that most consumers didn't want the whole album. They wanted the one or two songs that were good. As such, when consumers were offered a way to pick and choose exactly which songs they wanted - they jumped at it. Maybe, if the labels had continued to sell singles, they would have slowed the explosive growth of Napster.
The bottom line is that the entire business model must change. Musicians simply aren't worth the millions of dollars that they're being paid - money which they earn only because consumers are FORCED to pay exorbitant prices for the product. You'd think that record labels would be jumping for joy at the success of Napster- because it proves that they no longer need to have the huge expense of CD production, and distribution. Now, they can have stores online - distributing their music 24hrs/day 7 days a week, to the entire world, without ever running out of product - and what's more - the cost of distribution is almost nil. I don't know what other business, with such a prospect wouldn't jump all over it!
Below is an interesting converstation I had with Lon on the issue:
AVTLBinder (4:13:52 PM): this is obvious, but interesting: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112279,00.asp
skalifowitz (4:17:06 PM): 1. that article is a waste of time
skalifowitz (4:17:37 PM): 2. I keep coming back to the fact that the music "business" has fucked itself - not just by not reacting or acting in response to downloading skalifowitz (4:17:45 PM): its because they are making shitty music
skalifowitz (4:17:54 PM): how much "new" music have you downloaded recently?
AVTLBinder (4:18:00 PM): that's true
AVTLBinder (4:18:14 PM): i've downloaded a good bit of new music, actually s
kalifowitz (4:18:22 PM): also, I'm constantly amazed at how much music is sold on Half.com
AVTLBinder (4:18:29 PM): but very few of the bands have more than 1 or 2 songs i like
skalifowitz (4:18:35 PM): last night I put a bunch of CD's up
skalifowitz (4:18:40 PM): and already sold 2
skalifowitz (4:18:44 PM): at $4 each
skalifowitz (4:18:57 PM): by a bunch I mean - 8
skalifowitz (4:19:00 PM): also
skalifowitz (4:19:03 PM): to further your point
skalifowitz (4:19:15 PM): if you've downloaded 1or2 songs... do you follow the band at all? do they have even half the appeal of PJ?
skalifowitz (4:19:24 PM): or NIN?"
AVTLBinder (4:19:31 PM): no i've downloaded tons of songs from each band, but only like 1 or 2
AVTLBinder (4:19:40 PM): the point is I don' tthink they are doing band development like they used to
skalifowitz (4:19:44 PM): right but normal people would discard most of the music -you save it
skalifowitz (4:19:51 PM): either way... my point is that for years, consumers have been railing the Music Industry to change their practices... to stop forcing us to buy 15 songs when we only want 1 or 2 skalifowitz and what's worse is that around the time that downloading became popular the Music Industry virtually stopped the sale of singles making it even more difficult to please their customers they abused their "monopoly" - their situation vis a vis their customer's needs/wants
skalifowitz (4:21:28 PM): and they got fucked for it
skalifowitz (4:21:33 PM): they got what they deserved
skalifowitz (4:21:42 PM): and the film industry will pay dearly too
skalifowitz (4:22:06 PM): I hope that someone in the indie film world realizes that with their relatively minimal production costs that they could actually make $ by selling their films on line or get together and sell subscriptions and make money
skalifowitz (4:24:21 PM): fuckin a
AVTLBinder (4:24:26 PM): ?
skalifowitz (4:24:26 PM): that's what the Independent Film Channel and the Sundance Channel should do
skalifowitz (4:24:43 PM): sell a subscription
AVTLBinder (4:24:45 PM): yea
skalifowitz (4:24:49 PM): and offer downloads of indy films
skalifowitz (4:25:19 PM): I would pay for that and I'm sure most other people would too (who are into indy films)
skalifowitz (4:25:40 PM): and they can offer teasers
AVTLBinder (4:25:41 PM): right
skalifowitz (4:25:55 PM): ie - watch the first 20 minutes of a 1 hour film or something
skalifowitz (4:25:56 PM): for free
AVTLBinder (4:26:07 PM): nah, the trailer
skalifowitz (4:26:08 PM): they're already licensing films for dirt cheap
AVTLBinder (4:26:08 PM): fuck it
skalifowitz (4:26:17 PM): well just now, at the beginning
AVTLBinder (4:26:19 PM): you watch the trailer, and then pay $3 to watch the whole thing
skalifowitz (4:26:21 PM): to get people interested
AVTLBinder (4:26:23 PM): who wouldn't pay $3?
skalifowitz (4:26:37 PM): and show them that there are good indy films
skalifowitz (4:26:42 PM): let them get into the movie
skalifowitz (4:26:49 PM): and if they like it, they'll pay to watch the rest of it
skalifowitz (4:27:01 PM): and once they're hooked, they'll pay the subscriptoin
skalifowitz (4:27:06 PM): and all films are free
AVTLBinder (4:27:21 PM): then they start selling the users crack
AVTLBinder (4:27:22 PM): muahahaha
skalifowitz (4:33:42 PM): I should email this to the IFC and Sundance
Stumble
Leave your response