1115.org

Comments

1. information leafblower wrote:

   Remember kids, downloading is KILLING the music industry!

   Brilliant as usual J. Nice one.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 9:02 am ¶

2. gijyun wrote:

   $2.49? who has that kind of money when we’re all still buying the actual cd for $20??

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34300-2004Mar29.html

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 9:22 am ¶

3. Coolfer wrote:

   Giyun, if you’re paying $20 for a CD you’re shopping at the wrong place. Amazon.com has a standard $13.49 price for CDs.

   Paying more for a hot single makes perfect sense. $2.49 for a huge single? It’s not so much. And since people always complain that they only want an album for the single, there will be a demand for the hit single. Remember, ringtones cost around $2.49. The same for an entire song (a current hit single) makes perfect sense.

   Jason, what the industry does not want to do, obviously, is lose control of digital distribution to outside parties such as Apple. The industry’s strength is its distribution. Before it gives up control of its distribution in a digital world, it needs to make damn well sure the model is going to work. Every day I read tech-geeks and licensing experts who have the perfect advice for the music industry: work with P2P, issue blanket licenses, do this, do that. But it’s not as simple as you’d like it to be. It’s a terribly convoluted and complicated issue, and at stake is an entire industry. And unlike the steel, rail or airline industries, the music industry won’t bet bailed out if a grand experiment doesn’t work.

   Let’s talk about the costs associated with digital music. You’re right. There are no distribution costs or shipping costs. Sales costs are lower (but not nonexistant). Marketing expenses, though, rise in a digital world. And though there is no cost to manufacture the product, that never was a big expense to begin with. How much does it cost to get a person to buy a CD? More than you think. People buy what they hear on the radio, see on TV and read about in the press. All that costs a lot of money. So stop the bullshit assertion that digital music is some kind of low-cost product. It all comes from the same master tapes, no matter the quality of the end product. Then you’ve got to figure in Apple’s cut. If they’re taking 30%, that’s about as much as distribution costs and shipping and manufacturing. I consider Appple to be more of a distributor than a retailer, because of the volume of its business. If Apple is taking 30% its taking a larger percentage than any distributor in the country.

   Further, when did trying to make money and spare the jobs of its employees become such a sin for a corporation? If the industry takes your advice, Jason, there is a possibility the health of the industry could be seriously hurt. Now I’m sure a lot of people will say they don’t care, but we’re talking about American jobs and an American industry, the livelihoods of employees and artists across the country.

   Nobody is sabotaging online music by raising prices. You’re misinformed and lack the proper perspective to comment on this topic. In this comments section I was once rudely told by a member of the 1115 crew to stick to music commentary because my politcal comments were thought to be less than insightful. Now I say the same to you. I urge you to stop commenting on topics such as the music industry. You don’t have a proper grasp of the issues. What you wrote is the same old partisan bitching that fills blogs left and right. No insight. No perspective.

   Final point: If you think $13.99 is too much to pay at iTunes, don’t buy that album. Hundreds of titles come out every Tuesday. The world of music is full of low-cost alternatives. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and making you buy one of the few (13 out of 200, according to one article) higher-priced albums at iTunes.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 10:23 am ¶

4. matt wrote:

   Coolfer: Obviously you make your living in the music industry. To certain extents, Jason and I have/do the same.

   We’re not communists nor anarchists, and we (more than most who share our political views) firmly believe in private industry’s right to try to earn a profit.

   The music industry conspired to rig prices. They did this for years and even with the settlement they had to pay (a CD per person and some legal bills) they made out like literal bandits.

   CD production (after recouping R+D costs) was much less than earlier methods, yet prices kept going up and up. The public was sold a bill of goods (including sound quality issues which aren’t germane here) on CDs, and now it is going to the next level.

   Paying $2.49 for a hit single is a joke. But to that I say go for it. The market will treat that price point very harshly.

   Ring tones? Please.

   >And unlike the steel, rail or airline industries, the music >industry won’t bet bailed out if a grand experiment doesn’t >work.

   Damned non-essential industries. The record industry deserves at least in part to fail. Monopolistic practices and poor product quality alone show this.

   >So stop the bullshit assertion that digital music is some kind of >low-cost product.

   It is a relatively low cost product. Any assertion otherwise is disingenuous. Subtract production, shipping and warehousing costs, and the savings are not insignificant.

   >If Apple is taking 30% its taking a larger percentage than any >distributor in the country.

   Apple built their own store from scratch. It may even save the industry in spite of itself. And just because you choose to see them as a distributor, doesn’t make it so.

   >Further, when did trying to make money and spare the jobs of >its employees become such a sin for a corporation?

   Are you serious? You know better than anyone that they are cutting jobs left and right. They are also cutting deserving talent as well.

   >In this comments section I was once rudely told by a member >of the 1115 crew to stick to music commentary because my >politcal comments were thought to be less than insightful.

   How long have you been waiting to use that? It was poor form for me to say that, but in that particular case you were swimming. As stated previously, Jason and I both have extensive first hand knowledge of the industry, so your comparison doesn’t hold water. Furthermore, Jason didn’t dis you, I did.

   >No insight. No perspective.

   You write a music blog. I read it from time to time. I have never seen what I would call a solution to this problem on your site.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 10:50 am ¶

5. madden wrote:

   Finding a liveable price point is the biggest problem in the music industry. The perception among the majority of consumers is that music costs too much, or alternatively, isn’t worth the price they’re paying for it. I think this is because the music industry has done a poor job educating consumers of the cost of doing business.

   Look at the film industry. The costs of movie tickets has been rising for years. While there are some complaints, most people continue to pay these prices which have risen over 100% in my movie-going lifetime. By comparison, CD/Download costs have been relatively stable. The difference is that everyone knows how much movies cost to make. They know that CGI fx, marketing budgets, and paying Ben Affleck all drive up the cost of your next blockbuster, so they know where their $10 ticket is going. On the flipside, the average consumer thinks a CD costs $1 or less to produce and the rest is profit.

   I’m not sure why the music industry hasn’t taken more aggressive stance in educating consumers about this. It’s a lot easier than the petty fighting they’ve been waging over downloads.

   The other price point issue not mentioned here is subsidizing. The majority of releases on major labels lose money. It’s the mult-platinum albums that make up for them. That’s why they’re trying to squeeze every bit of juice out of the few hits that are out there.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 10:58 am ¶

6. gijyun wrote:

   er, so wait…i should NOT support locally-owned music stores that HAVE to charge 17.99 for new releases (+ tax = $20, jerkoff), skip the middle man and just buy it off the net to save myself a few bucks?

   so, i should put a small business owner out of business so some 25 year old with a marketing degree can get a $50,000 salary for coming up with slogans like “download legally. drink pepsi.”?

   http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

   though blogs are, as you say, becoming more left-right oriented (much like the economy…hmmm…), so are recording artist. everytime the madonnas take it upon themselves to ask us “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” when we try to download their files, another releases them for free, knowing that it WILL, in turn, increase their music sales (see link in previous post).

   luckily, both polar ends of the industry are entitled (er, their label is, anyway) to release their property as they see fit. i say, more power to them. you don’t want me to hear your shit before i gladly shell out a jackson to support art? fine. but just remember who paid for your fucking hum-v.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 10:58 am ¶

7. information leafblower wrote:

   I just tried to order a $13.98 CD from Amazon and after shipping it costs $16.96. Psychologically, that’s a lot closer to $20 than $14.

   The music industry I think, more than anything else, suffers from reshuffling of personnel from one label to another and by this, nothing ever changes. They recycle label heads more than the NFL recycles Marty Schottenheimer. The business model has not changed much since the advent of the interweb. They would rather sell 2 cd’s at $12.99 than 4 cd’s at $10.99.

   As J’s example points out, online music stores were supposed to provide a cheaper alternative to buying CD’s, not necessarily replace buying CD’s altogether. But again, shortsightedness by the labels makes them greedy (as J points out). Rather than grabbing some internet users and their sales in addition to their CD sales, they would rather jack up the price and lose them and view them as a lost cause or lost revenue stream. Isn’t it better to sell SOME MP3’s rather than none?

   I don’t understand how the labels are losing control of distribution to Apple. If they didn’t like Apple’s terms, they simply wouldn’t offer their artists material on the site. It’s that simple. Now look at how the industry constantly bows down to Wal Mart and other major retailers. Who exactly has the control?

   The iTMS store works, you can’t argue that. It’s effectiveness, however, we can debate. But I think if it was a lost cause, there wouldn’t be so many other companies trying to get into the marketplace.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 11:00 am ¶

8. matt wrote:

   Madden: Interesting point re: movies vs music.

   I think if some people knew how much some albums cost to make, they would be doubled over laughing.

   But then again, most of the music I listen to is produced in home studios or on the cheap in jamaica 1975-1982, and the biggest expense in both cases is the pounds of weed smoked during the production.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 11:05 am ¶

9. tom wrote:

   Re: madden’s post:

   you talk about the music industry’s lack of education about the costs of their product. theres a good reason for that. if people knew how much bullshit musicians got put through to make very little money for themselves while the people who “create” them get paid through the nose, no one would buy another major label CD ever again. i know steve albini has a good diatribe posted online about exactly this. its a racket all around, the consumers dont win, the artists dont win (except in those rare contracts like mariah, rem, etc sign for big money once theyre already insanely established), only the labels were winning. now theyre losing and theyre whining about it. fuck em all is what i say. theyre the real pirates.

   Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 11:06 am ¶

10. tom wrote:

    Re: matt’s comment:

    exactly. alot of the best music ever had no A+R behind it, no advertising budget, no studio costs above what the guys own in their bedrooms. only shit artists need hundreds of thousands of dollars to write an album.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 11:07 am ¶

11. redboy wrote:

    dear mr coolfer…. yer on crack. fuck the music industry and the major label mentality in general.

    it’s the industries own damn fault for being so slow to adopt new technologies and for blowing ridiculous amounts of money on buying adds via contests / fly aways / washer n dryers / you name it (mmmm payolapart2)

    their fatcat ways are finally coming back to bite them in the ass and i, for one, am glad to see it

    2.49 for a digital single is bullshit.

    from an artists postion, yes, that price point is more attractive …. but honestly, how much more of that $ would the artist see if he/she was on a major label? i’m sure any additional cash generated would simply go back into the major’s walllet….allowing it do more pointless and shotgun styled promo / marketing campaigns

    ignoring what consumers want and going about (badly run) business as usual is not a solution

    evolve or die.

    ps. before you say i haven’t a clue about the “biz” … i’ve worked for 4 majors and 2 indies … i did radio promo for years and as an artist i have a remix that is about to be placed on the itunes store (with no costs associated to it, mind you)

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 11:33 am ¶

12. Jason wrote:

    Coolfer — while I appreciate the commentary, which obviously took a good degree of time and effort, please don’t assume that I’m just spouting off about things I know nothing about. While I don’t have a day-to-day job within the music industry, I have had to deal with the industry as both an artist and a remixer. Furthermore, most of my information comes not from my own self of self-righteousness, but from conversations with friends and sources who are very much part of the music industry shuffle.

    I’ll have more later, but here are some initial points:

    1) The health of the industry is already seriously hurt. With all of the consolidation (how many majors are there nowadays? Three?) and layoffs already going on in the industry, many already think that the music industry (as we know it, anyway) is in a tailspin that can’t be recovered from. And as much as everyone would like to believe that this is due entirely to file sharing, there are other factors at work….and a lot of blame to be placed squarely on the shoulders of the industry itself. The music industry has talked a good game about legal downloads over the years, but mostly chose to ignore it. And now that it’s actually becoming a semi-viable business, they are rushing to assert control…

    2) ….which in some ways is their right, but this whole situation is looking way too much like their old cd price-fixing tricks. They will raise the price of music higher than the average consumer wants to spend on it, in order to weed out stores that are less profitable for them. And I would have to think that Apple qualifies as a store, not a distributor…saying otherwise would mean that all of its competitors (Rhapsody, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Napster, et al) are distributors as well. Besides, distributors traditionally sell product to retail locations, not individual consumers.

    3) I never had the “bullshit assertion” that digital music was a low-cost product. But for it to be viable, it needs to reflect a savings over a purchased cd. It might only cost a few cents to manufacture a cd, but a couple of cents multiplied over thousands of units add up. And let’s not forget that an online download has little need for graphic design, fancy packaging, printing costs, transportation from manufacturing plant to distributors/retail outlets or warehousing. If there is no savings to be had by eliminating these expenses, then I must live in Bizzaro world.

    4) And while Apple’s 30-cent profit must look appealing, that amount is before expenses such as marketing, financial transaction fees, staff, bandwidth, hosting and start up costs. C|Net (http://news.com.com/2009-1027_3-1009538.html) estimated that each downloaded song ends up costing between .82 and $1.03, which means that the download sites aren’t exactly making a killing here. And if the labels increase their prices, which likely would cause a decrease in sales, it would all fall on the download sites to bear. Considering that only Apple is making a profit so far (from what I’ve heard), a price increase may very well decimate the legal downloads industry….which will cause consumers to either 1) buy cds (which i wrote about in my post) or 2) start downloading more stuff illegally.

    5) The music industry has shown time-and-time again how impatient and undisciplined it has become, and now bad decisions are coming home to roost. Sales might be down, but so is choice, at least from a major label perspective. Record labels have become so obsessed by finding a huge Britney/N-Sync megahit that they have almost completely given up on cultivating artists as long-term commodities. So instead of building up artists that can generate steady sales over a period of years, the labels choose to focus on artist who sell a lot of units immediately but are relatively short-lived. Also, since most major labels have seriously cut their A&R staffs and artist rosters, they are depriving themselves of the very lifeblood of their industry: new music.

    More later. I have to run some errends.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 12:26 pm ¶

13. photosuperstar wrote:

    the music industry (huge companies like Capitol, Arista, etc) rape people financially all through out the gamit, even the artist. I was absolutely appalled at hearing a Cure track in a commercial. Did the cure have any say in who could use their music for whatever, I doubt it. Pringles used an Everlast track, without his consent, he created it, not the record label. The music biz execs. are out of hand. Waaaaaaa! We want more money for other peoples work. Fuck that!! I haven’t paid for music in over 5 years. It’s a rip off to go out and buy a cd.

    As for movies vs. music, actors ask for a ridiculous amount of money to do a movie, music artist don’t ask for 210 million to do and album. Hollywood is an absolute joke, along with the mainstream music industry.

    Matt/Jason, once again droppin’ the mother fuckin’ science

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 12:43 pm ¶

14. Coolfer wrote:

    Hey, giyan, nice jerkoff tag you threw at me. Thanks so much. But tell me, what state do you live in? I don’t end up paying $20 for a $17.99 CD. Do you? Go to Best Buy if you want cheaper CDs. They’re the retail chain most benefitting from the “price fixing” settlement. Or you can support locally owned record stores, but you’re gonna have to pay more. As a consumer you have to weigh an ethical decision (locally owned) with a price-driven decision (Best Buy). Blaming the music industry for your inability to find a solution to your quandry is ridiculous.

    Giyan, I do agree with you that artists and labels are free to release their music as they see fit. If they want to give it away and make money selling t-shirts as they tour 350 days a year, fine. If they want people to pay for it as they won’t even put a RA stream on their website (if they even have a website) that’s fine too.

    The bullshit assertion that music is a low-cost product is all over the place. Every newspaper, every blog, every magazine. Think beyond fixed price when coming up with a guess of what a CD costs. Think of all the related expenses. Like I said, I believe marketing costs will rise in a digital world, because thus far I don’t see online stores acting as the sales agent that is often the helpful role taken by a retailer.

    Labels are evoling. The business is evolving. Everybody knows it. EMI just divested itself of its manufacturing business. This means, obviously, that they are intent on moving toward the digital future. But they’re not going to jump in willy nilly and let the non-royalties-paying bastards at the P2P companies dictate the terms on which people acquire their music. Nor are they going to let Apple dictate the prices. The consumer will dictate the prices by either purchasing or not purchasing. We do, after all, live in a free market country. The government is not going to regulate download prices. So people will pay according to demand.

    As for Apple, they operate like a distributor and act like a naive retailer. They promised lower priced music when it’s not their call and now everybody is up in arms. EMI’s spokesperson does indeed have it right, the retailers ultimately set the price (based on wholesale costs, of course, but they set the prices). What Apple needs to do is stop whining and do what every other retailer does: put titles on sale. This universal pricing scheme of theirs is terrible. Best Buy uses music as a loss leader. Indie retailers put titles on sale to compete with both Best Buy and Apple. So why shouldn’t Apple also put titles on sale? They’re making gobs of profit as a company. Why charge more than is necessary? Unlike record labels, Apple makes money elsewhere. They can afford to mark down an ablum or two. Put a title on sale for Pete’s sake. And about them losing money on each download, I don’t believe that for a second. Yeah, like Apple’s in the business of non-profitable business segments. Yeah right.

    Matt, you want suggestions? I’ll post them to Coolfer in the near future. Thanks for the impetus.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 2:17 pm ¶

15. Coolfer wrote:

    P.S. Your “price fixing” argument missed the point. I’ll post to Coolfer about the reasons behind Mininum Advertised Price policies, how it worked, and how the majors didn’t exactly “make out like bandits.” What the FTC ruled was correct, but there’s much more to it that what people read in the news.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 2:20 pm ¶

16. matt wrote:

    What’s the willy nilly time period? File sharing has been going on for quite a while now, and it’s been big for 5 years. How long would they like to ignore market pressures while they try to find their ass with a flashlight?

    I’ve read the FTC ruling and I fully understand set price policies.

    You argument continues to be “this stuff is more complicated than you could ever imagine.” As if we only dealt in simple matters here.

    And on the subject, bashing us on another site and then using this site to advertise future answers to arguments you can’t seem to manage here is weak. Even though I disagree with most of what you have to say, I expected more.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 2:58 pm ¶

17. Jason wrote:

    >As for Apple, they operate like a distributor and act like a naive >retailer. They promised lower priced music when it’s not their >call and now everybody is up in arms.

    Very quickly:

    1) It’s not like Apple created the iTunes store in a vacuum. They had to meet with all the major labels and set up terms before the store even sold its first download. So I would be really skeptical that the .99 price tag was sprung on the labels out of nowhere, and that they would enter such a deal if it were unprofitable for them.

    2) While you keep saying “Apple did this” and “Apple did that”, if the higher prices go come into play they will affect the entire legal download industry (where they all have similar pricing structures) and it’s just going to have a domino effect.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 2:59 pm ¶

18. gijyun wrote:

    colorado.

    .078%.

    17.99 x .078% = 1.40.

    17.99 + 1.40 = 19.39.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 4:05 pm ¶

19. figjyun wrote:

    and sorry about the ‘jerkoff’ thing.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 4:55 pm ¶

20. madden wrote:

    Re: comments about my earlier post

    1) Everyone seems to be confusing the cost of producing a CD with the cost of recording the cD. Unless you’re a giant bloated band like Korn, this is a small part of the equation. The REAL cost is in marketing the CD. This includes all videos, advertising, radio and retail promotions, and the salaries of people who set this up. Again, most record companies spend far more trying to make an act successful than they ever recoup.

    2) If you think these marketing costs are unnecessary, then you’re just being naive. Almost no one achieves popuarity on any kind of scale based solely on word of mouth. Good music still has to find it’s way into people’s ears, and that costs money, particulary since the majority still find out about music through the mainstream media

    3) Learning about the music industry from Steve Albini is like learning about relationships from a bitter, aging , drag queen. It’s entertaining, but your mileage may vary

    4) The majority of artists have control over the use of their songs in commercials AND ARE VERY WELL COMPENSATED FOR THEIR USE. This is another point, for most musicians album sales are a small part of their revenue stream. They make a shitload of money from touring and merch.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 6:32 pm ¶

21. matt wrote:

    madden: good points as always.

    I take issue with only the one about marketing. Of course music must be marketed to get heard. Not everyone can be counted on to buy even their favorite band’s latest album. The problem is the way that they do it.

    redboy said the magic word: “shotgun”. from my time in advertising, i have firsthand experience of lazy clients, unwilling to think a campaign through, unable to conceive of smart ways to spend money and devoid of creativity in both material and method. the labels have focused-grouped themselves to death and in the process wasted massive amounts of money that in the end gets passed on to people who choose to buy the product.

    Past the marketing point, the labels have invested unwisely in some of their talent. I remember when there were bidding wars for bands that the labels thought were the next nirvanna. I remember when helmut signed for an obscene amount of money. every garage band that sounded vaguely like they were from seattle found themselves fighting off A+R reps at every gig. Fischerspooner signed for like $2 mils two years ago. These are just the few examples off the top of my head. There are tons more examples of bands that never had a chance of recouping even their advances much less making it worth their labels time.

    In a strictly market sense, the labels must pay for their largesse. I certainly won’t.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 6:54 pm ¶

22. madden wrote:

    Matt-

    I certainly agree that record label have themselves to blame for this mess. It’s a big part of my original point.

    It IS true that labels have not necessarily marketed their product as well and as creatively as they could, but that doesn’t mean the process isn’t inherently expensive. The majority of records are sold through MTV, Top 40, and hip-hop radio. If you can show me a way to navigate that system cheaply, there will be a line of record companies waiting to make you a wealthy (in the Chris Rock sense of the word) man.

    It is also true that poor and uncreative A&R is a big culprit for the current slump (slumps tend to be cyclical in the music industry). But when you’re dealing with an entirely subjective product, it’s impossible to create a system that could efficiently idenify talent that will be commercially successful. In fact, the idea of even creating a system would be spotty at best. In other words, it will always be a crapshoot. The cream doesn’t always rise to the top, and even if it does, it’s not always well received.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 7:49 pm ¶

23. tom wrote:

    what you guys are talking about is making money off of the biggest possible market. there are plenty of larger indies who are quite profitable in decently large markets (epitaph, matador, etc) without having to rely on mtv or pop radio to make money. theyre not bloated organizations of idiots in suits though, and it shows. there’s such a thing as customer loyalty in smaller labels. do you think anyone has ever said “boy, i really must buy every new record Columbia puts out”? hell no! the idea is to put out good music. good music will market itself.

    Posted 29 Apr 2004 at 11:36 pm ¶

24. matt wrote:

    I think what’s lost in this discussion is that the labels have no divine mandate to survive. If their business model doesn’t work, they go down just like every other business. Their past profitability isn’t a blank check to do it forever. If the cost of doing their business has become so high that they need to raise prices, then they can do that and pretend (for a minute) that the market doesn’t sort things like this out. They ignored file-sharing for years, just like Kodak clung to film and ignored digital. This stuff is B-school case studies now. Adapt or die.

    Coolfer’s point above about EMI making changes makes my point. Everyone knew 5 years ago that this was going to happen. Anyone who could look back at vinyl->tape->CD could have guessed that a new non-physical distribution method would be coming. People had been FTP and newsgroup trading for years before napster.

    While it is impossible to create a computer program (right now) that could tell hits from misses, throwing money around in high times and bitching about poor sales in the low times is childish. And that’s what they do.

    They are trying to operate outside a proper business plan, and they will pay (and have paid) dearly for that.

    Posted 30 Apr 2004 at 7:04 am ¶

25. information leafblower wrote:

    Re: recording costs…Most bands are idiots because the contract that their lawyer negotiated for them (for their cumulative 5%, natch) give them a figure for their signing bonus, a figure for their album budget, a figure to make their video, and a figure to pay indie promoters. For argument’s sake, let’s say the advance was $250,000 for X number of records, the same to make the record, $300,000 for the video (it’s scary how many bands spend more on their first video than they do making the actual record) and $100,000 for indie promoters. So before the first single has even come out, they band is $900k in the hole. yes the label pays for this but the band has to pay it back before they see dollar one.

    So you ask, why does a band spend that much on these things when they don’t have to? Because if the lawyers negotiate huge figures, they get 5% of these figures. They aren’t going to spend time negotiating a lower advance with a higher royalty rate because there is a good chance they will never see any royalty payments. Do you want 5% of 900k or 5% of 300k? If they don’t make any money off of it, they won’t waste their time when there are bigger fish out there. That in a nutshell is why you have such high advances being paid out to undeserving artists.

    It doesn’t have to be this way. Look at the White Stripes. Elephant costs roughly $8,000 to make. But if bands can’t play their instruments or sing, they have to Pro Tools the hell out of the music and that costs money. You need people to work the equipment, etc.

    And re: Marketing costs. Most of that goes to independent radio promoters who basically bribe stations to get their clients on the radio. It’s payola in every sense of the word. Creed gave an indie promoter points on their last record. And remember that indie gets paid for every song added to the stations they service EVEN IF THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT SONG GETTING ADDED TO THE STATION. Read that last sentence again. And you have to play ball with these indies because they have the radio stations in their pockets. If you don;t pay them, radio does not play your record. Case closed. The indies set up all the ticket give aways and trips across the country to see concerts, etc. Now who do you think pays for all of that? The band. Do you think they have any say in how their money is spent? Nope.

    So I say the marketing costs that push up retail prices are bullshit and are mostly the industry inflicting damage upon itself.

    Lawyers & indie promoters are evil.

    Posted 30 Apr 2004 at 9:13 am ¶

26. The Other Matt wrote:

    Some thoughts on this very contentious issue, in no particular order:

    Digital distribution is inevitable, but Apple’s current delivery system, while good, is not the answer. I have no interest in downloading music encoded in aac format at 128kbps. The sound quality is inadequate when played on a good system. Why would I pay $9.99 for a downloaded Apple album when I can buy the CD for between $5-$12 (I rarely buy any CD new - I can get most CDs at a substantial discount using amazon’s used listings or half.com). Lossless compression is the answer for me, but currently available broadband speeds are nowhere near the speed needed to support this (each track would be roughly 20-40 megs).

    Currently, at least half of the music I purchase comes from the U.K. I am extremely worried that digital distribution will lead to region-based rights management.

    Wholesale downloading of entire albums is theft, period. I think that most people who say music costs too much are saying that because they are comparing it to the days when they downloaded it for free off Napster - if the cereal at the grocery store was free for a year, who wouldn’t complain when the store started charging $3.50 for it? I hear a lot of college kids complain that they don’t have enough money to buy all the music they want to listen to. Too fucking bad. I was in college in 1988-1992, I was broke and CD prices were higher than they are today. I made do.

    The FCC rules that allow Clearchannel to control the airwaves and most concert venues are a major contributer to the music industry’s problems.

    Assesing total blame to the music industry is like saying that there is no doubt the chicken came before the egg. The music industry is a real mess and major labels are totally disfunctional, but the average music consumer bears a lot of responsibility for this. Music is art, and generally, the best art is not the most mainstream art. Most music consumers are passive - they let the industry tell them what they should be listening to, hence the extremely high marketing costs and the strings of copycat bands. Until the average consumer becomes more active in deciding to seek out better, more worthwhile music, the viscious circle will continue. Digitial distribution of music will not solve this.

    I have no idea what the ultimate solution is, but I’m not too bothered. I have no problem finding tons of great music to listen to. Sure, it costs me, both in time and in money, but isn’t this always true when seeking out great art?

    Posted 01 May 2004 at 9:47 am ¶

27. tom wrote:

    CDs weren’t that much more expensive in 91 when i got a CD player than they are now. id say the difference is negligible. and what lossless compression would still take up as much space as a .wav file? .wavs are uncompressed and can take up 20-40 megs each easily depending on the length of the song. and really, DLing that from a fast server using DSL wouldnt take all that long. i know i can DL whole albums in mp3 in under 10 minutes, if it took 20 minutes to get it in .wav that would be just fine.

    Posted 02 May 2004 at 7:41 am ¶

28. sheesh wrote:

    what a bunch of blowhards.

    the music industry behemouths are evil incarnate. fuck them.

    Posted 03 May 2004 at 7:26 am ¶

29. adam wrote:

    re: Coolfer above saying not to blame the music industry for not being able to ethically choose between a local independent store (higher price) and a chain/online. You are talking about competing on price which for most consumers is a big issue, especially with an identical product.

    Of course you can blame the music industry/big 3 for this. It is the fact that they are the supplier AND distributor that the local independent store cannot afford to compete on price.

    It is the same thing that you see after the telecom act of ‘96. You have indie ISPs having to lease lines from Verizon and not being able to compete on price (and for example not being able to waive the setup fees they have to pay to Verizon) because Verizon owns the distribution (lines).

    Once you control the supply chain from the top down it becomes hard for people to compete at all. Especially on price, which is what most people who buy cds are concerned with. This has been going on for too long. I remember that the local stores growing up would let you “pre-order” cds for lower prices and they’d give them to you at midnight etc (I think even the chain stores sometimes do this). And it was this type of personal service that they would have to differentiate themselves on rather than price.

    Posted 03 May 2004 at 8:33 pm ¶

30. Andrew Kraan wrote:

    tHIS PREVIEW WAS AWESOME I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT I LOVE GOD.

    Posted 27 May 2004 at 7:00 am ¶