Working and not blogging.
Here is good news, from Wired. They use the title "The Age of Music Piracy Is Officially Over. Probably it isn't but the reasons for it have passed, as the sellers have learned what the market wants and have agreed. Now it is time to pay the small amount asked, so that the artist can get his or her share of the money. The artists are on Maslow's Hierarchy also and need food and shelter to support their self-actualization.
The sad thing is that music stores that went out of business might have stayed in business if they had developed a business model that allowed people to buy individual tracks and not just whole CDs or whole cassettes. I know that such an approach would mean that the subsidy of less popular artists would have gone away, but isn't that the way the market place works?
Next we need to fix the Mickey Mouse Copyright Law.
Regards — Cliff
Digital music distribution is both less expensive, as well as preferred by customers. The fact that an industry has lost its shirt clinging to a more expensive and lesser-desirable distribution model in order to vainly attempt to maintain a profit monopoly is merely proof that, ultimately, the free market, even having to overcome some ridiculous legal corruption, can eventually be made to work.
ReplyDeleteMusic stores originally added value to things by providing listening rooms, though this value was long ago and seriously eroded by the ubiquity of "free samples" on the radio, and I'm not shedding tears for FYE, Tower Records, Strawberries, etc. etc. etc. who merely wanted to take a cut on the sale of shrink-wrapped radio pabulum. (Walmart does this far more efficiently, and they're doing it now).
The truth is now that we're also post-radio, as well as post-piracy, and there's an opportunity to recreate this "sampling" niche in some new (or old) form. (Vinyl is making a huge comeback, too).
One last thing about "subsidy of less-popular artists..."
ReplyDeleteActually, in our present system, as it's been since the 60's, it's the less-popular artists who continue to pay for the profits of the more-popular. As with "blockbuster" movies, music production costs are distorted to pursue huge paydays on "hit" records, and efficient production and distribution have rarely been the point of the music business. I have friends who can and have created wonderful CD's in their living rooms and attics, but there is no one interested to distribute them or profit from them, because they have invested too much in the latest from the likes of Lady Gaga. (No wonder all we get to choose from in Walmart is the likes of Lady Gaga).
Allowing fair and efficient distribution of music necessarily means that better music will find its audience, and such backwards subsidization will be reduced. The distortion of public taste began with radio payola, and continues with the ongoing perversion of Live Nation and the monopolistic exploitation of our live music venues. While some are able to control what we hear, we will not hear anything but manufactured "hits" that hardly deserve to be. When the 'net lets everyone share their recommendations with their family and friends freely and easily, variety will win.
Have you noticed how many networks are now offering television series, and how many choices were are beginning to enjoy? Network TV isn't dead, it's growing. It's just the monopolists who are declining.