Recording Industry in Even Deeper Shit Than We Thought

[Mark Bassett]

His words, not mine.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/20 ... orris.html

[heathen]

Will be an interesting six months. Maybe they should offer kids free big macs to dob in thier mates who are sharing files.

[rick]

i have no sympathy for any record company type that find himself suddenly unemployed
it happens all the time, its always has, and its bound to happen to this guy

in my opinion reinvention is what is actually going on in the labels not disintergration
its just they just might have to fire everybody and merge every company to figure out its actually all about songwriters and performers , not itunes and mp3s

water always seems to find its on level

[Text_Edifice]

My thoughts at present is that the way forward is to view music as a service rather than a product. The label I've been working with this year makes most of it's money in advertising / sponsorship / event management / marketing revenue. The artists and music - particularly live performance events - are a medium by which advertisers can communicate with their market (i.e. the music is a service).

This business model developed in a local economy where music piracy is rampant and, even if this weren't the case, returns on CD manufacturing are so low that the label needs to (and does) sell every record they produce in quantities of tens of thousands to see any sort of return on their investment. Every CD the label releases sells for about 1.50 US, costs 1,000 US to record and something like .50 US / disc to manufacture.

Still the label returns a profit (a sizeable one taking into account the economics of scale) without having anything to do with the internet and iTunes. One of the upshots is that now I've landed them a digital deal and set up a website which is generating solid traffic (in local terms) all digital revenues are profit.

I wonder if all this talk about 'the internet' isn't a bit of a distraction?

It's late, I'm drunk (clubbers in Lao have a penchant for Johnnie Gold...), flame away!

[michael]

wow that guy is a joke.

funny thing is there never was much money in music anyway... artists ended up with stuff all, consumers paid way too much for CDs... all that's really changing is consumers are bypassing a stupid model and now there is no money in it for big labels either...

dunno... in a way I'd actually quite like to see even less money in the music industry, and the corporate world will keep out of it and find something else to corner.

One possible future model I've pondered is a return to vinyl, which is a format that could easily be resurrected, is more substantial than CDs, and potentially much more marketable than discs, (which by and large were seen as consumables even before the interwebs). Along side of this is inevitably unrestricted internet mp3s, and inevitably smaller releases and lower sales. But people that do buy music will feel that are paying for something more substantial than just a physical medium to rip to mp3s, so (i think) these will be sustainable sales, and with a sensible direct or small label distro. model artists can potentially make money on sales rather than funding idiots like that bloke in the article.