07-09-2009, 09:14 PM
Perhaps it's more constructive to be for an alternative versus against a system. If you sell through the record labels one way or the other with piracy or the manipulations of the record labels you get a bad deal. You could say they're taking money in amounts that do not belong to them. Loosely speaking stealing from their artists.
The alternative are small and big groups setting up internet sell points where you can actually buy directly from the musician the musician pays a per sale percentage that is a lot smaller than the insane percentages they have to pay to big record labels. The difference is that it's still their own music it's not music they made but owned by the labels. Amazon is setting up such a service right now. The artist must invest a small sum but selling 10 albums is projected to break even. In other words: school kids could do it. They don't care for quality at amazon, everything is just present in a category and treated equal. Either you go browsing or get linked there through the artists site.
This alternative won't stop piracy but the profits for the actual musicians go skyhigh compared to before. Also this decentralizes the music business and gets it back in the domain of consumers and artists. You'll get successful school bands selling to their own public. And the variety and diversity of music will increase a thousand fold.
In a way the strangle hold of the labels and the customers that become loyal pirates might cause a shift in the business that we'll literally all profit from. The pirate community is surprisingly ethical if you momentarily ignore the fact that they're pirating everything digitalized. But from another point of view they're self regulating and have no bias to where they distribute meaning culture is divided among the population equally. Culture has always been a human birthright. The early copyright laws recognized this fact. Only under modern day copyright laws has it become unethical to just take other peoples work and build on it. Before this this was considered recognition. And in reality isn't it the ideal for most artists to be an inspiration to their fans?
As a poor kid and student I mostly downloaded and copied what I desired. When I became older and got my own job I started to use my wallet to vote. I do spend money on music movies and software. I tend to spend it in the places that in my understanding reflect this basic principle that culture needs to be free.
Right now the laws of my country allow me to download content for personal use. I do not share the labels opinion that doing this within the law is stealing. And I don't like to be lectured about ethical behavior by the bunch the music business have become. I occasionally get the chance to reward good behavior by purchasing a product. When I get the chance I often just go for it. Apparently there's many like me Nine inch nails released a free album and offered a 300$ deluxe edition. It sold out in no time landing him 750 thousand in a matter of days after release.
Of course that guy is a big star. But in smaller scale, a buddy of mine knows a game programming student who sold a simple puzzle game for the iPhone you could buy it for a pound and for every sell he received 70 cents. This college kid sold 10 thousand copies for a few weekends work. If he repeats the trick a few times he can fund his own game company by the time he graduates.
I think they're just forerunners of a new way of doing business.
The alternative are small and big groups setting up internet sell points where you can actually buy directly from the musician the musician pays a per sale percentage that is a lot smaller than the insane percentages they have to pay to big record labels. The difference is that it's still their own music it's not music they made but owned by the labels. Amazon is setting up such a service right now. The artist must invest a small sum but selling 10 albums is projected to break even. In other words: school kids could do it. They don't care for quality at amazon, everything is just present in a category and treated equal. Either you go browsing or get linked there through the artists site.
This alternative won't stop piracy but the profits for the actual musicians go skyhigh compared to before. Also this decentralizes the music business and gets it back in the domain of consumers and artists. You'll get successful school bands selling to their own public. And the variety and diversity of music will increase a thousand fold.
In a way the strangle hold of the labels and the customers that become loyal pirates might cause a shift in the business that we'll literally all profit from. The pirate community is surprisingly ethical if you momentarily ignore the fact that they're pirating everything digitalized. But from another point of view they're self regulating and have no bias to where they distribute meaning culture is divided among the population equally. Culture has always been a human birthright. The early copyright laws recognized this fact. Only under modern day copyright laws has it become unethical to just take other peoples work and build on it. Before this this was considered recognition. And in reality isn't it the ideal for most artists to be an inspiration to their fans?
As a poor kid and student I mostly downloaded and copied what I desired. When I became older and got my own job I started to use my wallet to vote. I do spend money on music movies and software. I tend to spend it in the places that in my understanding reflect this basic principle that culture needs to be free.
Right now the laws of my country allow me to download content for personal use. I do not share the labels opinion that doing this within the law is stealing. And I don't like to be lectured about ethical behavior by the bunch the music business have become. I occasionally get the chance to reward good behavior by purchasing a product. When I get the chance I often just go for it. Apparently there's many like me Nine inch nails released a free album and offered a 300$ deluxe edition. It sold out in no time landing him 750 thousand in a matter of days after release.
Of course that guy is a big star. But in smaller scale, a buddy of mine knows a game programming student who sold a simple puzzle game for the iPhone you could buy it for a pound and for every sell he received 70 cents. This college kid sold 10 thousand copies for a few weekends work. If he repeats the trick a few times he can fund his own game company by the time he graduates.
I think they're just forerunners of a new way of doing business.