Answer to Question 6: How to Overthrow RIAA
Some 90% of recorded music is the property of five huge record labels, which are owned by even bigger conglomerates. They were bought up mostly during the eighties in a period of consolidation brought on by the fact that most Boomers turned their attention from music that mattered to making money in the early 80's giving room for pop pablum purveyors to fill in the gap. Huge, reliable artists like MJ & Madonna gave them the taste for blood and they've been sucking us dry ever since. Well it's mid-life crisis time now baby, and your time is up.
Technology always wins...not necessarily easily, but ultimately. Always. So, make my music easy to get and transport, (thanks Steve, but, you know, you could give Hank a little credit... do you really think those boys would have played with you if he hadn't just gouged out 15%?) make it easy for me to find what I'll like, and I'll watch your fuckin pop-up ads. That's all you're getting off me for catalog I bought two technologies ago, and that's plenty. Accept it. Think of it as radio but giving us a little headstart in adavoidance....can't you just put the ads in the songs, like they're doing in movies now? (they are!) Hits and catalog: it's loss leader. Stop trying to milk an industry out of it, focus more on the new artists. I would definitely pay for search engine, easy delivery of flawless product and good programming. And BTW, the film industry is a completely different story. I'll get to that.
Anyway, listening to all these great records (yes, music is getting good again! hmmm... I wonder why?) makes me want to go spend lots of money! I want to go see these bands perform, meet others who enjoy their music, I'll even fork over for a T shirt, or a CD of the concert I just saw, cuz, damn, that was fun. I wasn't being ripped off, had a great night. And, for all you bands that think you can't do it, go check your Dead history, or a Fortune magazine. That's how you're supposed to make your money...get your record out there, so everyone can see how good you are... and they will come. That's right, get out of your little studio room thinkin you'll produce something your grandkids will live off and go play for your fans - they will cheer and pay.
To all you talentless vampires who made a cushy living at some label job, trying to figure out how you can sell this new band as well as the toothpaste you sold yesterday, and to the three guys at Wal-Mart, who buy 20% of what the labels put out... bye bye.... go start a band and make some musical contribution, write a song, say something, put it up on the web and tell your story, or go find a nice office in some other industry where you won't do as much harm. Marketing, everything, needs to be band-centric, which means bands will need to build up from their fan base. It's slower, but, again, if you look at bands like Dave Matthews, No Doubt... it is best, and most profitably, done that way.
Producers should be going indie, be paid directly by musicians for their services.
We don't need your mobster distributors (as Prince said, "Why do you think they call them 'hits'...with a bullet?') anymore. We have the internet now. You're about as viable as the tobacco industry - move on. And stop threatening that we won't have any more good music, you wouldn't know good music if it bit you in the ass.
So, the way to overthrow them is to speak to them in the only language they understand; the almighty dollar. Anyone who goes and pays for (major label) records is supporting a system of exploitation of artists and diminishment of our rights to some type of genuine artform here. You're listening to propaganda without understanding the inner workings (top names may see 15% of record sales, most never clear their advances - and those advances are calculated very carefully based on preexisting fans), or the larger societal picture of how the artform should function in our society. Remember all those great songs with conscience you heard during Vietnam, well, we're in Iraq now... what are you hearing? It's not quite the same... yet.
Everyone loves a well-produced hit. God knows, my ipod is the biggest hit-suck in history. Every artist wants the fame & money, we all do. I deeply appreciate the artistic gifts we've seen from the great musical genuises who have graced this planet, and for whatever allowed the distribution and development of their music. But without a sort of artistic working class, we suffer. It makes the gap between the average artist and "star" huge, it's too daunting. There needs to be a path for artists to follow, so they can build a solid career, and make a reasonable living. This warped world of make it as a star by age 21, or it's over, that's just sad. Not only would we lose great content, stuff we could share and build upon, but the artist in each of us would be darker.
Napster est mort, viva Napster! And I mean the real Napster, the one with ideals and purpose (though not necessarily a business plan...did you really think you could make money on anything other than ads?) not this suck-up spawn trying to use their cache today.
Bottom line, there are plenty of great ways to make money in music, or should be. People interested in both should orient themselves around the music makers, not this dying and corrupt infrastructure that got built up around it.
Technology always wins...not necessarily easily, but ultimately. Always. So, make my music easy to get and transport, (thanks Steve, but, you know, you could give Hank a little credit... do you really think those boys would have played with you if he hadn't just gouged out 15%?) make it easy for me to find what I'll like, and I'll watch your fuckin pop-up ads. That's all you're getting off me for catalog I bought two technologies ago, and that's plenty. Accept it. Think of it as radio but giving us a little headstart in adavoidance....can't you just put the ads in the songs, like they're doing in movies now? (they are!) Hits and catalog: it's loss leader. Stop trying to milk an industry out of it, focus more on the new artists. I would definitely pay for search engine, easy delivery of flawless product and good programming. And BTW, the film industry is a completely different story. I'll get to that.
Anyway, listening to all these great records (yes, music is getting good again! hmmm... I wonder why?) makes me want to go spend lots of money! I want to go see these bands perform, meet others who enjoy their music, I'll even fork over for a T shirt, or a CD of the concert I just saw, cuz, damn, that was fun. I wasn't being ripped off, had a great night. And, for all you bands that think you can't do it, go check your Dead history, or a Fortune magazine. That's how you're supposed to make your money...get your record out there, so everyone can see how good you are... and they will come. That's right, get out of your little studio room thinkin you'll produce something your grandkids will live off and go play for your fans - they will cheer and pay.
To all you talentless vampires who made a cushy living at some label job, trying to figure out how you can sell this new band as well as the toothpaste you sold yesterday, and to the three guys at Wal-Mart, who buy 20% of what the labels put out... bye bye.... go start a band and make some musical contribution, write a song, say something, put it up on the web and tell your story, or go find a nice office in some other industry where you won't do as much harm. Marketing, everything, needs to be band-centric, which means bands will need to build up from their fan base. It's slower, but, again, if you look at bands like Dave Matthews, No Doubt... it is best, and most profitably, done that way.
Producers should be going indie, be paid directly by musicians for their services.
We don't need your mobster distributors (as Prince said, "Why do you think they call them 'hits'...with a bullet?') anymore. We have the internet now. You're about as viable as the tobacco industry - move on. And stop threatening that we won't have any more good music, you wouldn't know good music if it bit you in the ass.
So, the way to overthrow them is to speak to them in the only language they understand; the almighty dollar. Anyone who goes and pays for (major label) records is supporting a system of exploitation of artists and diminishment of our rights to some type of genuine artform here. You're listening to propaganda without understanding the inner workings (top names may see 15% of record sales, most never clear their advances - and those advances are calculated very carefully based on preexisting fans), or the larger societal picture of how the artform should function in our society. Remember all those great songs with conscience you heard during Vietnam, well, we're in Iraq now... what are you hearing? It's not quite the same... yet.
Everyone loves a well-produced hit. God knows, my ipod is the biggest hit-suck in history. Every artist wants the fame & money, we all do. I deeply appreciate the artistic gifts we've seen from the great musical genuises who have graced this planet, and for whatever allowed the distribution and development of their music. But without a sort of artistic working class, we suffer. It makes the gap between the average artist and "star" huge, it's too daunting. There needs to be a path for artists to follow, so they can build a solid career, and make a reasonable living. This warped world of make it as a star by age 21, or it's over, that's just sad. Not only would we lose great content, stuff we could share and build upon, but the artist in each of us would be darker.
Napster est mort, viva Napster! And I mean the real Napster, the one with ideals and purpose (though not necessarily a business plan...did you really think you could make money on anything other than ads?) not this suck-up spawn trying to use their cache today.
Bottom line, there are plenty of great ways to make money in music, or should be. People interested in both should orient themselves around the music makers, not this dying and corrupt infrastructure that got built up around it.
posted by Intervision at 9:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home