Aha
Actual boring but empirical proof of what I've been saying all along. I found this study on Techdirt (via Boing Boing). You can see how hard it is to get data. The labels are very secretive about finances, for obvious reasons, so, to get data, extensive interviewing of artists is necessary.
The study makes an incorrect and damaging assumption, that more music is created than can be consumed, and that's why we need "gatekeepers" (labels, DJs etc.). I disagree. The pool of listeners outnumbers the pool of artists, probably a hundredfold, if not more. It's not about numbers. It's about the human inclination to listen to what their friends & coworkers & general public is listening to... the need to be "with it". And, some music is catchier, more commercial, more appealing to the masses.
But, that may very well be a phenomenon that grew out of pre-internet distribution models. Maybe kids now are more interested in finding their own treasures and turning on their friends. As the labels & mass retailers (not so fast, Wal-mart is now calling the tune for Three Doors Down's new album, at least in terms of due date) lose their hold on the kids and broadbanders, perhaps the trend will change. But, maybe not, drive across the country and it's no longer a quilt of mom & pop stores, it's all one big connect the dots of one Wal-mart to the next identical one in the next town down the road.
While the internet does encourage individuality, our love of low-priced crap has kept us quite homogenous. But, even Wal-mart can't compete with free, and their willingness to loss lead albums to sell electronics will probably expire in a few years. The market for album-buying will contract into a niche market for audiophiles and collectors.
Music consumption is still a hugely expandable number. And music consumption has increased exponentially since Napster, with a billion tracks a month being downloaded. Brits consume ten times more paid, recorded music than we do, and they also support their musicians during lean times, allowing them to continue as artists. The framework shown here, where 10% of artists earn 90% of all money spent on music, leaving the other 90% of artists to share the remaining 10%, is undoubtedly even more extreme in the US.
I think ultimately, the only pay point that will work is to take it from the ISP's who, at this point, are the only ones to profit from all the free downloading. The free music is what sells their service, in large part, and that money should be coughed up to Big Champagne, or an equivalent, to be distributed directly to the artists on the basis of what's being downloaded.
The study makes an incorrect and damaging assumption, that more music is created than can be consumed, and that's why we need "gatekeepers" (labels, DJs etc.). I disagree. The pool of listeners outnumbers the pool of artists, probably a hundredfold, if not more. It's not about numbers. It's about the human inclination to listen to what their friends & coworkers & general public is listening to... the need to be "with it". And, some music is catchier, more commercial, more appealing to the masses.
But, that may very well be a phenomenon that grew out of pre-internet distribution models. Maybe kids now are more interested in finding their own treasures and turning on their friends. As the labels & mass retailers (not so fast, Wal-mart is now calling the tune for Three Doors Down's new album, at least in terms of due date) lose their hold on the kids and broadbanders, perhaps the trend will change. But, maybe not, drive across the country and it's no longer a quilt of mom & pop stores, it's all one big connect the dots of one Wal-mart to the next identical one in the next town down the road.
While the internet does encourage individuality, our love of low-priced crap has kept us quite homogenous. But, even Wal-mart can't compete with free, and their willingness to loss lead albums to sell electronics will probably expire in a few years. The market for album-buying will contract into a niche market for audiophiles and collectors.
Music consumption is still a hugely expandable number. And music consumption has increased exponentially since Napster, with a billion tracks a month being downloaded. Brits consume ten times more paid, recorded music than we do, and they also support their musicians during lean times, allowing them to continue as artists. The framework shown here, where 10% of artists earn 90% of all money spent on music, leaving the other 90% of artists to share the remaining 10%, is undoubtedly even more extreme in the US.
I think ultimately, the only pay point that will work is to take it from the ISP's who, at this point, are the only ones to profit from all the free downloading. The free music is what sells their service, in large part, and that money should be coughed up to Big Champagne, or an equivalent, to be distributed directly to the artists on the basis of what's being downloaded.
posted by Intervision at 6:57 PM
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