Sounds like what mp3.com was supposed to be but I don't think for a minute
that will actually happen that way
Apple and other communications companies are not altruistic entities - they
are in it for the money
what other communications companies are you talking about? Clear Channel?
Time-Warner? Microsoft?
if they become quasi-labels then I guarantee you they will have
not-so-quasi-contracts.
they may not call themselves major record labels but they will act like
them (and maybe worse since many large corporations are now considered
individual entities by the law and aren't held responsible in the same way
smaller business are). The artist will make a contract with the "marketing
department" then and music will get even more recycled. The marketing
department will take over all aspects of how to market a band because it
will be a product. The artist will be, even more concretely, a sub-brand of
the label. That is what marketing departments do.
>From an essay I found on the Guardian's website
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1009620,00.html
" By the middle of the 90s, songs built in the image of the vinyl single
were used to form a soundtrack that suited the way the industry was
marketing music to young teenagers. It was almost the last thing in the
ruthless new formula- the image, the clothes, the colours, the smiles, the
names, all this came first, and then the song was added at the end,
because, this being pop, you needed songs as part of the overall strategy.
And pop being at least 50 years old, there is plenty of material to copy,
appropriate, adjust, remake, remodel."
if the major record companies, that we have now, lose their power and
become marketing departments - of which larger companies are they going to
be the marketing department for?
>the days of record companies asking for 70% revenue shares of sales are
over.
what makes you so sure? - it's been working this way for years and there
hasn't been any depression in the number of artists looking to sign
contracts
why change a good thing (for the company)
they still will have major control of distribution - look at iTunes - how
many websites would you have to visit to get 20% of the music they have
available? And if you found them all online what percentage would be able
to sell the tune directly to you? The monopoly is just going to change
hands and maybe be called something else but the emperor is still naked.
I don't see it as being as equal as you do - it never has been so why would
the already large companies who have the technological jump on it (Apple,
etc.) want to distribute their wealth when they've already proved to
themselves that as long as people aren't aware of what goes on behind the
curtain they'll keep buying crappy sounding music files that have no worth
in the physical world except to sell another hamburger and a pair of jeans.
It's all about convenience - it's all about money.
MEK
Rc
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: <313@hyperreal.org>
mus.com.au> cc:
Subject: Re: (313) The
right download format
02/10/04 02:06 PM
this will change.
within the next 3 years you will see apple and other communications
companies becoming quasi-labels.
as major record companies lose their powerful role as manufacturers and
distributors - they will become marketing departments and that's all. the
days of record companies asking for 70% revenue shares of sales are over.
there is no reason that in 3 years time, when the majority of all legit
music sales are digital that apple and similar won't start dangling
contracts in front of recording artists. revenue shares will become more
realistic and hopefully it will be possible for less successful musicians
to
make a moderate revenue.
on 11/2/04 3:10 AM, Martin at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> sale. Suddenly that 99 cent song you just bought has a cost of 50
cents.
>> Split
>> that 50/50 with the artist and everyone makes 25 cents. As you can see
>> nobody
>> is going to get rich any time soon.
>
> Read on fella...
> http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
>
