On Monday 05 Apr 2010, Robert Bronsdon wrote:
My personal opinion is that the industry needs to reform their entire
pricing structure.
Gone are the days people feel 'britney spears et al' require private jets
and 50 bedroom mansions. Hows about we work out the price of a CD for
everyone involved in the creation of each disk to earn a maximum of a
£50,000 salary.
Apart from a few very big stars, the only people who make large sums of money
out of music are the labels. Most of the artists get locked into very
restrictive contracts and rely on gigs to get a living. That's why there is a
fairly large movement amongst the artists who are also trying to change the
business model of the music industry.
I think that your formula is a bit difficult to put into practice.
Personally, I have no problem if genuinely talented artists are able to make
big money. What I object to is the rest of the music industry, who leech on
their backs and get far more out of it than they put in.
Now that the internet provides a direct channel between the artist and the
consumer, I'm perfectly happy to buy direct from an artist's website. If they
are really good, then the money will come and the really, really good, will
make lots of money. The leeches will then have to make their money by
providing a service to the artists, instead of the other way round.
Bets on CDs hitting a few pounds (or less) and piracy dropping to 'almost
nothing'. Sadly there will still be some piracy.
Yes. There will always be piracy, because there will always be people who are
inherently dishonest. However, given a fairer business model, where the
worthy artists are given their rewards direct from the consumer, then it will
become far less 'acceptable' to rip off music.
Same theory for games and movies. If the people involved only earned
'regular' salaries the costs of each disk would be much more reasonable.
Movies and games are a more difficult problem, because, you tend to need a
pretty large organisation to produce them, especially the blockbusters.
However, the returns at the moment are ridiculously high, well out of
proportion to the effort expended. A more equitable business model is needed
all round, but if I knew what it was I'd be rich :-)
--
Terry Coles
64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux
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