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<p>Just an observation: TV has always been “free” to consumers (except for cable or pay-per-view, which are optional and relatively inexpensive) and has managed to adapt and thrive for 5+ decades.</p>
<p>Bay, TV is ad supported. CDs could have ads between songs and then be “free”.</p>
<p>Absolutely, BurnThis! That solves the problem, doesn’t it? The music/movie industries need to figure out how to package their products so that the public gets them free (or cheaper) and the artists still get paid. That’s the challenge, and no one said it would be easy, but the industry is WAY BEHIND in figuring this out. IMO</p>
<p>I sure hope you are joking. That would lead even more people to download them - if it’s free either way and one comes without advertisements.</p>
<p>I was joking (and trying, unsuccessfully, to make a point that tv is not free), but I don’t know about Bay. I’d hate to see: Interpol, brought to you by the Glad family of products (the way tv is run these days).</p>
<p>No, I was not literally endorsing such advertisements, just using BurnThis’s idea as an example of a new way to bring in the revenue. (BurnThis, TV programming is delivered at no monetary cost to consumers, but obviously we must suffer the annoyance of ads to get it. I think it still counts as being “free”.)</p>
<p>It is the industry’s job to come up with a solution, I am not qualified to do so. This is capitalist America after all, so I have to believe there is a solution and that it will likely be quite lucrative.</p>
<p>Middle men (the kind in the music industry as we know it now) are going to become obsolete. As to how new acts will get exposed, where have you been? MySpace is introducing new acts and pretty successfully. The younger generation is used to looking to the internet for everything. Finding bands they like on the internet is the new way. On MySpace you can sample music with streaming. There are categories of music where you can look at genres of music and sample new acts to see if you like them. Facebook is also offering options to share music you like with your friends, post up your favorite band, and join groups that are of like minded fans. Additionally Facebook will alert you as to when your favorite acts are going on tour or have released new music. You can select favorite songs and put up streams of their music for your friends to hear. The internet and networking are the future of the industry. Word of mouth by the internet works.</p>
<p>I also think great bands like Radiohead will invite the up and coming artists to tour with them. (Radiohead first toured with R.E.M.) Local music scenes are becoming important again and kids love to go out to sample who is out there performing. Acts burning and giving away CD’s to promote themselves is common. There is also a music based indie (indepedent) web-site (I can’t remember the URL) where thousands of new acts post up a web-page listing concert engagements and stream their music.</p>
<p>Radiohead has used the internet to their advantage in the past. In the late nineties (at the height of Napster) they intentionally leaked their own new album onto the net as a test. They had never premiered in the US as a #1 spot on the charts. (based on record sales) When their album went on sale it premiered at the top of the charts, so leaking the album on the internet actually increased their eventual sales.</p>
<p>As for Ian Brown making money, he is already a legend and he has plenty of money. I don’t think he needs to worry too much.</p>
<p>“As to how new acts will get exposed, where have you been? MySpace is introducing new acts and pretty successfully.” </p>
<p>I just go by my kids, age 15 and 18. Neither has discovered any bands using MySpace (they’re in the facebook generation) and all their favorite music they learned about through the radio (KROQ). But when they do find something they like, they BUY it – apparently an archaic approach. My daughter does what she can to keep the industry alive (at least so Dad has a job until she’s out of college) by giving iTunes gift certificates as presents. I don’t understand your comment that bands will invite “up and coming artists” to tour with them the way, I suppose you’re suggesting, REM invited the “up and coming” Radiohead. Radiohead already had “Creep” as a huge US hit single and the Bends, an enormously well regarded album. They weren’t tolling away in obscurity but had the backing of a major label, EMI. I’ve known many, many people (living as I do in LA) who had talent and worked for years, but nothing happened. You need the “middle man” (I won’t even get into the discussion of that misnomer – the creative people at the record companies who shape and direct the artists, the Clive Davis, Jimmy Iovine, are not “middle men.”). Ian Brown may be a legend, but I’ve never heard of him, so I wiki’d him and found he signed a “lucrative” contract with – horrors – a record company! He didn’t get rich by giving his music away.</p>
<p>The sky is NOT falling!</p>
<p>Capitalism is already at work. At least for current college students.</p>
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<p>Someone also told me that Tunebite is legal software to allow the student to burn it to a CD.</p>
<p>Bands frequently invite ‘up and coming’ artists to tour with them. I’ve been introduced to a LOT of bands as they were an up and coming act for a headliner… out of my <em>hundreds</em> of bands seen in concert.</p>
<p>Burn, you don’t NEED a middle man to get started. A friend of mine was recording with a gentleman in Philadelphia who has produced many acts - Patty Labelle, The Roots, a bunch of others. He recorded ONE song with him, couldn’t stand how much the guy was commercializing his music and changing it around, walked out and recorded the album himself at his home studio. He’s now selling it on Amie Street and doing pretty well with the songs.</p>
<p>Another band I know of was some guys (brothers) I went to college with - they formed their band when they were 12 and disbanded a few years ago after 10 years as they moved their own ways. They toured the coast, gave lots of ‘up and coming’ bands gigs, and just had a lot of fun and made a lot of money - without a label. I’m looking forward to see what they come up with now that they have gone their seperate ways. One of the bands that they got started was recently signed to some record label and is recording with the guy I mentioned in the above post. All in part because an unsigned band gave them a shot when they were young.</p>
<p>“I’ve known many, many people (living as I do in LA) who had talent and worked for years, but nothing happened.”</p>
<p>Of course. But that’s partly because the market is so tightly controlled by Clearchannel and Sony. Startups can’t compete with multibillion-dollar corporations and their expensive press machines. But if (as you predict) those behemoths are about to be driven out of business, it’s going to be open season. Every band will be (roughly) equally well armed to compete for listeners. There will still be lots of dreck, because many consumers prefer dreck, but there would be way more room on the airwaves without the Britney Spears Sound-o-Matic machine in the way.</p>
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They already have - it’s called ‘radio’ and ‘television’.</p>
<p>More warnings to college students illegally downloading music - </p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/feb/22/illegal_file_sharing_still_problematic/[/url]”>http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/feb/22/illegal_file_sharing_still_problematic/</a></p>
<p>Kids are turning away from the over commercialized dreck (love that word) being played on the radio in droves. I have three kids 14, 18 and 19 and none of them listens to the radio. They can’t stand what is being played and the once an hour rotation of only 100 or so artists is beyond galling. They find new music on the internet, play CD’s in the car, listen to their i-pods, youtube etc. A huge reason why the radio stinks is because of the control being exerted by the industry. To find quality music kids are going in droves to indie sources. The industry is changing.</p>
<p>collegemom:</p>
<p>I agree even though I do listen to the radio and it’s even spawned new industries - commercial-free satellite radio and cable/dish music channels. </p>
<p>The crux of this thread though is that illegally downloading music is…illegal. If people don’t want to pay the asking price for CDs then they should just ‘legally’ obtain their music through other means - iTunes, commercial radio, satellite radio, used CDs, etc. Alternatively they can just wait a while until the CD price gets reduced which is what’ll happen if they can’t sell enough at the higher price.</p>
<p>The landscape will all change anyway with the internet and with artists attempting to ‘go their own’ by selling their music via downloads themselves. Of course they won’t get far if people obtain it through illegal means because they don’t see the point of paying $0.99 when they can get it for ‘free’. They also won’t get far when they realize that they’re just one among thousands of artists competing for recognition and that without some professional promotion they find it difficult to make a viable living at it. And a lot of these artists won’t be content to just make a viable living - a lot of them want fame and fortune as well. From that perspective, hitting it big with the record company where both the company AND the artist do very well might not seem so bad.</p>
<p>So you are not confused, I am NOT advocating illegal activity. What I’m saying is (in the words of Bob Dylan) “the times they are a changing.” That’s it folks, adjust.</p>
<p>^^ I didn’t think you were.</p>
<p>“The crux of this thread though is that illegally downloading music is…illegal.”</p>
<p>I prefer to call them undocumented downloads and I believe that copyright enforcement is a federal responsibility and that we should have sanctuary cities. I mean why stigmatize people.</p>
<p>Milk out my nose for the second time in less than an hour, thanks…again.</p>
<p>“Startups can’t compete with multibillion-dollar corporations and their expensive press machines.”</p>
<p>I didn’t say ‘startups’ can’t compete – they can and do – see Fueled By Ramen, a startup record company who’s having a lot of success. I’m saying that record companies are not the evil empire, they do provide a service and – when they succeed – reap big profits. They also take a lot of losses on bands they take a chance on that don’t catch on. But where I agree with all of you is that record companies were slow to recognize a change in the landscape and ridiculously loathe to change their way of operating. They should have been on the forefront of the new technology and instead they’ve been playing catch-up. But that still doesn’t excuse illegally downloading music – especially now that there are so many legal avenues to getting digital music.</p>