It's hardly surprising that many musicians are ambivalent about recent recording industry crackdowns on teenage filesharers and their unsuspecting relatives. While the RIAA touts artists - whom the organization does not represent - as filesharing's most sympathetic victims, the NYT reports that a most signed artists never recieve a single royalty check for CD sales. They apparently make their money through live performances and merchandise sales instead.
Whether or not the RIAA prevails in its scattershot legal war against the masses, technology has radically devalued the main service the labels provide -- high risk, high reward venture capitalization for albums that may not be successful.
Publicists can publicize, and do so for a fraction of what the labels charge. Artists can take care of the "artist development" job, no doubt to the benefit of the art form. What the labels really did was turn out and ship thousands of copies of the product at the risk that those copies wouldn't sell. And that is what isn't needed anymore.
Even with the strongest possible IP laws in place, the industry won't last five years beyond the date the first big stars refuse to renew their contracts with labels in favor of online sales and ala carte promotion. The RIAA is acting with all the desperation of a patient with a terminal illness, but strong copyright will prove to be only so much shark cartilage and snake oil.
Posted by Marie Gryphon on September 14, 2003There still might end up being incredible utility in centralized distribution mechanisms. If you have any doubt of this, just take a look at the comparative success of Apple's iTunes Music Store for an example.
Posted by: PJ Doland on September 15, 2003 1:11 PMOh I don't doubt that, but iTunes is more of an Amazon than a SubPop in terms of the service it provides. In fact, it does much less than Amazon because it doesn't store or ship anything. Such a service can thus command a far, far smaller cut of the artists' take than a full-service label accustomed to capitalizing high-risk endeavors. It's just a Virgin Records without any of the overhead.
I don't see any reason to believe that labels - the disintermediated middlemen and financiers - have any comparative advantage as to running a Napster-type retail service. But even if they do, that market will only be worth a fraction of what labels take in now. Current members of the industry will shrink radically or go out of business, and the savings will be split between musicians and fans.
Posted by: Marie on September 15, 2003 4:36 PM