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  • From: jim.brantley AT gmail.com
  • To: ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: Good article about music biz...
  • Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:37:21 -0700 (PDT)

That Wired article is a great one. I also saw this interesting news
today: http://www.slate.com/id/2189888/

The major labels (or at least Warner Bros.) are finally pursuing the
model long advocated by Bob Lefsetz (everyone's favorite music biz
gadfly/curmudgeon: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/) wherein consumers
pay a fee to the ISP for the right to legally download all the music
they want. Artists/copyright holders are then reimbursed according to
how many times their songs are downloaded/played (at least that's the
idea).

It will be interesting to watch how people respond to this. At a
glance it seems like a grand idea, but there are some big problems
with it:
1) How do you accurately track plays/downloads? It seems like we're
still a ways off from the level of standardization that would make
this feasible. I also see privacy concerns with this (e.g. I do have a
Last.FM account and love it, but it also creeps me out a little bit).
2) What about ISP customers who don't want to download music (and
therefore don't want to pay the fee)? I guess it could be voluntary.
3) Would this result in a major label monopoly? How do independent
labels and artists fit into this? If this artists-reimbursed-on-
download/play-metrics model could be made to work, it seems like the
endgame may be for the labels to be squeezed out anyway - or at least
turn them into publishing houses (focused on continuing to monetize
their catalogs) and/or PR machines for new artists, since the cost of
recording has continued to drop and the cost of distribution with this
model would be close to nil.

On Apr 28, 6:21 pm, local... AT gmail.com wrote:
> This ran back in December, but I just finally got around to reading
> it. David Byrne discusses the current state of the industry with some
> people you know, possibly, quite literally. Here is the link:
>
> http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?curr...





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