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Darren Hayes' rant: "The death of the recorded music industry"


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Old 16-09-2009, 11:06
nate1970
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"The death of the recorded music industry" (myspace)

I don't agree with him, but it's an interesting read.
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Old 16-09-2009, 11:47
absalomabsalom
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"The death of the recorded music industry" (myspace)

I don't agree with him, but it's an interesting read.

Its interesting to hear the perspective of a musician rather than a lawyer or company official. However, I think the problem over the years is that the consumer *has* been ripped off on CDs, vinyl etc. I think record companies, "artists" etc. need to accept this, accept that the game has changed and try find a happy medium between free and rip-off.

I've heard it said that people often prefer to buy music online at a reasonable price rather than downloading illegally (I know I do), and websites like Spotify, eMusic, Amie Street etc. are providing new ways of listening to/discovering/buying music. Record companies need to accept this and work with it, not against. The more they insist on treating their *customers* as idiots/criminals, the less likely they are to save their industry.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:00
floopy123
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Interesting comments he makes. llegal downloading/file sharing is a huge problem and one that can never be stopped but Itunes and AmazonMP3 is proof people will pay for music if the price is right.

The music industry hasn't stopped, artists continue to record and release music. In this respect, illegal downloading hasn't seen the death of the record industry and I doubt it ever will. Legal and illegal music downloads will co-exist and the music industry will continue, even if it doesn't make the same amount of profit it did pre-internet.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:05
mathertron
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I'd like to read it but the linky wont work here
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:08
Superstoked
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I'd like to read it but the linky wont work here


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The death of the recorded music industry

"If you want evidence that file sharing has destroyed the recorded music industry, look no further than at the disappearance of studios. You'd have to use sophisticated archeologists because many of them don't exist anymore.

The recording studios where I recorded and mixed my last album, 'This Delicate Thing We've Made' have vanished. These were studios where seminal albums by everyone from Coldplay to Tears For Fears. From Kate Bush to the Gorillaz. Gone Gone Gone.

The studio where I recorded 'Spin' and Savage Garden's 'Affirmation'? Broke.

The studio where I mixed 'The Tension and The Spark' ?

Dust.

They went broke because they weren't getting any clients.
They weren't getting any clients because not many people could afford to spend the kind of money it costs to record
in a quality recording studio facility.
Those people couldn't afford to record in such spaces because record companies weren't offering the kind of budgets
that used to allow for such costs.
Record companies aren't offering those kinds of budgets because the sale of records doesn't earn enough money to
pay back the investment.
The investment is not being made because the sale of records are so low.
The sale of records are so low because it has generally become the consensus that music is 'free'.
Records sell so few copies these days that major record stores are closing down.
When I was in L.A, I couldn't find the Virgin Mega Stores I used to love. 3 used to exist within a five mile radius of my
hotel.
They're gone now.
When I was in San Francisco, I went to hang out at my favourite Virgin store where I bought 5 years of music, DVD's books
t shirts etc.
It used to be open until midnight most nights.
Then it used to have reduced opening hours.
Then one day, it closed.
Now it's a massive building with nothing in it.
Because the building used to sell music.
And now the general consensus is that music is 'free'.
People think that music is free because you can get it for free if someone gives it away for free.
Giving it away for free really means that someone takes a copy of it, either before it is released or after one person has paid
for it, and puts it online.
When someone 'finds' it online, they're not 'stealing' it. They're 'taking it'. It was offered for free. And besides, they want it.
Surely we should be allowed to have, for free, anything we want in life, no?

So who takes responsibility?

If someone steals a car (which costs about the same prices as say, making a cheap music video these days) and tried to sell it
on ebay - all sorts of people would be held accountable.

But if, say, someone takes the new album by artist 'X' - and posts it on rapidshare - and a hundred thousand people take it - it seems
no one is really held responsible.

They might say, 'well the record companies are making a fortune' (they're not)
or 'The artist is rich (not anymore or possibly they never were)
or maybe they'll point the finger at the person hosting the link - the third party. The 'pimp' in the transaction if you will.
But you can't. Not really.
What happens is the album eventually comes down, after a hundred thousand people have taken it - and the world continues.

Without record stores.
Or great sounding albums.
Or music videos that look amazing.
Or with recordings no longer created in amazing recording studios on incredible equipment that no longer exists.
Without record companies willing to develop new artists and spend money to promote them or allow them to grow.
Because music is, apparently, free.

Would it be so crazy to suggest that an internet provider, a person who might describe their service as providing an ISP -
are actually the ones responsible for the death of the recorded music industry?

Would it be so ludicrous to suggest that if ISP's cancelled the accounts of people who were identified giving away
albums - that this whole problem might be less grim?

Ironically, try to catch a glimpse online of the recent Michael Jackson tribute at the VMA's.
What's that? You can't?
That's because youtube are terrified of Viacom. The minute any 'illegal content' appears from MTV it's immediately
removed. The same can't be said for entire CD quality rips of music over at any number of file sharing web sites.
Music, is apparently, free.

I say it all the time - but what is music worth to you?
I paid for music when I was dead broke.
And when I became wealthy from making a success of my career, I almost went broke making sure I could make
music the way it should sound, in the way it deserved to be presented. So please don't accuse me of being in a position
of privilege. I've always been about putting my money where my mouth was when it came to this issue. Most of the money I earned
from my success in the past has been used to fund my own independent releases.

So my rant is really directed at Governments around the world to come down hard on ISP's. And protect the recorded
music industry. Successful albums mean jobs - band members, crew, designers, directors, manufacturing etc etc etc.
Retail Retail Retail. All soon to be Gone Gone Gone.
This is not about popstars. It's about an industry that is falling apart ironically when the world's interest in music is
at a peak."
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:08
floopy123
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Leona Lewis sold millions of her debut album, I'm sure it's the same with many other popular singers. People do buy singles and albums, but not in the same amount as in previous decades. Illegal downloading has taken its toil but the singles and album charts remain - people continue to buy music.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:16
brunolover
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Dislike the man's music but he talks sense and has good point. I disapprove of file sharing and more should be done to prevent it. Some people assume just because they have may have paid for a CD they own the rights to the music on that CD and can share it with the world for free.

Have to agree how depressing it is with regard to the lack of music shops around now. It seems that everyone just wants to stay locked at home and buy everything through the Internet nowadays.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:18
brunolover
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Leona Lewis sold millions of her debut album, I'm sure it's the same with many other popular singers. People do buy singles and albums, but not in the same amount as in previous decades. Illegal downloading has taken its toil but the singles and album charts remain - people continue to buy music.
Well they do buy music but his point was that not enough people do to make it financially viable.

On an average week it takes around 40,000 to 50,000 downloads to get a number single and about 10,000 less to get a number 1 album. I know we get the exception to the rule on this but on the whole those sales are pretty piss poor.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:20
iamhuman
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At the big vinyl pressing plants......it costs pennies to produce a vinyl record and takes a total of 34 seconds to make completely. CDs as many of you know can also be very cheap to buy. Anyone who believes that record companies aren't making any money off of music are lying to themselves. It doesn't make downloading right. I buy my music online at cheap prices but i miss buying them instore. I miss going into HMV and Virgin and buying the latest albums on vinyl. As little as 5 years ago i could easily do that, nowadays it needs to be on special order at HMV as they mostly deal in 7" singles or i buy online.......and wait a week for it to be delivered. Sometimes i wish i could just pay a few extra quid just to be able to experience going into a shop and holding it in my hands while i buy it.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:28
mathertron
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Plus recording has never been cheaper.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:29
floopy123
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Well they do buy music but his point was that not enough people do to make it financially viable.

On an average week it takes around 40,000 to 50,000 downloads to get a number single and about 10,000 less to get a number 1 album. I know we get the exception to the rule on this but on the whole those sales are pretty piss poor.
I take your point but record labels - the big ones - haven't gone out of business. If a CD is retailed around 10 quid and sells around 40,000 in week one, that's £400,000 potential profit. I say potential profit because there's the initial cost of making an album, getting it copied, distributing etc.

CDs haven't shot up in price over the last decade. They're not £20 so the record labels haven't gone that route and priced their products so high it would kill off the industry. You could argue internet stores have made it more competitive and lowered prices. You can buy albums on ITunes and AmazonMP3 for under five pounds:

Average Album Prices

£4.90
Amazon MP3

£5.63
iTunes

£5.72
We7.com

£5.75
HMV.com

£6.68
Tesco Digital

£6.68
7Digital

£7.02
Play.com
http://www.mp3puzzled.com/retailersInfo.php

It's never been cheaper to buy music so it's not all doom and gloom for the customer who mourns the passing of the retail music store. And every legal download bought is money for the artist and label.

As for buying things on the net, well, you can't halt change. People enjoy buying products on the net, it tends to be quicker and easier than going to a store. That's just the way life has gone. Record stores have to accept this.
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:31
iamhuman
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A lot of artists have discovered how affordable and easy it is to record their own material. I'm not saying a £300 keyboard doesnt sound as good as a £3000 one but do you really think people at home with the majority on a budget stereo system are really gonna be able to tell the difference? I don't think so. Jarvis Cocker said earlier this year that record companies arent poor at all and that an artist on a major label like EMI would be like to get 30p for every album sold i.e. 30p is actually quite a lot considering they could sells 10s of thousands or even millions!
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Old 16-09-2009, 12:43
floopy123
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I'm sure illegal downloading makes it harder for aspiring artists to make a living. If record labels are making less profit they're less likely to invest in new artists. I'm sure illegal downloading has had a huge impact on the record industry, it would be naive and foolish to think it hasn't but no-one can 'uninvent' the internet. Home PC technology has made such a huge leap in the last 15 years or so. The record industry can't stop technology and if studios go bankrupt or some artists don't make careers out of their profession, it's just the harsh fact of life. It's sad but that's the way it goes.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:05
Robert Romarin
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Obviously there are some legitimate concerns being expressed here.

However, without getting into the pros and cons which I'm sure will be covered more eloquently by people with stronger views, I would make this point. The trouble is when you've lived a few decades, you've heard it all before. When I was young, home taping was 'killing' music, synthesizers were threatening the livelihoods of real musicians (I kid you not) etc. Going back much further, I believe radio made a big impact on the recorded music industry...but it adjusted and survived.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:09
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I agree with everything he said, it's not opinion really, just simple fact.

It's all very well to say that record labels have been ripping consumers off for years, but I kind of disagree with that (them ripping off artists is a whole different matter!) They put out a product and people were willing to pay for it. The trouble is now the product is available for free and a lot of people would rather take it for free. It's ridiculous really to think the music industry has a magic supply of money and that if no one ever pays for anything again it'll just keep chugging along.

As an aside, I'm not sure why anyone thinks that CD's should be priced closer to how much it costs to physically make them in the factory. As far as I'm concerned that's completely irrelevant.

I really don't know what the answer is, but I suspect the music business is going to change a lot over the next decade.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:18
nate1970
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As far as I'm concerned, laying the blame on filesharers is a cop-out. The medium has changed, the market has changed, and the demographic has changed.

For one: games, DVDs and mobile phones all now have their share of a young person's pocket money, of course music sales are going to suffer.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:23
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Filesharers have to take some blame, in my opinion. A large number of people sharing music instead of paying for it doesn't just have no effect. Young people still listen to music (probably easily as much as they play games or watch DVD's!), but I've met a hell of a lot who don't pay for it.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:31
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around the time just after the download era started i went through a time of about a year where i wasn't really bothered about music. i would still hear songs and download them, but because i only had a passing interest at that time, i would illegally download music because i just wanted to have the songs, simple as.

but after a short while i got right back into music, and since then i appreciate it like i used to, and i would much rather now pay for it and cherish it rather than get it illegally for free.

many of those who have only a passing interest in music do account for a lot of sales, but many of them would also just get it for free because they don't care about the industry, they just want to get the songs they like.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:35
nate1970
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Filesharers have to take some blame, in my opinion. A large number of people sharing music instead of paying for it doesn't just have no effect.
But you have to bear in mind that (a) a percentage of the files being shared would not have been purchased legally anyway, and (b) a percentage of people who download files illegally will then go and buy a legitimate copy of the CD/DVD if they like it.

Now as to what those percentages actually are, who really knows. I'd guess they're much MUCH higher than any **AA-style organisations would admit to.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:52
Martin Blank
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Reminds me of hearing Bustah Rhymes (sp?) ranting on how 'the game' has changed. 99p for a downloaded single, whereas the same tune as a mobile phone ring tone is 3.99, and thats not even for the whole tune. He was banging on about how they'd get 4 million to make a tune and it's all dried up.

But make no mistake, there are many avenues for music to be sold, the revenue streams are varied and many.
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Old 16-09-2009, 13:59
vanzandtfan
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I wonder how many people who decry file-sharing would happily go back to the pre-filesharing days, when CDs often cost up to £20?

The truth is that the music industry were ripping off their customers for a long time. Anyone remember when CDs were first introduced? They cost more than their vinyl or cassete equivalent. Fair enough we thought, it's a new, shiny, technologically advanced product, no wonder there's a price premium. Fast forward a few years and making a CD cost pennies and we could all do it on out home PCs, so had the price premium gone? Of course not, the price of CDs had gone up. It was only with the advent of file-sharing that the price came down.

The profits that the record companies made was heavily inflated throughout the eighties, they have now come back down to earth. Some of the excess has gone, but Hayes is utterly wrong to say that record companies are no longer making a large amount of money. Even during a recession in which many companies are struggling, the record companies are still posting big profits.

The problem with the music industry is short-term greed. Currently the file-sharers are winning not simply because they are free (Microsoft have proven that one can compete with free and make a lot of money) but because the service offered by file sharers is better than that offered by the record companies. I can easily go online and download a non-DRMed, CD quality copy of an album from a filesharing site, but will the music industry offer me a similar service? Whenever new methods of distribution come along, which could compete with the pirates, the music industry does everything it can do stop them. Just look at Spotify. The charges the record companies demand make it highly unlikely that they will ever make a profit and the selection becomes worse by the day thanks to the record companies removing it's catalog. Unless the record companies change their behaviour, Spotify will not be with us in anything likt it's present form in a years time. Or look US internet radio. Or the nonsense with youtube music videos. Short-term money grabbing behaviour is preventing any competition to the pirates, and as long as the competition does not exist, the pirates will win.
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Old 16-09-2009, 14:03
nate1970
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But make no mistake, there are many avenues for music to be sold, the revenue streams are varied and many.
If record companies sold the products I want to buy, I'd be there, credit card in hand.

Those products are:

1) CD singles like they used to be, i.e. with lots of B-sides and remixes. I used to shell out £4 to £8 for a 2 CD single release, and most of the time was happy to do so.

2) Physical CD albums with some incentive to buy over the iTunes/mp3 equivalent. Christ, if I'm paying £2-3 more, I want the bonus tracks too as a minimum, thank you very much...
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Old 16-09-2009, 14:05
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I agree with everything he said, it's not opinion really, just simple fact.

It's all very well to say that record labels have been ripping consumers off for years, but I kind of disagree with that (them ripping off artists is a whole different matter!) They put out a product and people were willing to pay for it. The trouble is now the product is available for free and a lot of people would rather take it for free. It's ridiculous really to think the music industry has a magic supply of money and that if no one ever pays for anything again it'll just keep chugging along.

As an aside, I'm not sure why anyone thinks that CD's should be priced closer to how much it costs to physically make them in the factory. As far as I'm concerned that's completely irrelevant.

I really don't know what the answer is, but I suspect the music business is going to change a lot over the next decade.
Agree
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Old 16-09-2009, 14:20
nate1970
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I can easily go online and download a non-DRMed, CD quality copy of an album from a filesharing site, but will the music industry offer me a similar service?
I agree with everything you say, just thought I'd highlight the above point. My experience of buying digital songs online has been less than straightforward; my daughter gets an iTunes voucher for Christmas, but hasn't got an iPod, so there was a rigmarole of burning to CD then re-ripping. Another time, I bought about 20 tracks from 7digital, a few were corrupt, and some of the others were in a stupid WMA format that took me hours to turn into mp3s. Amazon requires you to use some stupid downloader that doesn't work on this PC. I could go on...
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Old 16-09-2009, 14:27
glyn9799
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Record companies are way too greedy. They winge that people are illegally downloading, then they put iTunes prices from 79p to 99p. Where is the sence in that?!?!?

I've also noticed that in some cases it's actually cheaper to buy the CD then it is to download. I remember eariler in the year Lily Allens 'The Fear' single was 99p and included two tracks. To download 'The Fear' as a single track also cost 99p

Don't get me started on download EP's! :sleep:
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