Will Morton on Wed, 12 Feb 2003 15:12:01 +0100 (CET) |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> The problem with file-sharing |
On Mon, 2003-02-10 at 01:29, Morlock Elloi wrote: > > If labels disappeared overnight, what would you download ? How would you *know* > and *value* anything beyond your street block boundaries ? You'll find it "on > internet" ? Well, there are hundreds of thousands unknown artists giving away > their stuff for free "on internet" TODAY and no one bothers to get it. The > enlightened masses crying for "right to download" would not have their "music" > without labels in the first place. The whole P2P "rights" movement is bogus in > the sense that without multi-billion-$ celebrity industry no one would bother > to design P2P for the masses in the first place. > I don't see how the 'record label' as a commercial concept is threatened at all by the explosion in filesharing. What I *do* see as threatened by filesharing is any record label that depends on massive marketing investment in relatively few records. The fewer the number of different albums pushed, the greater the impact of piracy. See, for example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2673983.stm particularly the sentence: "EMI has said it will make a profit once a total of 18 million albums have been sold from its six-album deal with Williams". Hello? CDs cost pennies each to produce but the marketing you're doing on them means you have to sell 18m before you break even? *This* is what filesharing threatens. Contrary to most people, I have no fears at all for the music industry. It just means that the record labels will have to push more records and spend less on each one, to minimise the effect of piracy. No bad thing, IMO. Since the current oligopolist masters of the music business seem completely blind to both the opportunities offered by the new tech and the changes to their business models it demands, these companies will probably lose their grip on the industry to those who can grok the new way of things. Again, IMO, no bad thing. Capitalism in action. I don't buy your 'without MTV, nobody would buy music' argument. As long as there is demand for music, there will be demand for recommendations of music. If the production of music becomes spread amongst many parties, then for sure the need for a 'recommendations business' will grow. But if the demand is there, people and companies will be there to meet it. Personally I can see something like Amazon's 'People who bought this also bought' engine combined with a cheap MP3 download mechanism, as just one of many possibilities. In fact I would be surprised if Jeff Bezos isn't quietly making plans right now for a massive online MP3 distribution mechanism for when the big labels finally 'get it'. W -- "Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried." -- Mae West _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold