Defining The Debate
The most powerful man in America is Roger Ailes. He sets the agenda, he defines the debate.
Read these articles if you doubt me:
Most people have no idea who Mr. Ailes is. And that’s how the truly powerful like it, they fly beneath the radar, they let those hungry for glory fight their battles, but they win in the end.
In the music sphere the debate has been defined by rights holders and their apparatchiks. Major labels, their lobbying organization, the RIAA, music publishers and BMI and ASCAP. And these entities have been on a disinformation campaign for a decade, they’ve defined the debate to the public’s detriment.
Pay attention.
The major labels said if Internet piracy was not stopped, people would stop making music, there would be no incentive.
Just the opposite has happened, so many people are making so much music that it’s nigh near impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The major labels said without them, no one would could afford to make music.
But the cost of production sunk incredibly. And you can raise funds on Kickstarter.
The majors just want to own the market and make all the money. And if you’re complicit in their game you’ve been duped.
Not only do they take the lion’s share of the money via onerous deals, they don’t pay you what they owe. Doesn’t matter if you’re a newbie or the Eagles, you just can’t get paid. You’re fighting to maintain this system?
As for the saw that the majors can make you a star, Top Forty success means less than ever before. And that’s the only world the majors play in.
They’re not on your side. Period.
As for those fantasizing that we can return to a day before the Internet, with controlled exhibition and a dominant physical market, have you been able to replace that typewriter ribbon? I’d say you use a dot matrix printer, but you don’t own a computer, you don’t use e-mail, you’re protesting the future.
But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t reach out and touch all your fans, market yourself online and know who your customers are all the while protesting that you want an antiquated distribution system.
That’s the acts. Stupidly following the dictates of those not aligned with them. Like poor people voting for lower taxes on the rich, believing one day they too will be overlords…ain’t that a laugh.
But the customers are equally dumb. They believe Ticketmaster is the problem, when the company is just a front for the acts.
Hate Rush Limbaugh, hate Bill O’Reilly, be clueless as to those truly pulling the strings.
Ticketmaster fees are exorbitant because of the acts. And the acts like it that way. It takes the heat off of them.
You want someone on your side. Which is why Irving Azoff is better than Lyor Cohen or Doug Morris. He’s on his acts’ side. That’s why his charges never leave him, he’s helping them win. Then again, when the acts win the public might end up paying higher prices, be unable to get good seats, their interests are not always aligned.
When the economy stalls, you spend, you goose it. When music revenues slip you don’t sue your customers and argue for an antiquated distribution system, you give the people what they want.
We’ll see how the debt deal works out for the Republicans.
But we already know that the major labels have killed their future. Even Mitch Bainwol is jumping ship.
People hate the unknown, they’re afraid of change, therefore they stand behind blowhards acting out of self-interest who tell them everything’s gonna be all right.
But everything is not gonna be all right.
The majors can’t solve the problems of the artists and the Republicans can’t help the poor people. If you care about neither, this is your heyday.
But if you care about music, don’t buy the RIAA line.
The rights holders just want to protect their wallets. They want no change. They don’t care about you. They just say they do so you won’t combat them.
You’re on your own.
New leaders not beholden to the past will emerge in the music sphere.
As for politics, I’m not optimistic. Because of the money. Coming from the corporations. It always comes down to the money.
