It reminds me of the year 2000.\u00c2\u00a0 Only this time the dupes aren’t the venture capitalists, but the labels themselves.<\/p>\n
Back at the turn of the decade, Silicon Valley financiers believed technology triumphed.\u00c2\u00a0 They believed if they built it, people would come.\u00c2\u00a0 And people did.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that the labels didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 And, without licenses, all you’ve got is lawsuits.<\/p>\n
With the suit of Hummer Winblad, no Silicon Valley investor will touch music.\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore, the labels believe they have won.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve come up with a better system than the P2P of the techies.\u00c2\u00a0 Sale by TRACK!<\/p>\n
Sale by track is death.<\/p>\n
If the singles business was so good, why did the labels kill it?\u00c2\u00a0 If you could make so much money selling individual tracks, why did the labels focus on albums?<\/p>\n
When the 45 ruled, the business was a fraction of the size it is now.\u00c2\u00a0 You just couldn’t make that much money.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only when the Beatles arrived, and the album became desirable, and then FM radio SOLD the album, that the business blew up.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S when all the conglomerates got in.<\/p>\n
So, I ask you, what’s different now that you’re distributing said singles on the Web?\u00c2\u00a0 It reminds me of the dot com era.\u00c2\u00a0 When everybody thought if you distributed something via the Internet, you’d make a lot of money.\u00c2\u00a0 Funny how the economics didn’t translate.\u00c2\u00a0 And all those companies went bust.<\/p>\n
The Apple iTunes Music Store is a colossal failure as a replacement of the physical CD business.\u00c2\u00a0 But, after reluctantly agreeing to its establishment, now the labels are believing THEIR OWN hype and seeing it as their savior.\u00c2\u00a0 When nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n
Today the L.A. "Times" announced Amoeba is forming an online label.\u00c2\u00a0 Watch them lose their shirt.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like Hummer Winblad and the NEW, money-hemorrhaging Napster.\u00c2\u00a0 Rule one of business, you’ve got to deliver what the people want.\u00c2\u00a0 And the people don’t want copy protected single tracks in any vast quantity.\u00c2\u00a0 The people wanted what the original Napster delivered.\u00c2\u00a0 All you can eat.\u00c2\u00a0 But, the labels were scared of that.\u00c2\u00a0 And have substituted this fallacious new system.<\/p>\n
Variable pricing at the iTunes Music Store is like variable pricing at Disneyland.\u00c2\u00a0 They USED to have that.\u00c2\u00a0 Then the park realized they could make A LOT more money by giving their customers freedom.\u00c2\u00a0 To not plan their day, not deciding how to allocate their E tickets, but just riding what was DESIRABLE!<\/p>\n
How come theme parks figured this out DECADES ago and the record labels still haven’t?<\/p>\n
At best, record labels are good at spotting talent.\u00c2\u00a0 And marketing that talent.\u00c2\u00a0 And distributing it via brick and mortar.\u00c2\u00a0 They know NOTHING about Internet distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 Why can’t they leave it in the hands of the techies?\u00c2\u00a0 Why do they insist on driving themselves out of business?<\/p>\n
You’ve got to sell people the bundle.\u00c2\u00a0 The EQUIVALENT of the album.<\/p>\n
It’s just like cable TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Get everybody in for one price.\u00c2\u00a0 Who gives a shit if someone gets a deal by watching HBO 24\/7.\u00c2\u00a0 There are always fringe idiots that take advantage of the system.\u00c2\u00a0 But the average person has a life, and flat fee pricing works out.<\/p>\n
As for people logging on and taking everything they need and ending their subscription…\u00c2\u00a0 Disneyland and HBO learned it’s incumbent upon them to always construct new attractions, so people come back, so they DON’T disconnect.\u00c2\u00a0 They build religion.\u00c2\u00a0 They try to be in BED with the customer for life, not just have a one night stand.\u00c2\u00a0 If labels keep coming out with great new stuff, people will STAY CONNECTED!<\/p>\n
It’s entirely laughable watching the industry drink its own kool-aid.\u00c2\u00a0 If DRM was such a good idea, why do ASCAP and BMI allow restaurants to play whatever they want?\u00c2\u00a0 Shouldn’t they have to pay for each track?\u00c2\u00a0 And not bring a CD from home?<\/p>\n
To start a label selling 99 cent tracks is to burn your money.\u00c2\u00a0 There are some decent acts on that new Warner e-label Cordless, but the online store is doomed to failure.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the price is too much of an impediment to acquisition.\u00c2\u00a0 Charge people a couple of bucks a month and let them take whatever they want.\u00c2\u00a0 THEN you’ll see these acts blow up.\u00c2\u00a0 As fans e-mail and trade the tracks, spreading the word.<\/p>\n
Think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 The best way to sell music is via word of mouth.\u00c2\u00a0 And this is what the labels are trying to kill.\u00c2\u00a0 The public is doing their marketing work FOR THEM, FOR FREE!\u00c2\u00a0 Yet the labels are too stupid to see this.\u00c2\u00a0 Just place a toll on this behavior.\u00c2\u00a0 A low one.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, do they charge you a thousand bucks a month to subscribe to cable?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what it’s worth, with all that programming.\u00c2\u00a0 But, spread over TENS OF MILLIONS OF CUSTOMERS, it’s only a HUNDRED bucks per month, and the purveyors are making A TON OF MONEY!<\/p>\n
The major labels want network TV and network TV only.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to leave all the money of cable on the table.\u00c2\u00a0 Fearful of the future.<\/p>\n
The old pricing model is history.\u00c2\u00a0 Just ask any kid with a hard drive what a track is worth.\u00c2\u00a0 99 cents?\u00c2\u00a0 Are you kidding me?\u00c2\u00a0 You’re telling me that hard drive is worth TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS?\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s very common for a kid to have two thousand tracks on it.\u00c2\u00a0 Which he can give in minutes to a friend.\u00c2\u00a0 Music IS priceless.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s got to be sold like SCHOOL!\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody must pay so everybody can partake.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody is educated, everybody listens to music.\u00c2\u00a0 Why do the labels want to KILL the spread of their wares?\u00c2\u00a0 Learning is priceless, but with taxes spread over the entire society, it’s cheap.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody with an ISP should pay for music.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the pot should be divvied up a la ASCAP and BMI.<\/p>\n
I just can’t listen to one more label exec tell me how the digital sale of singles is going to save their business.\u00c2\u00a0 It just doesn’t MAKE SENSE!<\/p>\n
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It reminds me of the year 2000.\u00c2\u00a0 Only this time the dupes aren’t the venture capitalists, but the labels themselves. Back at the turn of the decade, Silicon Valley financiers believed technology triumphed.\u00c2\u00a0 They believed if they built it, people would come.\u00c2\u00a0 And people did.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that the labels didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 And, without licenses, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-3H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}