You might not be aware of it, but there’s this act Chamillionaire that’s got a huge hit record, "Ridin’".\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure Doug Morris and the rest of the execs at Universal are thrilled, since all their marketing efforts have paid off.\u00c2\u00a0 Airplay on MTV and radio have generated sales of 939,316 CDs to date.\u00c2\u00a0 And that newfangled iTunes, and its low market share brethren?\u00c2\u00a0 Wow, the track’s burning up the chart there too.\u00c2\u00a0 Last week it sold a whopping 48,903 downloads!\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, a six percent drop from the previous week, but all together a total of 569,749 legal downloads have been sold.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow, isn’t this newfangled Internet great?\u00c2\u00a0 We’re replacing our physical sales with files, the transition is going smoothly, finally, we’ve got things under control.<\/p>\n
Until you look at the BigChampagne TopSwaps chart.\u00c2\u00a0 Last week, 3,449,536 people had "Ridin’" on their hard drives.\u00c2\u00a0 To quote agents and managers, shit, look at all that money left on the table!<\/p>\n
But Chamillionaire ain’t even at the top of the swaps chart.\u00c2\u00a0 That place is held by Bubba Sparxx, with "Ms. New Booty".\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s see, Virgin has sold 191,507 Sparxx albums to date.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, the CD was only released in April, but still, that number is not too good.\u00c2\u00a0 You ain’t gonna buy a new Aston Martin with those sales.\u00c2\u00a0 And "Ms. New Booty" is falling down the digital tracks chart…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s off eleven percent, with 17,155 downloads this week, with a whopping cume of 56,737.\u00c2\u00a0 Wait, there’s also another version, that’s got a cume of 28,477.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, this record’s kind of a stiff.\u00c2\u00a0 But, now get this, 5,517,560 people had "Ms. New Booty" on their hard drives last week (well the week ending 5\/29\/06 anyway).<\/p>\n
What the fuck is going on here.\u00c2\u00a0 Edgar Bronfman, Jr. says digital sales are ramping up, the problem is solved.\u00c2\u00a0 Mitch Bainwol just announced that P2P has been contained.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, there appear to be ten illegal downloads for every legal one.\u00c2\u00a0 Is the issue really Apple’s DRM or is it monetizing P2P, where the action is?<\/p>\n
Number 2 at BigChampagne is Dem Franchize Boyz, with "Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It".\u00c2\u00a0 That record’s just about over on the digital tracks chart.\u00c2\u00a0 There are two versions, with a whopping combined total sales of 410,969.\u00c2\u00a0 But 4,573,365 people had the song on their hard drives!\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, they didn’t take it because they didn’t want it!\u00c2\u00a0 Shouldn’t they pay something for this privilege?<\/p>\n
Let’s go down all the way to number 10 on the BigChampagne chart.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is "So What", by the Field Mob, featuring Ciara.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s slipping on the legal downloads chart.\u00c2\u00a0 A grand total of 56,917 tracks have been sold.\u00c2\u00a0 But 2,344,420 people have got the track on their hard drives.\u00c2\u00a0 Now if you’re really paying attention, you know that the Field Mob record doesn’t even come out til next week.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t this just like the movie studios protecting their distribution windows?\u00c2\u00a0 For what reason are the labels holding sales back when people want it immediately upon hearing it, or of it!\u00c2\u00a0 The story isn’t about digital tracks’ cannibalization of album sales, it’s about a vast ignoring and possibly ignorance of the real marketplace, P2P.<\/p>\n
What the BigChampagne chart (available to the hoi polloi on page 20 of the "Listen To This" supplement of the 6\/16\/06 issue of "Entertainment Weekly") demonstrates is incredible demand for recorded music.\u00c2\u00a0 A vast overwhelming demand.\u00c2\u00a0 Which instead of trying to fill, the RIAA is futilely trying to stop!\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve heard for years that sales are going down, giving the impression that nobody wants this stuff, yet people are clamoring for it!\u00c2\u00a0 Is the answer to try and decimate this demand?<\/p>\n
Sure, maybe people don’t want to pay a buck a track, but they certainly want these songs. And since reproduction costs are nil, shouldn’t a price point be established where they can acquire them?\u00c2\u00a0 What if everybody had a music subscription they paid a few bucks a month for?\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine the quantity of material that would be consumed.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, each track wouldn’t generate much, but if that scares you, I guess you think that BMG Songs should go for a song.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the few pennies business we know as music publishing is booming.<\/p>\n
Actually, we have this system in place today.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that no one is paying for these subscriptions.\u00c2\u00a0 And the number trading is artificially low, because a great number who would partake have been scared off by the RIAA, fearful of being arrested, or afraid of being unable to sleep at night for committing a moral violation.<\/p>\n
Well, it’s clear that labels are committing a moral violation.\u00c2\u00a0 In the name of saving their businesses, they’re preventing artists signed to them from being heard by the most people possible, and garnering live and ancillary revenue.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels are limiting the marketplace for reasons I still can’t fathom.<\/p>\n
Don’t listen to the mainstream press b.s.\u00c2\u00a0 These are the same people who lined up behind Bush and his fabricated reasons for invading Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s clear that the RIAA position is inane and insane.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, nobody in the mainstream media will ask the tough questions and then flog the true answers.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just all b.s. all the time.\u00c2\u00a0 You wonder why the public still shares music?\u00c2\u00a0 Because the brethren of the fat cats oil profiteering are spewing rationales that don’t make sense.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you aren’t willing to disobey a law that you believe is outrageous and wrong, you’re not an American.\u00c2\u00a0 As for changing that law via the system…yeah, right.\u00c2\u00a0 The same system that enacted a heinous bankruptcy law and is looking to eviscerate net neutrality.\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t believe their representatives work for them, they’re convinced they work for the corporations.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, isn’t it funny that the California congresspeople are always the first to stand up for the content industries, slapping their constituents down, since Disney, et al, fund their campaigns?<\/p>\n
You can’t argue with facts.\u00c2\u00a0 The acquisition of music has changed forever.\u00c2\u00a0 iTunes is a sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 How about dealing with what’s really happening and getting more music to more people at a lower aliquot price.<\/p>\n
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You might not be aware of it, but there’s this act Chamillionaire that’s got a huge hit record, "Ridin’".\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure Doug Morris and the rest of the execs at Universal are thrilled, since all their marketing efforts have paid off.\u00c2\u00a0 Airplay on MTV and radio have generated sales of 939,316 CDs to date.\u00c2\u00a0 And […]<\/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-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-7c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","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=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}