Those guys at IMPALA are crybabies.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, they’re living in the same past as the major labels.\u00c2\u00a0 One wherein all music is sold at physical retail and discounts and chart shenanigans rule.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like we’ve never left the twentieth century.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of celebrating, IMAPALA’s members should be firing those who pursued this lame-brained course of action.<\/p>\n
Ah, the legal system.\u00c2\u00a0 So arcane the average person can’t understand it.\u00c2\u00a0 The court did not say that the merger constituted a monopoly and should be blocked, just that the process of approval was not thorough enough.\u00c2\u00a0 If you think this means the Sony\/BMG merger will ultimately be nullified, you’re living in a dream world wherein Microsoft splits itself in two, ending up with an applications division and an operating system division.<\/p>\n
Now Microsoft has got trouble overseas.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not the same.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the weasel he truly is, Bill Gates is refusing to comply with a court order.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S the American cowboy behavior that the rest of the world hates.\u00c2\u00a0 As in THE RULES DON’T APPLY TO ME!<\/p>\n
But Microsoft is different.\u00c2\u00a0 Microsoft is the UNDERPINNING to the computer experience.\u00c2\u00a0 As problematic as that is, Microsoft wants to extend their dominance into other fields by leveraging this fact.<\/p>\n
The major labels?\u00c2\u00a0 Run by street-smart rule-benders who see their coffers depleting and desperately want to find a way to maintain their salaries.<\/p>\n
These companies merged because they were in TROUBLE, not because their owners saw a way of dominating the sphere.\u00c2\u00a0 Bertelsmann wanted out of the record business, and Sir Howard wanted to pull a rabbit out of his hat, wanted to perform a magic trick wherein he converted a sullied asset into a brand new car overnight.\u00c2\u00a0 Not concerned with the long term, Stringer brought in a neophyte who oversaw this disastrous combination of companies that was done with so little aforethought, the problems are STILL resonating.<\/p>\n
Then there’s Mario Monti.\u00c2\u00a0 This dude was the anti-monopoly civil servant of choice.\u00c2\u00a0 You couldn’t count on Americans to block consolidation, but this Italian, a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL, stood up to all the hard-driving business pricks in the world.\u00c2\u00a0 Until he was slapped down.\u00c2\u00a0 Told that policy had changed.\u00c2\u00a0 He was being too restrictive.\u00c2\u00a0 And the new standards meant that mergers like Sony BMG should be approved.\u00c2\u00a0 So he did this.<\/p>\n
VOILA!\u00c2\u00a0 A zillion people lose their jobs (they’re the ones I’m concerned about, not the IMPALAS) and you end up with a company LESS than the sum of its parts.\u00c2\u00a0 But those independent labels.\u00c2\u00a0 They can only look backward, not forward.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve been fucked so many times in the ass by the big boys that they want to challenge EVERY change that might work to their detriment.<\/p>\n
Yes, work to their detriment in the OLD DAYS!<\/p>\n
Kind of like TicketMaster…\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, they’ve been railing against TicketMaster for decades.\u00c2\u00a0 About the company’s monopoly.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you don’t think Live Nation is going to do its own ticketing and put TicketMaster on the ropes…you’re just not paying attention.<\/p>\n
In other words, business conditions change.<\/p>\n
But in this case, the change didn’t come from a realignment of existing companies, but from an outside force, the INTERNET!<\/p>\n
It’s like arguing how much farm land you’ve got in Pennsylvania when they’re GIVING IT AWAY throughout the wild west.<\/p>\n
It’s a free-for-all.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of worrying about a dying, archaic system, the independent labels should worry how they’re going to dominate, at least what land they’re going to own, in the NEW SPHERE!<\/p>\n
But it’s even wilder than that.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s UNLIMITED LAND!\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve heard that old saw that they’re making no more beachfront property?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, they’re making new selling territory on the Web ALL THE TIME!\u00c2\u00a0 The landscape is INFINITE!<\/p>\n
The majors are moving SO cautiously into this new sphere, cyberspace, that it’s wide open for an innovator to come and take over.\u00c2\u00a0 But, do the IMPALA members do this?\u00c2\u00a0 No, they complain about past injustices, think the rules of the game will stay the same forever, like some bizarre real life board game.<\/p>\n
But that’s not the way it is.\u00c2\u00a0 Online, the rules haven’t even been formed.<\/p>\n
All we know is that the barrier for entry for new players is almost nonexistent and that the majors are clueless as to how to dominate this sphere and are trying to hold it back rather than embracing the inevitable.<\/p>\n
Maybe this whole event argues for courts’ lack of ability to deal with the new world, i.e. the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe legislative answers are the wrong solution, never mind judicial ones.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it’s about market conditions, hammering out paradigms that work for the public as opposed to restraining players.<\/p>\n
The problem isn’t that Sony and BMG, two of the old players run by old men playing by the old rules, have merged, but that people now want their music as files, not discs, and this will be the case in ever-increasing numbers in the future, and presently, these individuals are acquiring most of their wares WITHOUT PAYING FOR THEM!<\/p>\n
Chase the consumer, not the clueless old farts in suits.<\/p>\n
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Those guys at IMPALA are crybabies.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, they’re living in the same past as the major labels.\u00c2\u00a0 One wherein all music is sold at physical retail and discounts and chart shenanigans rule.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like we’ve never left the twentieth century.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of celebrating, IMAPALA’s members should be firing those who pursued this lame-brained course of […]<\/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-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-7I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","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=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}