From hitsdailydouble:<\/p>\n
\nHOW LOW CAN YOU GO? The stock market has been going gangbusters of late, with one notable exception. Warner Music Group hit a new low Monday, dipping below $15 for the first time to close at $14.88, a drop of 76 cents (or 4.75%) on the day. Shares had been languishing in the $16 neighborhood for several weeks before steadily losing ground in recent sessions. Wonderers wondering whether a free fall, a la ArtistDirect, is in store. (7\/11p)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I am as distraught over the changes\/havoc wreaked at the Warner Music Group as anybody.\u00c2\u00a0 But to compare their stock with that of ArtistDirect evidences a complete lack of knowledge of both enterprises or a vindictive desire to punish a company that is not playing ball on the terms that "Hits" has defined.<\/p>\n
ArtistDirect was a new model, with merchandising contracts as its only true asset.\u00c2\u00a0 Merchandising contracts that were going to expire.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there was also infrastructure, but not only were the Websites of failed dot coms not worth much, their desks and Aeron chairs were sold for bupkes.<\/p>\n
Warner Music is a great company with almost half a century’s worth of recorded assets, along with a vast music publishing library.\u00c2\u00a0 There is no way in hell that the stock of Warner Music is going to go down to zero.\u00c2\u00a0 To posit this is to believe that if the real estate bubble bursts, everybody’s house and land will be worth NOTHING!<\/p>\n
But they’re not making any more land.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can live in a house.<\/p>\n
And they’re not making any more Led Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 Or even Lowell George records.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, despite the merger of MCA and PolyGram, Warner STILL has the best music catalog.\u00c2\u00a0 Which will sell forever.\u00c2\u00a0 If the company were to stop making new product tomorrow, and just employ licensing executives and accountants, the dough would STILL roll in.<\/p>\n
Hell, that’s why DreamWorks went out of business.\u00c2\u00a0 They HAD no catalog.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what gives the major labels a leg up.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re making money in their sleep, with no effort other than pressing and distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 And when these entities finally wake up to the fact that the Internet is not a vast piracy playground but rather a marketplace heretofore unknown, those assets are going to be worth MORE!<\/p>\n
Yes, imagine if EVERYBODY owned "Stairway To Heaven".\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you wouldn’t be able to charge them a buck, but make the price low enough and everybody will buy it.\u00c2\u00a0 And how many copies of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" will be downloaded?<\/p>\n
That’s the Internet paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 Flat fee pricing for everybody.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like cable TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than try to replicate the CD model online, the labels just have to loosen up and embrace new theories of distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, they could have been reaping money from the original Napster for half a decade instead of not only forgoing this income, but expending money suing their customers, creating ill will in the process.<\/p>\n
Mismanagement?\u00c2\u00a0 Over-leveraging?<\/p>\n
Absolutely.<\/p>\n
Valueless?<\/p>\n
Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n
As for the demand for back issues of "Hits"?<\/p>\n
God, I’d rather own Tiffany’s remake of "I Think We’re Alone Now".\u00c2\u00a0 At least there’s a desire for that.<\/p>\n
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From hitsdailydouble: HOW LOW CAN YOU GO? The stock market has been going gangbusters of late, with one notable exception. Warner Music Group hit a new low Monday, dipping below $15 for the first time to close at $14.88, a drop of 76 cents (or 4.75%) on the day. Shares had been languishing in the […]<\/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-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-1l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","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=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}