Musicians Realizing They Don't Need Record Labels To Sell Online

from the skip-the-labels dept

Lots of people have realized for quite some time that the recording industry isn't so much the "recording" industry, but rather the "CD distribution" industry. Their entire focus is on how to sell more tangible items that have music on it. That's part of the reason why they've had so much trouble figuring out the whole online music business. There's no tangible "thing" for them to sell, so it doesn't make sense to them. Now, however, it appears that some musicians are beginning to figure this out as well... and, as part of that, realizing they don't really need the record labels if they want to sell music online. Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno are launching a musician's "alliance" that would help musicians sell their music directly online without any record label involvement. It's an interesting idea, but it seems a little short on details at this point. Record labels are waking up to the fact that they need to do something about online music, even if they're not quite sure what that thing is. As such, expect them to do their best to lock up the digital rights to music from musicians as well. This isn't a problem if musicians want to ditch record labels altogether, but the labels are useful for promotional purposes. If the musicians can figure out a way to do that without the traditional record labels, then they're all set.
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  1. identicon
    Philtr, 26 Jan 2004 @ 5:29pm

    p2p advertising

    This isn't a problem if musicians want to ditch record labels altogether, but the labels are useful for promotional purposes. If the musicians can figure out a way to do that without the traditional record labels, then they're all set.

    Can we say "p2p"? This is a no-brainer! p2p=point-to-pay.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Kevin, 26 Jan 2004 @ 6:39pm

    No Subject Given

    I've repeated this over and over :)

    The recording industry existed for 3 reasons: financing, promotion and distribution.

    Unlucky for them, computers and the internet made them useless.

    You dont need tons of expensive equipment anymore to make a good recording, its cheap and digital

    Nothing promotes better than the internet and nothing distributes better than the internet.

    The record companies are freaked out because they aren't needed anymore. And the money lost because of file sharing can come directly out of the industries previously huge piece of the action, and I'll bet all the "little" people can keep their profits up.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Halvard Halvorsen, 27 Jan 2004 @ 5:40am

    Ryuchi Sakamoto discovered a long time ago see


    http://www.ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/ic026/html/083e.html
    -- snip
    Well, it relates to much of what we've already been talking about here today, but I don't believe that with the Internet we've merely added one more mass medium to the mix. Those in charge of monitoring musical copyright laws behave as though the Internet were a natural extension following LPs and CDs. You know, "Here's a new distribution medium, and we should, of course, be in charge of policing it." They're saying that "We must act as an agency on the Net," and I don't agree.
    snip

    link to this | view in thread ]


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