Oh Gosh: How Dare People Want To Listen To Music
from the how-dare-they dept
It looks like we've found the new evil bogeyman for the recording industry: people daring to listen to music for free online. We mentioned it earlier this month, when there was a report about how all the various online streaming services were taking away from sales. Apparently, the record labels are passing around statistics claiming that such streaming services hurt music, claiming (incorrectly) that "there's nothing left to promote."This morning, at the Leadership Music Digital Summit, Russ Crupnick, a music industry analyst at the NPD Group, gave a "state of the industry" talk, where he pointed out (good) that p2p file sharing isn't as big a problem as the industry makes it out to be, but then dove into the "problem" that more and more consumers of music are "only listening to music," using these various online sites and services, rather than buying the music. It seems to be quite a strange world where the idea that lots of people are paying attention to your product and it's seen as a "problem." He even noted that folks who do buy (such as concert tickets) tend to spend a lot more on music-related goods (beyond just concert tickets) but seems to brush over that.
While it's good to see that folks are starting to get beyond just blaming P2P (though, Crupnick did repeatedly refer to it incorrectly as "stealing" music), this industry has a serious problem: it looks at every single opportunity as a "problem" or a "threat" and never as an opportunity. I would argue that's a much bigger problem than fans daring to listen to and share music.
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Filed Under: business models, listening, music, streaming
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Any excuse...
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http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/lastfm-radio-to.html
Why aim for the foot when you can shoot yourself in the face, I guess.
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I've never paid for a "Death Cab for Cutie" album...
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Re: I've never paid for a "Death Cab for Cutie" album...
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Re: I've never paid for a "Death Cab for Cutie" album...
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Definition please...
2. To get or effect surreptitiously or artfully: steal a kiss; stole the ball from an opponent.
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Control
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Music Industry is the problem with the Music Industry
From what I've heard of iTunes, you buy a song for around $2, the Artists get less than 20 cents of it. I cannot stand the crap associated with the Music & Movie industry, they cry poor & that these "theive's" are taking away their lively hood. Heaven forbid they should have to drive a normal car instead of a luxury model & live in a less than 40 squares home.
Provide me with a option that rewards the people that create the great music that enriches our lives, & I'll support it. For now, I prefer to pirate the CD's, & donate on the bands website, & go see them live at every oppertunity.
I do buy CD's of bands I listen to a LOT, or if they're a small band trying to get started that I like. Music should be about the Art, not profits, bottom lines, bureaucracy & how the fan's that don't pay for it shackled & whipped in a dungeon at the MIAA's disgression.
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online streaming services . . .
Oh wait, it seems really silly even without that realization.
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Are any indie labels doing it right?
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I guess the real question would be: Are significantly more tickets being bought? We know that concert revenue is going up, but we also know that ticket prices have skyrocketed in the last few years.
The record labels are in the business of selling music, not really in the concert business. The potential if they aren't selling as many records as that they may have to go Live Nation on their acts and ask for percentages of more of the pie to make it worth bringing these newer bands along.
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Re:
Once again, therein lies their problem. They're too geared up to selling one potential good within their marketplace. This is why "change your business model" is the repeated mantra - more diverse middlemen are not having any problems. So far, all the majors have done is put people off buying their products.
(and again the LiveNation references.... why do you hate them so much and why do you seem to think they're the only possible alternative?)
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Re:
This is where your defense breaks apart.
Never once has the label been interested in selling music. It's about selling plastic disks.
If this industry had been about selling music, there wouldn't be any piracy issues it keeps harping out. It would have opened its arms to the this thing called the "internet" and provided useful platforms for people to buy music.
But none of this happened, did it? Now, they're scrambling, screaming the sale of plastic disks are down because of piracy.
Doesn't sound like the industry knows what the hell its purpose is other than to bend consumers over while taking their wallet content.
If you want to defend this industry, can't stop you. But don't try to pan off it's their business to sell music.
All *FACTS* point to the contrary.
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Re: 180
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
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Re: Re: 180
Live Nation tends to do deals that are more like 360 X 360 deals (all directions) because they also buy into the artist's image rights and things like that. Think of them as spherical deals, where everything is everything and they want a part of it.
Live Nation is even more dangerous because they are attempting to take over other parts of the food chain all for themselves. I dread the idea of a system where live nation has all the best venues in each city blocked out for LN artists only, which appears to be where they are heading. If they can get their paws on ticketmaster, they will be one step closer to a true music monopoly.
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Agree with Mattyk: we used to call listening to music for free "listening to the radio."
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OMFG STEALINGZORZ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it because, perhaps, copyright infringment on the individual level is simply not seen as something to be THAT bothered about by the general public (and rightly so) and therefore they need to attach a bit more wieght to it, in order to make people give a shit?
Whenever the industry dickheads (and people like Weird Harold) refer to copyright infringment as stealing/theft they are implicitly agreeing that, in the hierarchy of illegalites, copyright infringement is at the bottom, next to using a foreign coin in the coke vending machine.
You'll NEVER, EVER have a rational discussion on this topic with a single one of them. It's a keyword. It's like drawing the sign of the fish in the sand. It's the dickhead identifier.
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Frankenstein
The Major Labels missed the boat and the free market has adapted to their incompetence. If their only strategy is to sue the free market then they will fail...just like Harlod does when he tries to sound like he knows his subject.
bbb
wheatus.com
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stupid!
Try before you buy is a good idea. People trying to sell you food or drink give you samples for that very reason.
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Re: stupid!
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--> so what they are most interested in is a high ratio of listeners per band.. well they avtually care for buyers.. but listeners will leed to that..
so if its hard for you to get to know the music you really like.. you will more readily listen/buy the stuff they present you..
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Last.FM
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Wow...
This really is like saying radio hurts music sales. The only difference between traditional radio and streaming services is with the latter, you can usually listen to a song on-demand. This shouldn't in any way be seen as a threat, but something that allows consumers to wade through all the music out there and get to try the music they are curious about. The services are not only powerful promotional tools, they pay royalties to the artist and presumably license fees to the labels.
If they can convince themselves this hurts the music industry, they are truly INSANE.
They are continuing to prove themselves not only preposterously out-of-touch old dinosaurs, but bad business minds as well. They hold onto a business model that has long been irrelevant simply because they believe things should work the way they WANT them to - i.e. that people should only get music by paying high prices.
I would never consider listening to a song on a streaming service a substitute for owning it. It's a way to listen to music I'd like to buy. If it's ever my primary source of listening to a particular song or album, it's because those are prohibitively expensive to buy.
So many of their problems could be solved if they lowered CD and mp3 prices. But they won't as long as they can convince themselves everyone in the world still wants to pay a lot for music and therefore not be able to buy very much of it, and only listen to music that commercial radio and TV decides we should hear.
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