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SoundCloud's Collapse

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Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll give them an advance as bait for an exploitative and crappy contract which may well be run in a dishonest way. Given that most sales are downloads or streams now, the only thing big labels can bring to the table is a nuclear level of publicity. And by definition, that's going to be reserved for a tiny handful of multimillion-selling household names. Today's smaller bands and artists - which will be the majori…

Yes. Someone please build this. Message me if you need a designer.

Most musicians who can figure out how to record and upload their own music to SoundCloud could just as easily create a generic website with squarespace or something similar to host a blog. The only value in a comprehensive social network for musicians would be the audience it could bring. A large audience is very hard to build.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an ad hominem is the best criticism you can come up with, it seems correct to me.

You might want to look up the meaning of ad hominem. There is nothing in my comment that is even remotely attacking either you personally or your character.

that article was written by a VC

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#293
post #47

Never do a music industry startup unless you have a billion dollars, can raise a billion dollars, or plan to be acquired by a company with a billion dollars to spare. That's the table stakes for going toe-to-toe with the big three. They'll bleed you to death with licensing fees, deputise you into their copyright enforcement police, upload their songs to your platform on one hand while suing you with the other, and al…

Musical talent is not equally distributed. The Big 3 offer the most talented and/or trending artists (who are often struggling financially) a path to riches and fame that is difficult to refuse. Until a startup can replicate or disrupt this model, the labels will always have a monopoly on the best talent.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#294

SoundCloud could have been a nice business if they hadn't got greedy. From the beginning (or close to it) there have been various paid accounts for artists which a lot of people used. SoundCloud was the best place to discover new music from unsigned artists. There were unsigned artists with tracks on it that blew up and eventually got picked up by major labels. But: - SoundCloud neglected the platform. - Then they di…

It is funny you mention Bandcamp as your flagship example considering how much 1993 duct tape is holding it together. You cannot compare the UI and tech of the two; Bandcamp has neglected the same Courier New interface since they were a startup. SoundCloud engineering is worlds ahead. They were one of the biggest proponents and pioneers of containerized microservice architecture. They took a lot of beatings so that w…

The UI and the tech are not the focus. The focus is on providing a platform for artists to sell music. In that regard, it's been a great success. As an artist, I'd much rather distribute music on a platform that's proven to be run by those that put the needs of artists first rather than one that blows their load over how advanced their tech stack is.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This sounds like terms dictated by the Mob. The simple fact is that copyright protections are far too strong. The copyright cartel doesn't need a shady network of 400 pound men to enforce their schemes; they just use the U.S. Attorney's office instead. How many bright technical entrepreneurs have been crushed by rent-seekers milking the royalties out of a 40-year-old track? Copyright has completely lost the plot. We…

Something is old so now you can’t own it? Does a 40 year old house suddenly become public domain just because people like to visit? If you made something, you and your heirs have a right to that, it doesn’t just get confiscated because it’s popular. Some of Bob Dylan’s songs are over 50 years old; does that mean he shouldn’t own the stuff he created? That is just theft. Nobody has a “right” to anything I create unles…

That is not how intellectual goods work. They require their own class of property laws called "intellectual property" precisely because they are different from real property.

Real property provides the basic needs of human life, and any single parcel or space can only be occupied or used by a single entity at a time. It exists in time and space as a physical good. Persons and families are entitled to protect this property, with force if necessary, because they depend on it for their ongoing maintenance and habitation.

Real property laws provide structure to our approach to real property so that we can live in a neighborly civilization instead of a smattering of independent militarized tribes.

Intellectual property, on the other hand, exists in an abstract, non-physical space. The same intellectual content can exist with perfect fidelity in an unlimited number of minds, and because intellectual goods are not subject to physical laws of space and time, they can be shared and utilized fully and simultaneously by everyone capable of processing and storing them.

This free-flowing nature makes intellectual goods extremely powerful, but it also gives them limited economic utility, because the supply is very hard to constrain. This was true in the past, and it's 1000x truer with the advent of the internet, which allows us to transfer intellectual goods practically anywhere in the world perfectly, exactly, and instantaneously. Now you don't even need to stay on good terms with the neighborhood sage for access to the treasure trove of intellectual goods!

Disembodied intellectual goods are useful, but they are not necessary for survival, and thus it is rarely if ever justified to use force in the "defense" of them. This is very different from real property, which must be reserved and defended to ensure survival.

To the extent that we do decide to use force to "defend" such goods, we should tread lightly. The analog to real property is very weak indeed.

Copyright essentially injects the government as a middleman into a voluntary and free market transaction, and says "I know you THINK you want that, but we aren't going to allow you to buy it from him, because we say someone else deserves the money more than him". Such interjections are another area where we should tread very lightly, and in recent decades, we have done anything but.

Our current iteration of copyright-gone-amok constrains our speech and does a great deal of damage that no one with an audience is willing to talk about, because they're all too busy enjoying the money stream from it to comment on its destructive consequences.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#296
post #47

Never do a music industry startup unless you have a billion dollars, can raise a billion dollars, or plan to be acquired by a company with a billion dollars to spare. That's the table stakes for going toe-to-toe with the big three. They'll bleed you to death with licensing fees, deputise you into their copyright enforcement police, upload their songs to your platform on one hand while suing you with the other, and al…

Musical talent is not equally distributed. The Big 3 offer the most talented and/or trending artists (who are often struggling financially) a path to riches and fame that is difficult to refuse. Until a startup can replicate or disrupt this model, the labels will always have a monopoly on the best talent.

[deleted]

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#297
post #47

Never do a music industry startup unless you have a billion dollars, can raise a billion dollars, or plan to be acquired by a company with a billion dollars to spare. That's the table stakes for going toe-to-toe with the big three. They'll bleed you to death with licensing fees, deputise you into their copyright enforcement police, upload their songs to your platform on one hand while suing you with the other, and al…

Musical talent is not equally distributed. The Big 3 offer the most talented and/or trending artists (who are often struggling financially) a path to riches and fame that is difficult to refuse. Until a startup can replicate or disrupt this model, the labels will always have a monopoly on the best talent.

Music marketing isn't equally distributed.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musical talent is not equally distributed. The Big 3 offer the most talented and/or trending artists (who are often struggling financially) a path to riches and fame that is difficult to refuse. Until a startup can replicate or disrupt this model, the labels will always have a monopoly on the best talent.

Music marketing isn't equally distributed.

It's not just the marketing. With enough VC funding a startup could build an equivalent or better marketing apparatus. The Big entertainment companies have a monopoly on key distribution channels: radio, tv, in-store, stadium shows etc. The succesful startup will be the one that builds an entirely new distribution channel for musical acts.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#299

SoundCloud could have been a nice business if they hadn't got greedy. From the beginning (or close to it) there have been various paid accounts for artists which a lot of people used. SoundCloud was the best place to discover new music from unsigned artists. There were unsigned artists with tracks on it that blew up and eventually got picked up by major labels. But: - SoundCloud neglected the platform. - Then they di…

It is funny you mention Bandcamp as your flagship example considering how much 1993 duct tape is holding it together. You cannot compare the UI and tech of the two; Bandcamp has neglected the same Courier New interface since they were a startup. SoundCloud engineering is worlds ahead. They were one of the biggest proponents and pioneers of containerized microservice architecture. They took a lot of beatings so that w…

The tech doesn't matter.

If I want to find pop punk from some unknown, Bandcamp makes it stupid easy to find them and download/buy their stuff and/or go see them live.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to look up the meaning of ad hominem. There is nothing in my comment that is even remotely attacking either you personally or your character.

that article was written by a VC

Saying that an article skews to the orientation and outlook of the author(in this case a venture capitalist) is no way an attack on that author.

The context of the entire comment was that this definition was not universal.

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