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The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

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Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#71

Post by Tomek_ »

mitjak wrote: post #21
henrikschroder wrote: post #8

Google music. Who cares? Oh right, you guys don't have Spotify. I don't know anyone that has it that bothers with iTunes or actually buying music anymore. Get the free version, and get any music anytime and the occasional ad. Pay a few bucks a month, and you get any music anytime with no ads.

Spotify is great as long as you don't step out of the narrow scope of the music offered. Try finding anything released <6 months ago and report back. rdio and MOG are even worse in that respect. Grooveshark is the only service that has a decent though a Kazaa-like chaotic catalogue.

It isn't that bad, I would say I'm listening to pretty broad spectrum of music, most of it being not very popular, and Spotify has roughly 75% of what I need. OK, when something that was there disappears after a while then it's seriously irritating, but still, the true selling point of Spotify is the quality of the program itself: it's super slick, fast and has the best interface ever in the category of music players.

Personally, I ignored a bunch of artist just because they don't have their music in Spotify; "you want me to listen to your music? let me do that the way I want, otherwise go screw yourself" type of thing.

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#72

Post by stcredzero »

Nobody’s going to pay Google $25 a year to store their music in a cloud.

What if cloud hosting was bundled with MobileMe or the initial sale of an iPod? I bet Apple could get people to pay $12.50 additional hidden in the price of the iPod and $12.50 as an add-on.

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#73

Post by blehn »

jobu wrote: post #28
digitallogic wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then allow me to make your day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iPod_managers

The iTunes UI is horrid, but I have yet to find anything that does everything iTunes can without being crashy, slow or non-intuitive.

Can you elaborate? I think the store is frustrating, but I've found the player itself has been pretty stable and usable for the last 6-7 years on OSX (I have 40GB of music btw). It's a big ol' spreadsheet with instant search and drag+drop playlists.

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#74

Post by geden »

warfangle wrote: post #26
agentultra wrote: post #7

The point about the labels doing it to themselves is probably only half the story. The other half is the culturally ingrained phenomena of "the dream." Many artists jamming in their basements dream of "signing," and expect a big advance, tours, radio play, and all of that old-world stuff. Many today of course realize that there's the Internet and they can afford to distribute their work for pennies and market to thei…

There are several reasons that "signing" is the next, big logical step. Larger venues (most of which are owned by Clearchannel) will not give you the time of the day if you don't have a label behind you. It doesn't matter if you consistently sell out of venues a tier below them. Their booking agent won't even take your call. Sell a million mp3s of your song online? If one of the subsidiaries of the Big Four aren't be…

I've worked with multiple acts (Clark, Broadcast, Plaid) that have played (and sold out) the Bowery Ballroom without major label support.

There is a very successful tier of well run larger indies like Warp, Domino, Beggars Banquet. They've worked out that not fucking your golden geese is a good long term play.

But yes, even they struggle with the costs of big tours. Touring is expensive.

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#75

Post by dlib »

barrym wrote: post #70
thehodge wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify is excellent, I love it but more and more I get tracks in playlists that are 'not playable in your country' or 'the record label has chosen to make this track unavailable'

Or even/sometimes worse - tracks which you were able to play previously, which this week are now not available.

This week I played a track only to find it had actually changed since last time I played it. The original was retracted and instead I got an alternative version.

Nonetheless I'm happy with Spotify, although the number of unavailable records is increasing

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#76

Post by whopa »

pg wrote: post #42
sabat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only allowed to live so the labels can suck investors' money through them That's true, but not as true as you might suspect. Pandora is profitable. Yes, they are certainly pumping a large amount of money to the record labels, but they're able to exist without driving their users away with over-advertising. I wouldn't do a (label) music-based startup today, though. Sad.

I don't know the details of Pandora's finances, but present profits tend not to be the whole story here. Many if not most of the startups that have deals with labels also have large debts to them. Plus the labels can change their terms. So you pretty much live on sufferance, for as long as you're useful to them.

AFAIK, Pandora is classed as radio, and doesn't have to do direct deals with the labels. They pay royalties to SoundExchange, which in theory distributes the royalties to the content owners. The rates they pay are a lot lower than the rates companies like Rdio, Spotify, and MOG have to pay to the labels directly for on demand streaming rights.

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#77

Post by moe »

thehodge wrote: post #12
henrikschroder wrote: post #8

Google music. Who cares? Oh right, you guys don't have Spotify. I don't know anyone that has it that bothers with iTunes or actually buying music anymore. Get the free version, and get any music anytime and the occasional ad. Pay a few bucks a month, and you get any music anytime with no ads.

Spotify is excellent, I love it but more and more I get tracks in playlists that are 'not playable in your country' or 'the record label has chosen to make this track unavailable'

'not playable in your country'

Reminds me of youtube. I'm in europe and about half of the time I click on a youtube link I get this friendly message about the content being property of UMG|Sony|Warner|whoever and I'm not worthy to see it...

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#78

Post by bl4k »

sabat wrote: post #16
pg wrote: post #11

I came to this conclusion myself about 6 months ago, after Dalton Caldwell spoke at a YC dinner. I realized it was basically hopeless to start startups that touch label music, because even the ones that seem to be succeeding (in the sense of not being sued out of existence) are only allowed to live so the labels can suck investors' money through them. But by creating a startup-free zone around themselves, all the lab…

only allowed to live so the labels can suck investors' money through them That's true, but not as true as you might suspect. Pandora is profitable. Yes, they are certainly pumping a large amount of money to the record labels, but they're able to exist without driving their users away with over-advertising. I wouldn't do a (label) music-based startup today, though. Sad.

Pandora has been close to shutting down a number of times:

* http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2007/03/riaas-new-r...

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08...

they are at the mercy of the labels.

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#79

Post by physcab »

pg wrote: post #11

I came to this conclusion myself about 6 months ago, after Dalton Caldwell spoke at a YC dinner. I realized it was basically hopeless to start startups that touch label music, because even the ones that seem to be succeeding (in the sense of not being sued out of existence) are only allowed to live so the labels can suck investors' money through them. But by creating a startup-free zone around themselves, all the lab…

The situation isn't entirely hopeless. Even within the most aggressive labels (and by that I mean their legal departments) there are parties who do encourage innovation. These are the people that go to bat for artists and are trying everything imaginable to promote them. They try new advertising campaigns, are experimenting with alternate branding, and moving to the sports business model (ie endorsements). Its unfortunate that the legal departments have been the ones with all the power, but this will fade with time as current employees are replaced with ones who see the effectiveness of all these new promotional channels.

Re: The Dream Is Over: Music Labels Have Killed Their Digital Future

#80

Post by thegreatcurve »

blehn wrote: post #73
jobu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iTunes UI is horrid, but I have yet to find anything that does everything iTunes can without being crashy, slow or non-intuitive.

Can you elaborate? I think the store is frustrating, but I've found the player itself has been pretty stable and usable for the last 6-7 years on OSX (I have 40GB of music btw). It's a big ol' spreadsheet with instant search and drag+drop playlists.

I find the spreadsheet-style interface pretty uninspired for something as personal as music. The linear list of albums/tracks breaks down very quickly once your library starts growing, and iTunes becomes a confusing, disorientating mess. To Apple's credit, they've been taking baby steps towards more interesting ways of browsing your library with Genius playlists and mixes, but they could and should do so much more.
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