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

finance.yahoo.com

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

#131

Post by hristov »

pg wrote: post #90
physcab wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unfort…

This sounds naive. The people running the labels are very cynical, and the way they're compensated makes them even more so. They don't have equity. They're motivated by bonuses that come out of this year's revenue. So they're not interested in building stuff. They just want to extract large amounts of money, this year, from whoever they can.

Also, as part of this cynicism, the labels are very good at having people that seem like the kind of people that are on your side. I.e., the kind of people that "will go to bat for the artists."

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

#132

Post by bambax »

olalonde wrote: post #93
bambax wrote: post #24

Isn't this just wishful thinking? Everybody hates labels, and so wishes them dead (and for the record, so do I). But just because everyone wants them to die doesn't mean they will die. Labels sit on content, and their monopoly is protected by the full force of the law. The number of startups in the field or the evilness of label people does seem a little bit irrelevant. There is only one way labels can die: if they c…

The article never said labels were going to die. It just pointed out how they screwed their digital future .

You're right, but it was largely implied.

My point is that the industry is right not to care much about its digital future, and to care more about what matters, ie, their monopoly on content. For as long as this monopoly stands, they will be strong and prosperous.

That doesn't make them likable, but that does not make them stupid, either, as the article implies ("They killed competition. Brillant.").

Besides, here's what PG writes in one of his essays:

If you can figure out a way to turn a billion dollar industry into a fifty million dollar industry, so much the better, if all fifty million go to you.

(http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html)

So maybe the "dream" of a "digital future" is just self-preservation, and maybe, yes, it IS brillant...

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

#133

Post by chrischen »

lambda wrote: post #119
chrischen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all music startups have to be arms of the labels right? Do you think it's possible to develop a music startup independent and free of any association with record labels? The way I see it is that if it's possible to do this then the reward would be huge since the system is so broken.

No, it's not really possible, since the labels have a government supported monopoly (with pretty serious enforcement, and lots of laws in place to prevent most clever workarounds) on pretty much all the music that anyone wants to listen to. Even people who like to listen to indie music usually have some more mainstream music owned by the big labels that they want to listen to. The problem is that most people won't st…

Ok, so what about a service that doesn't revolve around music delivery/listening?

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

#134

Post by tomjen3 »

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…

What about funding something like Groveshark? It doesn't seem like they need to work with the labels.

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

#136

Post by Tichy »

gnaritas wrote: post #91
lukev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do this already. Write a music player client that can stuff your music into an encrypted blob and push it out on Amazon S3 or something. $22.50/month for storage. The problem is that that monthly price is a bit high for most people.

You can get this from dropbox, now, for free.

10GB is not enough for an average music collection. Also I think dropbox does not add to your available space on your hard disk. It just mirrors parts of it.

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

#137

Post by Tichy »

il wrote: post #36
lukev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do this already. Write a music player client that can stuff your music into an encrypted blob and push it out on Amazon S3 or something. $22.50/month for storage. The problem is that that monthly price is a bit high for most people.

I think "Write a music player client that can stuff your music into an encrypted blob" is a bigger hurdle for most people than paying $25/month. Besides, doesn't Grooveshark already do this for free?

Sounds like a good idea for an OS project, if it doesn't exist yet. But how cheap is storage in the cloud? 25$/months is definitely too much, if that's what S3 costs for 100GB?

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

#138

Post by ladon86 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #134
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…

What about funding something like Groveshark? It doesn't seem like they need to work with the labels.

Grooveshark aren't exactly in a safe position: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1660645

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

#139

Post by ladon86 »

siong1987 wrote: post #61
pstinnett wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious: Do you think popular music as a whole is a hopeless area or specifically companies that are looking to stream music? I agree in regards toward streaming music services, but there are a lot of startups focusing on other areas of music that seem to be successful: - http://bandcamp.com/ - http://limitedpressing.com - http://songkick.com/

btw, songkick is funded by Y Combinator.

But they're based in the UK - did they move over to California for a while and then move back?

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

#140

Post by bad_user »

bambax wrote: post #24

Isn't this just wishful thinking? Everybody hates labels, and so wishes them dead (and for the record, so do I). But just because everyone wants them to die doesn't mean they will die. Labels sit on content, and their monopoly is protected by the full force of the law. The number of startups in the field or the evilness of label people does seem a little bit irrelevant. There is only one way labels can die: if they c…

The irony of the matter is people care: for their music, for their favorite artists, for their lives and moral values.

So instead of making people be grateful for their services, the record labels are doing everything in their power to alienate their customers, bullying them into paying: and in the meantime piracy gets stronger and more accepted, since it's a lot more comfortable to just download a torrent (and no matter how much legislation they're lobbying for, the genie is out of the bottle and millions of people are doing it).

Not only that, but they've been promoting crappy music for a while now, since it is cheaper to produce and such artists are expendable.

I'm not a hater, but as long as they are selling crap, then I'm not buying.

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