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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

#151

Post by JonnieCache »

geden wrote: post #74
warfangle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Add Planet Mu and Ninja Tune to that list.

edit: and most importantly don't forget XL Recordings, who have Radiohead, the Prodigy and the White Stripes among others.

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

#152

Post by tjmc »

physcab wrote: post #149
tjmc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of simply creating a different distribution mechanism (eg CDBaby) for unsigned artists so that they don't have to sign with a major label is popular with the tech crowd, but fundamentally flawed. It assumes that unsigned artists can all produce well recorded, popular music on their own. Most can't. A good producer can pick a rough artist or band and get something popular out of them, but it often involves bo…

Your analysis is flawed in that you're only assuming the popular ones are successful. Do you also think successful companies are only those that are used by millions of users? Its true that the endorsement approach only works for popular artists, but everyone else can take the Youtube approach and let their content speak for themselves. Plus, not every artist wants to be mainstream popular. A lot of artists just want…

I think we're discussing different things. Clearly there are plenty of independent artists - punk rock has a long tradition of independent label publishing going back decades for example. Anyone who just wants to put their music out there now is well served by distribution providers like CDBaby.

I'm talking about successful disruption of the established music industry and the oft mentioned suggestion that simply offering artists a distribution alternative will do it. It won't. We've had a decade for grassroots indy web publishing to take over and it hasn't.

My point about the long tail isn't that it doesn't exist, but that it's largely irrelevant. Just as Youtube has barely scratched Hollywood, indy music publishing isn't moving the profitability needle of big music enough for them to care. They still have the back catalog, they continue to acquire the vast majority of popular artists and they're still driving the creation of the most popular music which is where the money is.

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

#153

Post by SkyMarshal »

ptomato wrote: post #123
SkyMarshal wrote: post #81

Somewhat related, what's the status nowadays of un-DRM'ing music you've purchased, say from iTunes Store, to play on other players, particularly on Linux? Is it possible? What if you don't have access to Windows or OSX (to burn an non-DRM cd)? Legal?

iTunes Store music isn't DRMed, at all. Neither is music from the Amazon music store.

It used to be, young grasshopper, it used to be. I still have a bunch of DRM'd iTunes music I bought years ago when all iTunes music was DRM'd, and want to be able to listen to on Linux now.

And yes, Amazon is my savior for unecumbered music. I'm a very happy customer of theirs. But they weren't always around.

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

#154

Post by pgebhard »

physcab wrote: post #109
pg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, perhaps thinking the labels changing their ways (or hoping they do) over time is naive. I'll admit that (but I'd like to say optimistic instead). What the music industry needs is a platform where unsigned artists can go to promote their music without the help of the labels. This platform could probably act like a label, but better serve the artists and users. It would have to garner a lot of eyeballs so it could…

http://thesixtyone.com seems to be doing just that.

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

#155

Post by mchristoff »

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…

We figured this out at the end of 2008 when we closed our digital music startup, Mixwit (yc w08).

Not soon after we shutdown the founder of a similar service, Favtape, was sued. Yes you read that correctly, Favtape the business wasn't sued, the founder (Ryan Sit) was sued personally. I'm not sure what ever came of that lawsuit, but I'm fairly convinced our name was on their too until we shutdown since we had received threatening letters from the same label a few months previous.

At the time we looked up to imeem as a beacon, thinking if we made a kickass product we could be be on crest of a new wave of successful digital music startups. Fast forward a year later, at 16m users strong Imeem was "acquired" by Myspace for $1m (compared to $50m+ invested) and turned into a redirect to MySpace Music.

Looking back I'm happy we figured this out when we did.

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

#156

Post by spicyj »

Tichy wrote: post #135
jbarham wrote: post #2

> Nobody’s going to pay Google $25 a year to store their music in a cloud. I'd pay that to be rid of iTunes.

What happened to the YC startup that allowed you to store all your music in the cloud?

Are you thinking of Lala? It was acquired by Apple and subsequently shut down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lala_(website)

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

#157

Post by gnaritas »

Tichy wrote: post #136
gnaritas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure it is, most people don't listen to that much music and there's a ton of 8gig iPods out there and still selling strong. 10gigs might not be enough for you, but it's certainly enough for most anyone's active listening list.

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

#158

Post by 1010011010 »

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.

iTunes opens lots of error dialogs, loses files and fails to play tracks when it's run in an account with an nfs home directory.
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