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2 billion doesn't sound like a lot of money to me. Apple could use, say, a third of its cash and own the entire music industry outright? not that the labels would ever sell, but still. amazing how tiny that industry is given how much noise it makes.
In my world, concert festivals & blogs have replace the need for major labels marketing role, and itunes / amazon / cdbaby have replaced their manufacturing / distribution role. That said, I've seen friends of friends at iTunes start micro-labels that seem to focus more on online & concert only efforts. I'd be more concerned about consolidation if it was the 90's again. Update: Yes, you guys are right. I'm spoiled -…
Does this mean we finally get Pink Floyd and the Beatles on Spotify?
The question is, is this recession-based consolidation, or is it part of an inevitable decline of the music industry as the idea of "major labels" goes away?
Neither; it's capitalism as usual.
Can you elaborate? I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Does this mean we finally get Pink Floyd and the Beatles on Spotify?
It seems like this industry is prime for disruption and I'm not talking about the kind of disruption the current startups are doing. I see a ton of startups focusing on getting music to the consumer but what about startups that focus on grooming new talent for the big time?
We've got YouTube, SoundCloud and the like that make getting heard easy but the onus is on the music maker to spread the word. No one will listen to your song on these sites unless they're being promoted. It would be cool to have a new kind of "major" label that gets you exposure in a way the majors do but without totally screwing over the artists. Most musical acts make burger-flipper salaries and do tons of exhausting work because the deals they sign are heavily favored toward the label.
Or maybe like a universal label like BankSimple (now Simple) but for music labels.
On second read, I think this sounds vague and kind of naive. Oh well. Is anyone doing anything like this that I don't know of or has it been thought of and found to be a bad idea?
The capital costs of producing and (more importantly) distributing popular music have fallen through the floor. The heavily-promoted music products people think of when they think of EMI or Warner are in large part contrivances that exist primarily to perpetuate EMI and Warner.
The future barely even belongs to independent labels like Matador. Eventually, the Internet and commerce are going to figure out how to let any artist effectively be their own "label", outsourcing every function served by a label today to some Internet startup.
This is one reason why "buying the whole music industry" would be a stupid decision by Apple. We're always staring so intently at the next 12 months, but if you move your gaze upwards just a few fractions of an inch you can see that none of this stuff is going to matter. Labels are a bad investment.
Does this mean we finally get Pink Floyd and the Beatles on Spotify?
My understanding of the Beatles situation is that it isn't label-driven. I'd love someone to clarify that.
Also, the Beatles are on Apple Records which was/is their own label (but still under the umbrella of another label, possibly Columbia, I think).
My broad strokes are correct but the details are questionable. I'm a big Beatles fan so I had to take a stab at answering your question. Keep those facts in mind on your search for answers.
There will still be a role for managing and promoting talent, but it will look more like marketing and less like distribution. It will have less dependence on intellectual property in the form of recordings (which are easy to reproduce) and more in the form of brands (which are hard to reproduce).
In startup parlance, the “moat” will be the artist’s brand, not the recording.