51–60 of 66 posts
David Bowie was always the pioneer with regards to the Internet. Launched his own ISP in 1998, probably the first mainstream musician with a website (in 1994!), first concert streamed in 1997, etc. etc.
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> the original plan for CD singles was to package them on smaller discs It wasn't just a plan. CD (Maxi) Singles were released in European markets in the 80s.[0] [0] https://www.discogs.com/release/126156-Madonna-Like-A-Prayer...
a) so much for the metric system :P b) How does that have a 12 inch extended remix and a 12 inch club mix if it's only a 3 inch CD? Magic! c) I love how the packaging makes the small cute cd single big again. Kind of like the longboxes for full length CDs, before jewel cases dominated.
Or you would pay an obscene amount of money for a 12 inch from Germany because you really wanted the 7 inch remix on the B side.
The trouble is that piracy can run halfway around the world while the legitimate distribution networks are just getting their shoes on. Around that same time frame -- summer of 1996 -- is when I saw an item on the Damaged Cybernetics (remember them?) web site that read: "We are investigating the use of MPEG Layer III compression for music piracy." Those investigations bore major fruit, because by the tine Napster eme…
> The trouble ... How was and is it trouble for the music industry? They've done very well in the Internet era.
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The thing is that the PC and the stereo were often in different rooms. That was the case for me where my stereo system was in the living room and the computer was in the second bedroom of my apartment. Remember that home networking, wifi and “spare” computers were also not really a thing in 1999 or before either.
I remember getting 25 foot cables, but I know I'm definitely in the minority, my dad worked as a telephone installer, and loved setting up audio systems so I had a bit extra access to the cabling stuff.
Still remember working for a wireless company fixing phones as a repair tech. One of our steady clients was Prince's studio Flyte Time. Terry Lewis would often come in and I'd loved talking to him about music. One evening before I was closing up, he dropped in with Prince's phone that needed a fast repair. I finally asked him what the deal with Prince and his music was. The Warner Brothers kerfuffle, and all the dram…
Taylor Swift has demonstrated her genius as a businesswoman within the industry by simply re-recording her back catalogue as "Taylor's Versions" which the record company had no rights to -- also a badass example of a woman taking back control of her creative output from an industry dedicated to exploiting the likes of her. (Talk to a female musician if you know one. Women have few options but to let themselves be exp…
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Taylor Swift has demonstrated her genius as a businesswoman within the industry by simply re-recording her back catalogue as "Taylor's Versions" which the record company had no rights to -- also a badass example of a woman taking back control of her creative output from an industry dedicated to exploiting the likes of her. (Talk to a female musician if you know one. Women have few options but to let themselves be exp…
Princes problem was different than Swifts. Prince had a recording contract where the company could decide what to release of his work and they released less than Prince wanted.
He was wanting put music out fast and often, "90% polished" with none of the baggage of Radiohead's legacy or expectations.
After bringing in Thom Yorke they have 3 albums in as many years and just release stuff randomly as it's ready. Pure creativity and a lot of it is more than good enough to satisfy my Radiohead itch.
While there are a few never finished/published Radiohead era tracks like Skrting on the Surface, most of it comes out of the trio jamming together.
Boy, but it sure took the RIAA •years• to figure out that suing fans (aka “customers”) wasn’t the greatest idea…
Yeah, now they use Spotify to rip off their artists and their customers even harder.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2023/11/30/weird-al-spotify...
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> The trouble ... How was and is it trouble for the music industry? They've done very well in the Internet era.
I would say that the music industry has only recovered in the last two decades. Not done well. Internet piracy famously cut the legs out from physical album sales in the early 2000's and the music industry was not prepared for that shift. Sales and budgets for physical music is now a shadow of it's former self. Not to mention how artists are often the worst off financially today because of the crummy payouts of strea…
Do you have revenue numbers? (I don't.)
> Internet piracy famously cut the legs out from physical album sales in the early 2000's
No way. The Internet destroyed physical album sales. Are you suggesting that if it wasn't for piracy, people would still be buying CDs? The Internet also destroyed print newpapers, software sales on CD, locally installed software generally, brick-and-mortar sales of anything that can be shipped, and lots more. Is that all due to file sharing?
> artists are often the worst off financially today because of the crummy payouts of streaming music
How is that the fault of file sharing?
1999 was probably the year that online distribution really took off with Napster catching the labels unprepared (Apple’s iTunes Music Store did a lot to prove to the labels that people would actually pay for music downloads, although it would be years before legal DRM-free downloads became a reality). I had a handful of downloaded music files that I acquired in 1998–9, but I rarely listened to them because other than…
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I would say that the music industry has only recovered in the last two decades. Not done well. Internet piracy famously cut the legs out from physical album sales in the early 2000's and the music industry was not prepared for that shift. Sales and budgets for physical music is now a shadow of it's former self. Not to mention how artists are often the worst off financially today because of the crummy payouts of strea…
> I would say that the music industry has only recovered in the last two decades. Do you have revenue numbers? (I don't.) > Internet piracy famously cut the legs out from physical album sales in the early 2000's No way. The Internet destroyed physical album sales. Are you suggesting that if it wasn't for piracy, people would still be buying CDs? The Internet also destroyed print newpapers, software sales on CD, local…
This is why opposition to DRM is such a techbro take. If you care about art, like at all, you want DRM built into the fabric of the network itself so that those who hold the rights to downloaded material get paid for others' access to it. We had such an opportunity to use the internet as a distribution network such that creators could get directly paid for their work and not the middlemen. Ted Nelson, coiner of the term "hypertext", explicitly included DRM in its conceptualization. Creatives are now paying the price for lack of followthrough on Nelson's complete vision.