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EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

bbc.co.uk

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Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#91

Post by tsotha »

tptacek wrote: post #18

Apologies in advance for glibness, but, who cares? Record labels are irrelevant. 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 Ma…

The labels still have one very vital function - marketing. While it's true there are great musicians out there who are also marketing geniuses, most of them aren't. There is always going to be a number of people involved in helping a musician's career. You can call that group whatever you want. Right now it's called a "label".

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#92

Post by tptacek »

tsotha wrote: post #91
tptacek wrote: post #18

Apologies in advance for glibness, but, who cares? Record labels are irrelevant. 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 Ma…

The labels still have one very vital function - marketing. While it's true there are great musicians out there who are also marketing geniuses, most of them aren't. There is always going to be a number of people involved in helping a musician's career. You can call that group whatever you want. Right now it's called a "label".

I'm not suggesting that Steve Albini is suddenly going to become a merchandising genius, only that Warner Music can't monopolize music marketing talent. Small firms will have a hard time getting a foothold in retail music, but as retail music starts to matter less, more small firms will enter the market to start bidding down the price of "marketing" and "promotion".

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#93

Post by mikefox »

ethank wrote: post #68
maximusprime wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Youtube has deals with the labels so that they get a cut of advertising revenue for any music video. Also for anyone that uploads cover versions etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that income is quite substantial.

It isn't.

Source, please?

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#94

Post by mkramlich »

In a world where the web exists, YouTube, all these video and audio sharing websites and tools, I'm not sure the notion of a major music company is needed anymore. Make music, record it, put it out there, be findable, if it's any good, people will like it, share it, trade it and generally find out about it. At most, artists may want to sign up with some company to help promote themselves, but as a general rule, quality will win out in the end. May just take time. On the other hand, if you get lucky you can go viral quickly. Just have a monetization channel active and ready. And there are tons of self-service ones now, not just for the music itself but for related products/media like posters, t-shirts, etc.

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#95

Post by jwallaceparker »

EREFUNDO wrote: post #41

Unregulated markets do lead to monopoly. Why? Because it is the very nature of competition. There will be a winner (or a few) and most will either be acquired or they will die out. With monopoly comes political power and this leads to crony capitalism. Then the monopoly can now dictate prices and influence both legislation and government regulation. The idea that companies will compete in perpetuity and benefit consu…

> Unregulated markets do lead to monopoly.

Can you give an example of a company that achieved and maintained monopoly control of a free market?

> With monopoly comes political power and this leads to crony capitalism.

I think it's actually the opposite: monopoly is born out of crony capitalism and political power.

The only monopolies I'm aware of (railroad, telecom, power) are government granted monopolies.

Anyway, I'd be curious if there are any free market monopolies because I've never heard of any.

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#96

Post by dylangs1030 »

ethank wrote: post #68
maximusprime wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Youtube has deals with the labels so that they get a cut of advertising revenue for any music video. Also for anyone that uploads cover versions etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that income is quite substantial.

It isn't.

Do you mean the total revenue isn't that substantial, or the cut of the income that flows downhill to respective people (like the artists, managers, etc) isn't?

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#97

Post by meric »

tomg wrote: post #57
gravitronic wrote: post #48

Without the sales to support such a large "industry" of lawyers and business people, and without the need for many of their services (marketing and distribution, at least), are major labels not irrelevant? With dwindling sales they seem willing to further exploit their one resource, the artist. Artists on twitter are talking about getting monthly cheques for ~7 cents from Spotify. Guess who made that contract? I feel…

> Today's professional musicians have to tour constantly to be profitable enough to survive, not to mention constantly churning out new tracks to remain relevant. I think this is just the nature of the beast, so to speak. Due to the large number of musicians, the very, very low cost of recording a track, and the global, nearly free distribution channel of the Internet, the value of a pre-recorded piece of music is pr…

You mean: >> the cost of a pre-recorded piece of music is practically $0.

The value remains the same; The sum of the marginal benefit of hearing the music each time, which is likely greater than the $0.99 that people pay for a song on iTunes (otherwise they wouldn't pay it). If you aren't willing to pay for the song but is willing to copy it from someone's iPod if given the option then the value of the song is the opportunity cost of doing the actual copying.

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#99

Post by tsotha »

tptacek wrote: post #92
tsotha wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The labels still have one very vital function - marketing. While it's true there are great musicians out there who are also marketing geniuses, most of them aren't. There is always going to be a number of people involved in helping a musician's career. You can call that group whatever you want. Right now it's called a "label".

I'm not suggesting that Steve Albini is suddenly going to become a merchandising genius, only that Warner Music can't monopolize music marketing talent. Small firms will have a hard time getting a foothold in retail music, but as retail music starts to matter less, more small firms will enter the market to start bidding down the price of "marketing" and "promotion".

Yeah, that I agree with.

Re: EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

#100

Post by forensic »

ivancdg wrote: post #59
gravitronic wrote: post #48

Without the sales to support such a large "industry" of lawyers and business people, and without the need for many of their services (marketing and distribution, at least), are major labels not irrelevant? With dwindling sales they seem willing to further exploit their one resource, the artist. Artists on twitter are talking about getting monthly cheques for ~7 cents from Spotify. Guess who made that contract? I feel…

One of the conclusions one could draw from your comment is that the wrong kind of people (professionals) have been the ones involved in developing musicians' careers. ie, lawyers, corporate marketing-type people, etc. As a professional musician I think this is correct. The biggest challenge that I face is in my career (besides the creative challenges of creating compelling music) is this: there are very few smart, ta…

Does this Muck Work require talking to you/other musicians in person?

I'm wondering if this business opportunity requires a physical encounter or could be done remotely. I actually would love to support musicians and other artists/talented people by doing their Muck Work. One of the problems I've encountered informally is that there are major trust issues! My job requires them to trust me and building that trust is not easy, even in person, since there are so many sleazy MBA fraudsters out there.

Fraudsters specialize in getting people to trust them. Honest helpers, however, specialize in helping. I find that the fraudsters are accorded more trust than me, even though I don't have a scammy bone in my body.

I find it highly rewarding to help others focus on and develop their talents by moving the furniture out of their way. I actually just love seeing artists express themselves and so that motivates me to do their Muck Work. (great word for it by the way)

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