The Obligatory Napster Rant
Feb. 21st, 2001 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiI know, every live journal has to have one, and now it's my turn.
First, let me say that Napster has their head up their tush. They are playing the Record Label game, and that's the wrong game to be in. They need to be playing the broadcast game. If they change their conceptual model to that of a broadcaster instead of a distributor, all they have to do is pay BMI, ASCAP, SESAC and a few other smaller agencies their royalties based on logs of their transfers. A fee will cover that, and it'll be low enough to not kill their user base. Competing with Universal and their ilk is going to kill them, and is far too much like bathing with lepers for my taste anyway.
I'm in a quandary here. I hate those suited fat assed pud pulling bastards in a way that only another musician can appreciate. (Although most parents who have to suffer through NSTYNC, The Backdoor Boys, Clittney Spears, and their ilk may empathize somewhat...) However, on some level the musicians are still gaining royalties from the sales of the records.
Where the argument goes up in flames is when you take into account that record sales are up on heavily hit artists on Napster. (No stats exist for Gnutella, of course)
But here is the real place where I get my blood flowing. I want the Labels to die. In a history of music, I want "The Record Label Era" to be something discussed as a time when music was stifled and creation curtailed.
Before companies created records, people had to listen to it on radios that Marconi stole the design for from Tesla, or more likely, they had to patronize a local club, symphony, music hall, or other such place. With the advent of records, it changed from art to commodity. The well known started taking up a much larger piece of the pie. The lesser known were getting squeezed out. And of course, this swelled to the point where we got people like Steve Perry, The Stones, The Who, and others in their ilk filling huge stadiums and getting rich while an increasing percentage of musicians worked for the money made at the door or even less and fought to get heard because everyone was sitting at home listening to their stereos. And with no audience, the Labels deemed the bands "No Commercial Appeal" and instead signed Steve Perry to a solo career. (And boy, Columbia regretted that move. Even Steve Perry admits that...)
And now, I look at the possibility that these evil fuckers will die a slow wasting death of the type that is only seen in a bad movie adaptation of a Steven King book. And I do the snoopydance. (but not on top of my piano...)
I'm working toward releasing my stuff on the web. I know the technology isn't quite there yet, but its coming soon, and until then, I know a good fulfillment house.
First, let me say that Napster has their head up their tush. They are playing the Record Label game, and that's the wrong game to be in. They need to be playing the broadcast game. If they change their conceptual model to that of a broadcaster instead of a distributor, all they have to do is pay BMI, ASCAP, SESAC and a few other smaller agencies their royalties based on logs of their transfers. A fee will cover that, and it'll be low enough to not kill their user base. Competing with Universal and their ilk is going to kill them, and is far too much like bathing with lepers for my taste anyway.
I'm in a quandary here. I hate those suited fat assed pud pulling bastards in a way that only another musician can appreciate. (Although most parents who have to suffer through NSTYNC, The Backdoor Boys, Clittney Spears, and their ilk may empathize somewhat...) However, on some level the musicians are still gaining royalties from the sales of the records.
Where the argument goes up in flames is when you take into account that record sales are up on heavily hit artists on Napster. (No stats exist for Gnutella, of course)
But here is the real place where I get my blood flowing. I want the Labels to die. In a history of music, I want "The Record Label Era" to be something discussed as a time when music was stifled and creation curtailed.
Before companies created records, people had to listen to it on radios that Marconi stole the design for from Tesla, or more likely, they had to patronize a local club, symphony, music hall, or other such place. With the advent of records, it changed from art to commodity. The well known started taking up a much larger piece of the pie. The lesser known were getting squeezed out. And of course, this swelled to the point where we got people like Steve Perry, The Stones, The Who, and others in their ilk filling huge stadiums and getting rich while an increasing percentage of musicians worked for the money made at the door or even less and fought to get heard because everyone was sitting at home listening to their stereos. And with no audience, the Labels deemed the bands "No Commercial Appeal" and instead signed Steve Perry to a solo career. (And boy, Columbia regretted that move. Even Steve Perry admits that...)
And now, I look at the possibility that these evil fuckers will die a slow wasting death of the type that is only seen in a bad movie adaptation of a Steven King book. And I do the snoopydance. (but not on top of my piano...)
I'm working toward releasing my stuff on the web. I know the technology isn't quite there yet, but its coming soon, and until then, I know a good fulfillment house.
