From Jeff Waye Sent Wed, Jun 16th 1999, 23:44
From Jeff Waye Sent Wed, Jun 16th 1999, 23:44
>http://www.wired.com/news/news/email/member/culture/story/20247.html > >(The RIAA is about to eat it) > >David > The RIAA's intentions of greed obviously/unfortunatly outshined the legitimate concerns. My biggest problem with the majority of MP3 arguments is that people somehow think this is a big music liberation movement. Countless journalist yammer on (not always well informed either) about how majors are fucking their artist on royalty percentages so why shouldn't these artist/consumers liberate their music, blah blah blah. Okay, well and good, but in my opinion if you're stupid enough to accept some huge recoupable advance (hello...it's called 'an advance') and settle for something absurd like 6 points on each record sold (and that's after recoubables...hello T.L.C) than you deserve to be screwed by your label. My dad who knows nothing about the music industry, after 12 drinks he could probably tell you that's a bad idea. As I read somewhere recently 'if someone offered you a credit card with 66% interest would you take it?" No one ever seems to point to the fact that there are labels that actually treat their artists properly and pay a decent royalty percentage, and that these labels/artists are getting fucked by people's ease of bootlegging via MP3. A quick scan of some easily accessible sites reveals that there is loads of our stuff up there for download. I'm not sure how to feel. If people are downloading Amon Tobin MP3's because they're curious about what he sounds like and then go buy the record than that's good. But I can't help but feel there is loads of new music consumers who see no problem in just downloading his whole record and feeling that's sufficiant 'ownership' (ie. the parameters of what constitutes 'ownership' are changing with new consumers). Well, that's fucked. Those people better have an extra room at their house for Amon or me or other Ninja artist to sleep in the first month the rent cheque bounces, know what I'm saying. Anyway, it's a bit frustrating but whatever. I'm still convinced that downloadable music will only compliment traditional forms of music buying, it will never replace. The internet didn't replace newspapers. VCR's didn't close down the movie theatres. Plus I still beleive that most people are deluded when they think the internet represents free enterprise. There is billions of dollars at stake here, so don't think that the equivilents of major labels and major chains won't rule it in a few years. That good underground record will become just as hard to find on the internet as it is to find in Wichita. Major companies will own the search engines, the ads, things will be implimented to send you to their site not the other ones...and I still maintain that the biggest problem with the internet is that their is no quality filter. Everyone thinks they're a star, so they're all going to get their 10th rate music up on line making the good stuff hard to find. Imagine if your record store decided to carry any piece of music that someone came to them with. Anyway, I'm rambling. If anything all the music luddites of the world will lead a massive vinyl revolution and I'm all for that anyway... Jeff