@legacy-fan said:I'm of the belief that this is an issue of business model failure and not anything to do with personal/intellectual property.
Record exec's/ companies are the only ones that stand to lose from this. Artists make their real money from their tours (which get promoted through their record label - so it's kind of cyclical).
Music only gets put on the internet 3 ways for these file-sharing sites:
1. The artist themselves upload to their own site
2. A person purchases the cd, loads to their computer and aggregates it to one of the file-sharing sites
3. A person steals the cd, loads to their computer and aggregates it to one of the file-sharing sites.
Scenario #3 Is the only one anyone should be calling stealing. Otherwise, said music/files have been paid for.
Radiohead's In Rainbows (great disc), should be a model of how music is sold and distributed in the future, but the record industry will never go for it so they'll continue to make money the only way they know how (the courts). itunes has the stop-gap solution at the time.
Sooner or later, the record industry will come to realize their promotional power (all they have left) will be usurped by the internet (they would be smart to pioneer an online representation service to get the ball rolling).
Well put. I predicted the demise of record industries some 8 years ago. There is just no way to control information unless you charge for bandwidth used. Last CD I bought, The White Stripes 3 years ago, and before that The Police "Synchronicity" when I was 5.
The problem with record companies is this. They sign a band and work them to death, steal their originals and leave them for dead. My friend was in a pretty big band in the late 90's that sold over 250,000 records. He was on an independent label. They split all the money in 1/2. And he made way more then if they were with a major label.
They were on the same label as "Urge Overkill" in the 90's. So "Urge Overkill" comes out with the cover of the Neil Diamond song "Girl you'll be a woman soon" for Pulp Fiction and signs with a large label. And a couple of other hits (which I do enjoy). What happens? They got a good signing bonus and sold some more records and guess what? They made a lot less then if they would of stuck with "Touch and Go" records. So they lose their underground following, and when they have to come up with a song that really only appeals to certain people and is not in a major motion picture, they can't. They lose both fan bases and are now playing in 1,000 people bars.
Don't get me wrong, I am a HUGE Urge Overkill fan. But when you can kill good bands like this, is there no doubt in my mind, that the music is killed along with it. Hence the demise of major labels. Later.
