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The following is not just another rant from Urbano. It is a list of facts from an article in Rolling Stone Magazine.
Anyone see this article? href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_indus
1. Warner Music Group, announced that it would lay off 400 people, and its stock price lingered at fifty-eight percent of its peak from last June.
2. "The record business is over," says music attorney Peter Paterno, who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. "The labels have wonderful assets -- they just can't make any money off them." One senior music-industry source who requested anonymity went further: "Here we have a business that's dying. There won't be any major labels pretty soon."
3. file-sharing isn't going away -- there was a 4.4 percent increase in the number of peer-to-peer users in 2006, with about a billion tracks downloaded illegally per month, according to research group BigChampagne. http://www.bigchampagne.com/
4. More than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000.
5. About 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003, according to the research group Almighty Institute of Music Retail.
6. Around sixty-five percent of all music sales now take place in big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which carry fewer titles than specialty stores and put less effort behind promoting new artists.
7. Just a few years ago, many industry executives thought their problems could be solved by bigger hits. "There wasn't anything a good hit couldn't fix for these guys," says a source who worked closely with top executives earlier this decade. "They felt like things were bad and getting worse, but I'm not sure they had the bandwidth to figure out how to fix it. Now, very few of those people are still heads of the companies."
8. Despite the industry's woes, people are listening to at least as much music as ever. Consumers have bought more than 100 million iPods since their November 2001 introduction, and the touring business is thriving, earning a record $437 million last year. And according to research organization NPD Group, listenership to recorded music -- whether from CDs, downloads, video games, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, online streams or other sources -- has increased since 2002. The problem the business faces is how to turn that interest into money. "How is it that the people that make the product of music are going bankrupt, while the use of the product is skyrocketing?" asks the Firm's Kwatinetz. "The model is wrong."
9. Kwatinetz sees other, leaner kinds of companies -- from management firms like his own, which now doubles as a record label, to outsiders such as Starbucks -- stepping in.
9. Licensing music to video games, movies, TV shows and online subscription services is becoming an increasing source of revenue.
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So.... it's not just ranting Michael Urbano who is telling you to not hang your hat on recorded music sales. Downloads or physical. It's Rolling Stone.
The NEW MODEL IS..... Sharing in ALL Revenue streams in the DEVELOPED Career of real artists with REAL FANS.
Give the CD's and Downloads away. The real value of recordings in 2007? PROMOTION! Develop the careers of our artists. It's all about The Grateful Dead model now ya'll. The writing is on the wall.
Listen to MC Lars's "Download This Song" on Fuzz. http://mclars.fuzz.com/
True.
Mu.
Anyone see this article? href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_indus
1. Warner Music Group, announced that it would lay off 400 people, and its stock price lingered at fifty-eight percent of its peak from last June.
2. "The record business is over," says music attorney Peter Paterno, who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. "The labels have wonderful assets -- they just can't make any money off them." One senior music-industry source who requested anonymity went further: "Here we have a business that's dying. There won't be any major labels pretty soon."
3. file-sharing isn't going away -- there was a 4.4 percent increase in the number of peer-to-peer users in 2006, with about a billion tracks downloaded illegally per month, according to research group BigChampagne. http://www.bigchampagne.com/
4. More than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000.
5. About 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003, according to the research group Almighty Institute of Music Retail.
6. Around sixty-five percent of all music sales now take place in big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which carry fewer titles than specialty stores and put less effort behind promoting new artists.
7. Just a few years ago, many industry executives thought their problems could be solved by bigger hits. "There wasn't anything a good hit couldn't fix for these guys," says a source who worked closely with top executives earlier this decade. "They felt like things were bad and getting worse, but I'm not sure they had the bandwidth to figure out how to fix it. Now, very few of those people are still heads of the companies."
8. Despite the industry's woes, people are listening to at least as much music as ever. Consumers have bought more than 100 million iPods since their November 2001 introduction, and the touring business is thriving, earning a record $437 million last year. And according to research organization NPD Group, listenership to recorded music -- whether from CDs, downloads, video games, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, online streams or other sources -- has increased since 2002. The problem the business faces is how to turn that interest into money. "How is it that the people that make the product of music are going bankrupt, while the use of the product is skyrocketing?" asks the Firm's Kwatinetz. "The model is wrong."
9. Kwatinetz sees other, leaner kinds of companies -- from management firms like his own, which now doubles as a record label, to outsiders such as Starbucks -- stepping in.
9. Licensing music to video games, movies, TV shows and online subscription services is becoming an increasing source of revenue.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So.... it's not just ranting Michael Urbano who is telling you to not hang your hat on recorded music sales. Downloads or physical. It's Rolling Stone.
The NEW MODEL IS..... Sharing in ALL Revenue streams in the DEVELOPED Career of real artists with REAL FANS.
Give the CD's and Downloads away. The real value of recordings in 2007? PROMOTION! Develop the careers of our artists. It's all about The Grateful Dead model now ya'll. The writing is on the wall.
Listen to MC Lars's "Download This Song" on Fuzz. http://mclars.fuzz.com/
True.
Mu.
This is a band with a truly inside perspective to Fuzz. They really seem to get what it's all about, except, they forgot to put some damn tunes up. Also, I'd put the chick on drums out front but that's just me.