there, that’s my 2 sentences

I just don’t like the mentality of bitching about prices. Free markets are quite easy to understand: if it’s too expensive for you, don’t buy it, simple as that.

Scott: Right. I don’t advocate higher prices and I’ve seen that somehow the rest of my last comment seems to have been cut off somehow. I just don’t like people bitching about prices of whatever as a justification for wanting everything for free, and with music, movies and software, that often goes hand in hand. Our friend DAD did not really say much about what he really means, so one can only guess. However, saying that CDs can produced so cheap and that they still cost 15 USD or EUR or whatever and using that as a reason for downloading from a P2P network is quite common place, at least over here in Germany, and I just can’t stand that. The part that got swallowed by whatever (maybe it was even my own clumsiness – somehow…) basically contained a good part of the point you were going to make: one can only try to make a change by learning about new music. Buy from your small, local labels, go to concerts of some unknown band that you happen to like.

While the small labels do not have _that_ much money, they treat the artists better in general. I used to worked for a company that makes software for record labels and I have seen that 80% of the music is produced by the small labels whereas the majors make 80% of the money.

The majors either cherry-pick from the small labels and promote the artists to death while it lasts or they start the machine and produce a new band / singer / boy group / whatever, feature-complete with the desired image and the same old song material in some new variations.

BTW, if you watch casting shows nowadays, you will discover that not only the labels are greedy. Imagine: 80 million Germans, and these days everyone seems to think that he or she is the undiscovered talent that the world has been waiting for. Poor bastards, those 0.00001 percent or whatever who finally make it get caught by the machine, are marketed to death with music nobody really wants to hear without any innovation taking place and forgotten soon thereafter. Making millions without any effort – just sing a bit and be adored by everyone – that sounds just too good to resist, doesn’t it?

I see there has been a response from Apple: http://www.flyingjelly.net/entry.jsp?entry=694

B

I cannot agree. The artists and songwriters get a very paltry fraction of the money made from music in general. Prices of music to the consumer have gone up, while production costs have dropped. Heck – most labels in the US do not even pay artists the federally mandated royalty, as they ‘need to recover the costs of switching to the CD format’. Read Janis Ian’s site for details. DAD’s complaint that music is too expensive does not really come at the expense of the artist – I just do not see the labels suddenly deciding to give them a bigger share, even if the price charged increases.

I confess, $12.50 does not bother me, but I refuse to pay more than $13 for a silver disc, and $10 for an electronic download if I can strip the DRM. (I am not sure what my DRM price is, but it seems to be lower than $10, as I have not bought any new ITMS music since HYMN stopped working. I do not share my library, or give away music, but I do not want to be unable to play it in the future.) I usually end up buying two or three CDs a week, as there is always something I want that is on sale for what I will pay.

I am minded of the authors I know. In general, advances are small, and the typical author has to really sweat to get a book in publisher hands. Having done so, they get royalties according to a contract, usually written such that they will cover the advance. Why? Because if the royalties do not, then the publisher does not get another book, and they may be out some cash too. This is also why promotion costs are low for many first time authors.

Contrast to the music industry – advances are large, relatively, which means that many bands never work through them, and are dropped like a hot rock. Further, very large promotional costs are paid by the label, which the bands are charged for. Not fun at all. In addition, the high dollar amounts at stake make most A&R folks amazingly conservative, which makes it very, very hard to find good new music.

I note further that many record company executives and A&R folks seem unwilling to develop good talent, and they believe that the decay in music revenues is a crisis, as opposed to being the natural consequence of people finally having replaced their LP collections with CDs some years back. At this point, they need to offer something cool and new to get more revenue.

So, if you really want quality to count, do not campaign for higher music prices. Campaign for greater revenue for artists, smaller advances, and smaller promotional budgets. This makes it easier for a label to take a risk on an artist, and for an artist to come in at a profit. Look at Derek Siver’s model at CDBaby – very inexpensive promotions, high returns to artists, and a fair amount of flow for all concerned.

Scott

People don’t watch sales figures in absolute numbers, a number one hit is a number one. But it’s exactly the attitude you present here that has led to the major labels’ greed and the fact that quality does not count anymore in that business. Produce it on the cheap and sell it while they have their 15 minutes of fame. One-hit-wonders everywhere, especially here in Europe, people with no talent are pushed through casting shows and then forgotten soon thereafter. The artists share is