Or you can do what the music industry has tried and failed with for the past twenty years by pretending that it's still 1968 and that they can maintain the distribution monopoly that modern technology destroyed decades ago.
Good luck with that.
Monday, 18 October 2010
£1 albums
Or you can do what the music industry has tried and failed with for the past twenty years by pretending that it's still 1968 and that they can maintain the distribution monopoly that modern technology destroyed decades ago.
Good luck with that.
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6 comments:
How much longer into the 21st century
until the object in this photo is unrecognizable?
Show this to a kid.
"What's this?"
Next, the 16mm projector.
Most of the kids I know are hooked on classic Looney Tunes shorts and are pretty aware of old tech, even if they may not understand the inner workings.
I just had a friend's kid do the "Pardon me, but could you help a fellow American who is down on his luck?" bit from Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I asked where he picked that up from because he's eight and I didn't think he was into classic Bogie flicks yet. Turns out, it was referenced in a Bugs Bunny short (8-Ball Bunny).
Most kids I know seem pretty on the ball when it comes to an interest in history, they just come at it from odd angles.
I think the kids that Bryan is talking about are the exception these days but they are the kinds that keep my hope for the next few generations up.
In reference to what JSL posits; James Lileks once questioned when as a society we'd stop referring to things as "before the War" and "after the War" as a time marker.
I think it may have already happened but I also think there's a lot of us Retros that will always say such things and to whom "turn of the century" will mean 1901.
My 16 year old son marvels at film and vinyl records and my 40 year old wife had to be reminded just who Tony Curtis was.
Sometimes I am truly alone
Sometimes I think you're rather old-fashioned, Dave (and to be fair, that's because you are). But then you still have the capacity to surprise! I would have put you down as being on the side of the music companies, intellectual copyright, all that sort of thing.
What do you think is the best possible solution to this sort of problem?
What would I do? First, stop going after individuals who are sharing files. That just cheeses off the people you're trying to woo. If piracy is an issue, go after the big operations who are in it for wholesale profit.
Second, cut prices as low as possible. It takes pennies to print a CD and nothing to transmit a file, so stop with the 10,000 percent markups. Go for economies of scale. If the price is low enough, sales will be in the hundreds of millions.
Third, as the article suggests, go with live events and merchandising. The film industry is learning that there is where the real money is.
Fourth, adapt to the technology. Stop fighting it. The old monopoly-based business model is dead. A new one that plays to the strengths of the medium is needed.
Fifth, and least likely, take a hard look at the entertainment industry. There's too much money sloshing around in the wrong pockets. I've no objection to someone getting rich. In fact, I applaud it, but the insane greed of the entertainment industry is killing it by pricing itself out of the market and making failures insanely expensive.
I'm not sure merchandising and concerts are the answer either. Consider me, and John Dowland. If not for recordings, which take expertise and studio time to produce, I might still have heard of him. I might even have made time to attend a concert along with the tweed jacketed long-hairs when an early music ensemble visited a local college town. I would certainly not have had a chance to know any of his music, unless I took up the lute myself.
I don't have an answer, even though I work in software, but if someone doesn't find it in his interest for me to have access to Dowland (Corelli, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven---pick a point to call too obscure), I'm not going to find it acceptable.
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