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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: Bootleggers.....what can you do?
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Thomas Procyk
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1842
From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 09-20-2003 10:07 AM
![[Eek!]](eek.gif) If CDs were $5 each, I would seriously expand my music collection!! I think having a bunch of sharipe-covered CD-R's in a flipper case looks too "disposable."
Heck, if they were that cheap, I would even consider re-purchasing all of the stuff I own on vinyl instead of wasting time downoading all of the tracks I need. That's over 300 records! Come on, RIAA, don't you want my money?? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Getting back to movie piracy, if it's true that it states in the contract that you must aid in preventing piracy, I would add that in to the house nut. $5,000 Piracy Protection Fee. And while we're at it, $1,000 Piracy Protection Fee Administration Fee. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
=TMP=
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 09-23-2003 04:50 PM
quote:
The music industry has to make their product attractive again. Bland re-tread music and high prices just keep driving me to other things. If they cannot add more value to their discs to justify a $15 price tag, then they need to aggressively slash prices.
Also, I'm not even going to sympathize or even empathize for a record company's costs in pampering some stuck up prima donna "diva" princess star on their roster. If they're stupid enough to put some teen bubblegum music icon in a Lear-jet where ever she travels they need to swallow that cost on their own (especially since the labels screw over nearly all the rest of their signed talent). Don't pass that cost down to the customers. With more sensible bookkeeping and ethical management they would probably be able to hit a $5 to $7 price point for CDs and still make a good profit.
I also think that most aspects of the record companies operations suck, however, regardless of whether the record companies are right or wrong in giving ridiculous amounts of money to their stars, the fact is that it's STILL an expense, just as it is in the film industry. The only major label that is profitable is Universal (which is probably why they are the first to lower prices.) BMG, which incorporates RCA, has NEVER been profitable since the acquisition by Bertelsmann, if you don't count profit from the CD pressing business.
(You could make the same argument about the film business by stating that if the studios didn't pay so-called actors like Adam Sandler over $20 million a film, ticket prices in Manhattan wouldn't have to be $10 and people would go to see more movies.)
Also, we complain when we think the labels are screwing artists out of royalties and then we complain when we see artists living high off the hog.
The fact is that only the tiniest percentage of albums sell well. I think I've posted a detailed analysis of the music business once before, but here's the short version. In the year 2000, when the labels were doing quite a bit better than they are now, the average indie release sold 635 units.
10% of all albums (indies & major labels) sold were responsible for 50% of the units. Those top albums sold an average of 163,000 units each. The other 90% of titles released sold an average of 1650 units each. So far more than 90% of titles lose money for the labels.
Having said that, I totally agree that the labels put out boring junk and (much like the film business) because of their obsession with 12-20 year olds (who are doing most of the downloading anyway), they are missing the market of people who have the money and are willing to purchase product, if the right product was out there. I stop at a very large record store in Manhattan almost every week and most of the time, I walk out with nothing.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-27-2003 02:25 PM
The quality of music available is the biggest problem. The nature of bean-counting businessmen is try to sell the same style of product over again repeatedly, yet expect people to buy even more of shit they've already seen/heard.
The sale of recorded music is in essence a creative industry. You DO NOT get anywhere in any kind of creative industry by continuing to do the same old thing. You must be able to change, adapt, take risks, innovate, etc. That's the only way how music stays fresh and new trends come along. The MBA bean counters have put a stop to all that. They are not risking any money trying to invest in new talent and new forms of music. They've had success in the past selling a certain flavor and they just want us to keep buying even more of that same flavor even though we are sick of it. The movie industry is also very guilty of this same problem and will start paying dearly for it very soon.
The largely monopolized radio broadcast airwaves (Clearchannel anyone?) add to the problem. Hardly anything good or new to hear on radio. I'm mainly listening to classic rock stations which play music I already own on legit-bought CDs. I have around 400 store bought CDs, which makes my choice of listening material quite a bit more varied than most any radio station will offer.
The music video channels pretty much are only play rap or rap-rock style shit anymore. It is just too painfully derivative (been there heard that 1 million times before) to endure watching. And if I want to see some black chick shaking her ass cheeks all I have to do is walk a couple blocks to Cache Road and see a real live street walker do it (or just visit a bar)!
How many years has it been since bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains revolutionized hard rock music? 13 or 14 years? With one sweeping move, they killed "hair band" rock with a dizzyingly fast house cleaning. It made some fortunes and broke others. Music labels don't like such volatility in their markets. But that volatility is exactly what is needed to keep it alive.
Every single genre of popular music is now in dire need of a housecleaning. R&B just keeps spitting out 1986. Rap music is also stuck in the 1980's, or at least can't get past the pinnacle points of that genre established by NWA and Public Enemy all those years ago. I care nothing about the new stuff. Country music? Yeah, I can dance to it, but there's very little I have bought of it since the early 1990's. Hard rock is stuck in another repetitive "hair band" phase. A never-ending stream of copy-cat punk-boy bands just keeps coming out trying to sound like Korn or Limp Bizkit. It is just as embarrasing as those days of Steelhouse, White Lion, Poison, etc. (hair bands were cool when they looked scary, like "Motley Crue" in their first two albums).
Anyway, to finish this long winded tirade, we have had this current period of music fashion last for around 15 years. That's way beyond the shelf life of most any popular music trend. How long did disco last, 3 years? The original punk scene, 4 years? New wave, 3 years? Y'know, you can look back to the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and a little of the 1990's and find landmark albums, great trendsetters, etc. But now with everything so corporatized with the need for predictable business investment patterns, the music has gotten bland.
And still the only thing the industry will do is blame the Internet. Frank is right. 2004 should be an interesting year. If the labels themselves can't do any music format housecleaning, then maybe they themselves need to be cleaned out. It would probably be a healthy thing, too. The monopoly would be broken and the underground and spring forth new kinds of music.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 09-27-2003 11:09 PM
quote:
Universal, Tower and Virgin could well go under. Only a fraction of what is going on behind the scenes is reported in Billboard. 2004 should be an interesting year.
Universal might get sold (although Vivendi has taken it off the market since they can't get the price they want), but it's not going under. It's the only profitable major label. There's a bigger chance that any other label will go under, but the fact is that none of them will go under. At the very worst, they'll be sold to some other investment firm or conglomerate or as expected for some time, EMI will merge with someone and/or BMG will merge backroom operations with TimeWarner, although those negotiations seem to be in disarray. At the very worst, some of the conglomerates will sell off pieces, but I actually think that would be great for the industry. When Elektra, Motown, Atlantic, etc. were independent labels, we had much better music.
Tower Records has been in trouble for a number of years. They had to sell off all their international stores a few years ago. Tower used to be a great record store, but many of the (non-flagship) stores are pretty bad -dirty, poorly run and poor stock compared to what they used to have. They do have pretty good jazz and classical departments, although they've even retrenched there -- they've been trying to get the labels to accept payment on 6-month terms.
In NYC, every 10-15 years or so, there's a big turnover in the chains that control the market. In the 60s, there was Record Hunter, Sam Goody's and EJ Korvettes.
In the 70s and up until the time that Tower came in, there was Disc-O-Mat. When Virgin and HMV came into the market, I thought there would be a big price war, but it never happened. Virgin and HMV are actually quite expensive and in many of the their stores, cater mainly to tourists. Luckily, in NYC, we still have J&R, which is independently owned, has very deep stock and relatively low prices, especially when stuff is on sale.
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Bruce Hansen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 847
From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 09-28-2003 12:23 PM
I know that I have not heard anything in some time that I want to go out and buy. Not only has selection gone downhill over the past 5 or so years, but recording quality has gone to CRAP as well. "They" are recording CDs hotter and hotter to the point that I cannot even stand to listen to the last CD I bought, it is so clipped and distorted. CDs have a 90db dynamic range, so why do "they" only use the top 1db? Listen to a CD that was made 10 or 15 years ago, then listen to a newer CD. Notice the difference in level, and distortion? The industry needs to learn how to record all over again. In the digital world "average level" should be somewhere between -15 and -20. Peaks should come close to 0, but not hit 0. If I can't stand to even listen to the current CDs, I am not going to buy them! Right now, with the CRAP quality of a CD, you can't tell the difference between the CD and a highly compressed MP3 of it. One way to slow down the file sharing, may be to make CDs sound better, so that you can hear the difference.
BTW, one of the expenses in making vinyl records, was that vergin vinyl was expensive; CDs are just cheep plastic. Just look in your Sunday paper sales fliers, and see how many stores are GIVING AWAY CD-Rs.
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