Originally posted by: LoKe
CD's are DOWNLOADED. All electronic, all profit, no label, little management, no cuts. Profit.
Right, because producing, mastering, promoting, and distributing music recordings costs nothing. You meant all profit...after all that stuff is recouped?
The only bands who could make this work are well-established bands like Radiohead, who has over 10 million albums sold, millions in the bank, and a loyal fan base, all of which it owes entirely to the 'old' business model. And in the process, Radiohead is sending a big f-ck you to not-yet-known bands who have the misfortune of being born 10 years too late.
Internet promotion and marketing of unknown bands will be every bit as successful as...well...all other types of internet promotion and marketing have been (e.g. internet advertising, content subscription, et. al.). On the internet, any given unknown band is but a proverbial drop in the sea with none of the name recognition, connections, nor finances of a Radiohead to get more exposure than any of the other 250,000 no-name bands out there.
Sure, there will be exceptions who will benefit from some faddish social movement or gimmick du jour, sorta like demand for certain animals as pets will skyrocket after a popular anthropomorphic movie, or demand for politically correct alternatives to diamonds skyrocketed for a few weeks after the movie Blood Diamond. But as a repeatable, consistent, long-term business model, it will be a flop. In fact, it already is.
Long after RIAA is dead (and the recording industry it represents), what will be the motivation for people to [ostensibly] support the 'digital distribution' model? You actually believe the hype of the pirate culture, that they are doing this out of some greater affection for freedom-loving goodness? lmao!
Once their boogey-man is gone, once there is no therapeutic value in it, so too will all the bankrupt 'altruistic' justifications in favor of it, leaving only their true motives - personal gain (theft).
I fully admit the only reasons I ever purchased music as an adolescent or young adult was because I had to in order avoid the non-trivial hassle of analog copying and to obtain the highest quality listening experience available. We didn't give two sh-ts whether the artist was being deprived of income, because it was easy to rationalize that 'nobody is going to be in the poor house just because I didn't buy their album', sorta like the government won't miss my taxes because my contribution is insignificant relative to all the other people paying taxes (relativism).
The second common justification we employed might seem oddly familiar; 'the artist doesn't get any of my money, anyway, it all goes to the greedy record companies' (apparently, the artist was paying for multi-million dollar homes, legendary party lifestyles, and expensive luxury/sports vehicles with Monopoly money).
There is not a single contemporary RIAA-bashing argument or grievance that has not been all the rage for over 30+ years now. The RIAA-bashing crowd at least could try to come up with something original that their grandparents weren't using when they were 16.
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