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A Sad Week For The Music Industry-a note by Nick Warren (pg. 3)
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| Progsounds |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trance-MB
IMO still bad management, their own damw decision. For years we paid to much for cd's in Europe and by the time there was an alternative they were not ready and missed the train, unable to stop it.
I remember that they predicted in the future someone could select tracks and would be able to get them on cd, so you only would pay and get what you like, but no they decided to earn as much as possible by not changing anything.
Also, how many times have I been looking for a (maxi)cd unable to find it and even in the record shop they couldn't order it. Eventually you even stop asking.... |
To say they are the product of their own potential downfall is not really taking all factors into account.
Granted the digital platform is something the music industry as a whole was slow in embracing, by which time the Audiogalaxies and Napsters of the world had already started to make an impact, but to expect every store to physically have every product available to them is just an ideal world situation which in business terms would have been impossible to sustain, plus the fact that unless they were some kind of megastore sized record store most stores could not have such funds available to specialist order on demand when stocking the most in demand titles was their main focus.
You cannot argue that labels have not tried to cater for people's needs, many labels release vinyl, cdrs, and digital releases where you can either buy the whole EP or tracks. Of course the pricing structure on digital can leave a little to be desired when the whole EP digitally can now cost more than a physical product, but they have to sustain the running of their business somehow, while trying to provide as many different options as possible.
Nevertheless, as I said, there are plenty of people who will still go down the free avenue and this compounds a situation where the global economic slowdown plus all the factors mentioned are making it increasingly difficult for even the most established of record labels to continue. For some the recent collapse of global distributors will be the second knockback in the last year following the collapse of the company Amato several months ago. |
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| Adam420 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Progsounds
Doesnt quite work like that. Any asshat can launch a netlabel and bang out their own tunes these days, and this has lead to an increasing saturation of the digital format to the point that Beatport has so many new releases per day / week that even the latest releases on established or fairly well known labels can get lost in the constant shuffle unless they are given some banner placement or focus.
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So, so true. This is the worst thing about sites like Beatport. Too much crap. |
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| djjasonb |
| With so many people on paid promo lists now it only takes one to share tracks for them to get around like wildfire, if anything its that that is to blame more than anything. |
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| Adam420 |
| What's a paid promo list? |
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| Trance-MB |
| quote: | Originally posted by Progsounds
To say they are the product of their own potential downfall is not really taking all factors into account.
Granted the digital platform is something the music industry as a whole was slow in embracing, by which time the Audiogalaxies and Napsters of the world had already started to make an impact, but to expect every store to physically have every product available to them is just an ideal world situation which in business terms would have been impossible to sustain, plus the fact that unless they were some kind of megastore sized record store most stores could not have such funds available to specialist order on demand when stocking the most in demand titles was their main focus.
You cannot argue that labels have not tried to cater for people's needs, many labels release vinyl, cdrs, and digital releases where you can either buy the whole EP or tracks. Of course the pricing structure on digital can leave a little to be desired when the whole EP digitally can now cost more than a physical product, but they have to sustain the running of their business somehow, while trying to provide as many different options as possible.
Nevertheless, as I said, there are plenty of people who will still go down the free avenue and this compounds a situation where the global economic slowdown plus all the factors mentioned are making it increasingly difficult for even the most established of record labels to continue. For some the recent collapse of global distributors will be the second knockback in the last year following the collapse of the company Amato several months ago. |
True, it's always more complicated. But I'm talking about the time you could surf the internet finding titles. With a 14k4 modem there wasn't much downloading really.
So not being able to order a cd or vinyl isn't good marketing. I guess they had lots of time to develop something. And back then they must have had enough money to do that, I'm convinced of that. |
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| Progsounds |
| quote: | Originally posted by Adam420
What's a paid promo list? |
Basically its what it says, paid access to a label's promos for x amount of months or paid access to a 'pool' where a group of labels make available advanced copies of their releases to paying DJs (though in some cases you have to have a proven club record/gig schedule/radio show). |
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| bubbleguuum |
The demise of vinyl distributors is inevitable. In today's times, vinyl really feels like an artefact of the past if you consider the place it takes, how little information it contains compared to its volume, the time it takes to be delivered, etc... It's really becoming a curiosity, in a time when you can store all your music in a small hard drive and find any track in seconds [insert random complaint of the intangibility of such a thing here]. Vinyl has its place for the collector market but that market is not big enough probably to be sustainable.
Djs have seen the usefulness of digital since a long time as vinyl has become not practical as a format used for DJing.
IMHO it's mostly the inevitable evolution to digital DJ'ing that's killing vinyl, more than piracy. When playing digital most of the time you're just going to buy the digital version as ripping vinyl is time consuming you don't have time to do it anyway.
Most vinyl enthusiasts complain about being unable to emotionnaly attach to a dematerialized collection (ie files). To those people I say that it is very easy:
1. Do not download music illegally at all
2. Tag your files, organize your digital collection.
3. Buy a lossless format (WAV or FLAC)
4. Pay for your music
5. Do not buy anything because it sounds good when you hear it and it is cheap. In other way: carefully select your music.
Also I often read that "files are worth nothing since it's dematerialized". To those I say to focus on all the hours (days?) the artist spent creating the music instead of the piece of derivate of oil (the so-called "tangible product"). |
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| Sykonee |
| quote: | Originally posted by bubbleguuum
Also I often read that "files are worth nothing since it's dematerialized". To those I say to focus on all the hours (days?) the artist spent creating the music instead of the piece of derivate of oil (the so-called "tangible product"). |
Heh. Tell that to an insurance agency.
"Say, I've got all these music files on my computer, what are they worth?"
"Er, nothing."
"But I payed hundreds of dollars for them! What if my computer is burned in a fire or gets stolen?"
"Don't you have backups? If not, sucks to be you, then." |
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