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Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
1. Music is not such an industry. The more middle men we put on the welfare line, the better. The perfect end result is all the useless promoters/distribution people being fired and the artist being able to record digitally for minimum cost and the music to be sold directly to consumers through a Napster like service. That day is coming quickly.
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This is ridiculous. Independent radio promoters are not the problem with the industry. The problem with your radio is corporate radio programmers and the sweetheart deals they have with majors.
In the industry, you need people other than the artists to ensure the artists' music does not suck. You need producers, you need A&R, you need people to broker the deals with other artists and producers to improve the product. Or else no one would want to hear it.
You also need distributors so that the music can get into stores. I know independent distributors who service mom-and-pops with indie product -- they spend days on the road, putting the right product in the right stores at the right time so it can be there when you want it.
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2. Nobody has implemented an artist-to-consumer model because it would wipe out thousands of middle men.
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We have an artist to consumer model -- it's called buying cds at a show. It's incredibly inefficient, but the artist has the ability to get paid for their work. Unlike peer-to-peer, when the artist gets screwed.
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3. Initially, the effcet of the file sharing will be less marginally commercially viable bands will get released. However, as the industry radically downsizes and the cost of distribution comes down due to the thinning of human costs and attendant thinning of physical plant costs (files don't require expensive cd plants which are staffed by costly union workers), you'll see labels put more marginally commercially viable bands than ever because the cost will be so low. Also, bands may be able to put themselves out buy putting their tunes on the net, such as the fame Yankee Foxtrot debacle.
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Wilco is a pretty awful example, and there are others like the Yellow Jackets, who have released their own product on the web and have done great. They have three essential things most of your marginally commercially viable bands don't have: (1) name recognition; (2) existing fans -- so a market already exists for the product and so that independent, college, and public radio djs will program it upon release; and (3) most importantly, money to make and release their own product.
(As for money, if they can do absolutely everything themselves, and can independently support themselves, it will cost between $5,000 and $25,000 to record and manufacture a cd. If they need producers and musicians and want to press 10k units and get it on local radio, you are looking at up to $250,000. For most struggling musicians, the $5,000 is as hard to come up with as the $250,000.)
Without those three elements, you would never know the music exists if you didn't stumble into one of the MCVBs shows (as we did with Charlie Hunter a few years ago, and Bavu Blakes last year).
Your model ensures a healthy regional market with very little national coverage. It works well in hip hop, but then some of those artists have other ways of supporting themselves.
