Since you seem to be well-versed in the music industry, how much are they asking for? I have read 5-10000 per year, which imo, would not cut anyones throat.

Anyone know how much a large radio station makes in ad revenue per year? Say, KIIS 102.7 FM?

 

The major labels are all but dead. (I really see them akin to the knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail) I was in the music biz for over a decade, and now I'm out (somewhat sadly, but I have bills to pay) - at the end of the day, NOTHING competes with free, and no amount of marketing will overcome that. The latest Radiohead experiment lends support to this - when given a choice to pay anything they wanted for the Radiohead album - 60% of consumers didn't feel they should pay them a dime. The RIAA is desperate.

Oh, and the radio stations never paid for songs, it was always vice versa. For years we paid "consultants" who, in turn, paid the stations. No one ever talked about it, but that's the way it was. Spitzer busted the labels, but pretty much left the stations alone.

Oh, and motion picture companies haven't really done anything differently. They're in the same boat - a boat that has been floating due to nothing more than bandwidth. Once every middle-America Walmart shopper can download a full feature film in a few minutes, and has the multi-terabyte drive to hold it - buh bye DVD biz!

My occupation now? DVD production of course. I can pick 'em, can't I.

BTW - Before I was in the record biz, I worked at a zoo as a Dodo handler.

 

Is that true? They are all but dead?

I don't know too much about them, but from a legal aspect, they are winning all of their cases in court.

I don't know what ppl are complaining about though. They just want their music for free. They don't want alternative business models--they want FREE. Which is understandable, but do they really have any grounds for defending their actions? Downloading the content illegally is only going to do one thing: stifle ppl from risking capital on ventures that result in the works of art that you will end up stealing and not paying for. If no one pays for their music in the future, do you think ppl are going to pour millions of dollars into producing these works of art if they know they are going to lose money on it?

At least for the MPAA, I know production companies spend millions of dollars on making a movie. So say they put $20,000,000 into a movie, and everyone just dl it illegally from a P2P. You think they will keep making movies in the future? No way. We are going to lose those movies, and all the technology that comes along with those movies (e.g. THX, Pixar, etc.) It's because movies are so profitable that ppl produce them, and it that chase for profit that results in technological progress.

I mean, the whole reason why the music industry has had to pursue these desperate measures is because ppl are stealing their content. They aren't pursuing ppl that are using the music for their personal benefit; they are making changes because 1 person buys a CD, uploads it to his computer and the internet, and 100000000 ppl get it for free. That is why they are changing policies. So if you have a problem with it, you can help stop it by not dl illegally. But we all know that isn't going to happen. I mean, we are bringing these changes about ourselves.

 

If labels are dead, how are they paying these rappers far more than any artist has ever been paid? Granted, endorsements are plentiful, but don't record labels pay their artists an absorbment sum during signing? Where is their money coming from?!

 

I believe that is what is called a venture risk. Like any business opportunity, these record labels invest a certain amount of risk in the artists. Usually, for established companies or labels, that money comes from previous monies made from previous successes. For example, Dr. Dre invested money he made off of his record albums and invested it in a white rapper named Eminem--which was a risk. Had Eminem failed to sell, Dr. Dre would lose that money as a producer. Since he succeeds (i.e. he sells records to cover the risky investment and profits) he is able to take the profits, and re-invest it into new artists. This is why we have innovation in music. For a label that just starts off, they may seek capital from venture capitalists, who in exchange for providing the capital get a certain percentage of the profits if the venture profits.

If we take away those profits in the form of P2P free music dl, then you can be sure less venture capitalists and less producers will be willing to risk their money on new artists. I believe it can have detrimental effects not only in the music industry, but any business-related industry (i.e. if you take away the capitalism, you lose the innovation).

 

As with any terminal patient, it's just a matter of time. And I did say major labels - there will always be niche opportunities for those indy labels that can spend less than 100k to market an album to sell 50k records.

More and more labels are turning toward the business model of artist management. Merchandising, for example, was once essentially untouchable by the record companies. Now, labels are asking for a piece of that as well, or in the case of my former label with some of its acts, taking it over completely.

As far as rappers go - I don't know. The label I was with tried desparately to get into the rap game, and IMO, failed miserably. We hemorraged money to develop acts and spent millions of dollars in marketing to scan only 200-250k albums. With every rock act we had, we would spend at most $200-300k to make a music video. With hip hop acts, we would typically triple that number (bling wasn't cheap!)

 

But according to this record labels being dead thing, there shouldn't be any money left to pay artists. I think I should take some econ classes before I graduate... hahaa

 

The money is mostly coming from their back catalog.

Every time a Beatles album sells, EMI is still getting their cut.

If <insert rapper's name here> manages to produce one song and/or one album that pays until Hell freezes over (like the Beatles, Elvis, etc.), they will eventually make their money back. All the while, they paid the artist in 2008 dollars.

 

There are roughly 12,000 stations in this country. The majority of those are little stations in small markets. A top station in LA might not have a problem but that's not the norm.

 

I think most of us here probably understand licensing laws. The problem is, is that what the RIAA is doing is saying that "if you buy a CD, you can't put it onto your computer or iPod" ...which is like Microsoft saying "you can buy our Windows XP cd, but you can't put it onto your computer. Or saying, you can buy Windows XP, but you can't put it on a laptop, only on a desktop.

In order to put it onto your iPod (according to what the RIAA is saying, you would have to purchase 1 song (or get licensing) 3 different times... Just to put it on your iPod (or two times, if you just buy it off iTunes)

Its like those old computer games where you could run it from the CD, but they recommended installing it onto your computer, so it will run more smoothly. It would have been straight up retarted for one of those companies to say "you have to pay for the game twice if you want to install it on your computer, otherwise you will have to run it from the cd.

Yes, the illegal downloading of music is hurting the RIAA, but saying that "you cannot put the music on your computer or mp3 player is retarted. Heck, I wouldn't be suprised if they came out with an iRIAA and told everyone that you are only "legally allowed" to copy their music onto their iRIAA, and no other mobile device (just so they can make money)