CAN'T LIVE WITH MAJOR RECORD LABELS, CAN'T SEEM TO GET AROUND THEM.

Can’t Live With the Major Labels, Can’t Seem to Get Around Them

Posted on 13. May, 2009 by refe in INNOVATION

Right now the whole music industry is caught in a Catch-22. The major record labels are bleeding money and lack the capital to invest in real talent. Real talent is usually risky, and right now the majors can’t absorb any risk. Yet, the ones who would rise up and bring the creative deconstruction have their hands tied.

As Bob Lefsetz puts it, “Rights, distribution and radio. Those are the three cards the major labels and their controlled publishing companies hold.” Napster got busted because it tried to bypass the rights piece. They quickly found out that you can’t take a product that someone else owns and give them away. Sites like Pandora, Last.fm and iMeem are trying to bypass radio with online streaming. Last.fm has to find new ways of increasing revenue to keep from losing money to licensing fees, and iMeem has all but faded away.

Lefsetz’s words again: “Innovation has been locked out.”

“Innovators in the music sphere have been hamstrung by those rights the labels and the publishers still hold. How many stillborn online music services have we had? Playing by the established industry’s rules is a license to go out of business.

For the past few years, the innovators have thrown up their hands. If you want to be in charge of your own destiny, you create an iPhone app, you don’t try to solve the problem of music distribution.

But this is going to change.

New acts see value in giving away their music. And if you control it, you’ve got the right. How long until there’s enough unfettered new music, tunes the creators control as opposed to the fat cats, that someone from the outside can roll up these rights and create a viable alternative to the established game?

It’s just a matter of when.”

This is a frustrating time to be a part of the music industry, but it is also exciting. The very people who are supposed to be creating an environment where artists and their music can thrive are instead hobbling their own industry from the inside out. At the same time, the opportunities that exist for great talent and innovative entrepreneurs are nearly limitless. IF they are willing to take the risks and make their own rules.

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Tags: bands, business models, free music, MUSIC INDUSTRY

5 Responses to “Can’t Live With the Major Labels, Can’t Seem to Get Around Them”

@paisible (via Twitter)

14. May, 2009

So many articles on music industry’s pains and woes, this one’s worth reading.
Lance

14. May, 2009

IT’s all about the money here, labels are certainly not the only banks out there, they do have a network that the indie band doesn’t and that can help to catapult a band to stardom quickly. But there have always been new ways of marketing music and things change.

So you’ve made a point there is a new opportunity here for the indie band that has more than just music to offer, self made bands and or indie labels that have the vision to see and utilize other methods of promoting their product. But I own an indie label, I’ve been an indie musician for a very long time, and have been able to make a living at music NOT following the normal established model. I fight the norm, still, giving away your music is the choice of the copyright owner.
Be that the artist that created it or the label that the artist signed over the rights too to get their bank and network behind them.

this is an exciting time for an indie musician and or label, we can utilize all these new and exciting options for us, and companies like
Last.fm and others wouldn’t necessarily have to pay airplay royalties on our music if we don’t have the songs published.

So there it is, these sites, need to FIND the indie artists that have the whole package or vise versa, their out there, and wanting to make things happen, but in order for a band or small label to really get the word out? They need A LOT more than just one or two of these types of websites to do it, they need a whole host of them networking together creating a new vision for music fans and artists, let’s start thinking of interesting ways to do this together, keeping in mind, that there is a cost to making music and recording it well.
refe

14. May, 2009

One thing is for sure though – the majors are not doing their jobs, so we need to find someone (or create something) that will.
Simon Adams

15. May, 2009

Couldn’t agree more with the comments here, the major labels are losing the plot.

At a recent publishing panel at Popkomm it was interesting to see the major label representatives giving an admission that they were struggling with online revenue collection for their artists, when indies are simply going straight to an aggregator like CDBaby, WaTunes or Tunecore and get paid for their music directly.

On the radio front, there are still ways to airplay, we use the extensive college and independent radio circuits to push artist, it’s where indepenent music gets championed so much more.

Sometimes we forget how young the digital music industry really is, but yes it’s sure an exciting time to be in it….
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02. Sep, 2009

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