Music Industry

[schmatass]

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

interesting read on Steve Jobs take of DRM encoded music. enjoy!:)

If this has already been posted - sorry for the repeat.


I have to say though that Jobs brings up very good points on DRM encoded music and that it's basically worthless since all CD's don't have DRM encoding on them thereby making them free for people to upload to the internet and download at will.

Discombobulated Muck Pile=The Record Industry.

[gtrbass]

To the music industry, Steve Jobs is the harbinger of the apocalyspe. I think there is a specific reason why and worth elaborating on.

Jobs was deeply influenced by the hippie counterculture movement, the virtual epicenter of which was San Francisco. He was born in the city and raised in the suburbs (Cupertino). Jobs is a firm believer in the 'power to the people' ethos of the hippie movement. He sees technology as the avenue to democtratize society. (I wouldn't disagree with him). If you think about it, the free exchange of ideas and creative expression is the very foundation of Apple's core principles to empower individuals. That's what Apple is all about. (BTW - I'm no Machead. In fact, I don't even own any Apple products.)

Look at the music industry. By the late '90's it had become a virtual monopoly. The few dominated (and still do in many ways) the choices of the many. The average musician didn't have the capability to create sonically competitive recordings, nor could they promote or distribute their recorded output. Today that has changed. The reason in no small part is Jobs!

Music was central to the hippie movement. It was the primary language of communication. It made music integrally important to the generation that came of age in the late '60's & early '70's.

Steve Jobs is at War... He has been waging a war with those he views as white collar techno-elitists & technocrats. Think of Apple as a guerrilla force, who grew in power, and put up a flag. In contrast, think of Microsoft as another guerrilla force who did basically the same thing. The difference is that in Jobs' mind, Bill Gates became like the 'barons' that he (Jobs) wanted to render obsolete. That's is a big part of the rivalry between the two companies. I have no idea if Job's perception is realistic. But it is important to note.

Jobs position on DRM is his reaction to what he views as an attempt to control creative expression. iTunes policy to sell individual songs instead of full albums is Jobs reaction to any attempt to control the consumers choice to force him/her to buy 'stuff they don't want' to get what they do want.

We are in a cycle. However you want to look at it, the truth is that the 'BIG' music business has been dominated by a small number of powerful entities. The old music business (back in the 50's) was largely independent. Small labels like Sun, Atlantic, Chess had a tremendous influence on popular culture. Over time those labels, and the artists they recorded were absorbed by Big Business. People like Jobs have wiped the slate clean. There is a huge opportunity congealing for a new generation of Ahmet Ertegun's and Sam Phillips' to emerge.

My perception is that we (artists) are more important to the long term transition of human culture from the old paradigms of the late 20th century than we think. We are simply put, in the first battlefield. The bad news is that the war is being fought in the music business. The good news is that it will end with the music business.

[Scafeets]

Jobs makes some very valid points (as usual) but his reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with "the hippie culture" and everything to do with sound business practices,
Although steeped in a counter-culture personna, Apple is and always was about the Benjamins. They developed and protected their operating system so that no one else could take advantage of it. The short era of "open source" Macs was quickly removed when Jobs came back to save the company from extinction. You won't hear Jobs making a case for removing protection from the Mac OS so it can run on PCs that cost half as much as Apple hardware for a damn good reason - $$$$
He made an exclusive deal with Verizon for the iPhone because it assured Apple a huge profit. If Apple was a "Power to the people" kinda company, it would have made the iPhone available to all service providers right from the launch.
Jobs isn't at war -- he's in business and he's damn good at it. He knows market share is a bullshit metric and has guided Apple to profitability by not playing the commodity game. BTW: Apple reached a milestone this year when its market cap exceeded that of IBM. In other words, Apple is now bigger, more profitable and more successful than IBM.
Now Jobs is recommending the elimination of DRM, which makes sense if all the other pieces are put in place to fairly compensate the writers and artists. The idea that the music industry is more monoploized now than in previous times is just not true. CBS, EMI, Phonogram, RCA and Warners dominated the business in the 50s, 60s and 70s,
There have always been indie labels (most of which were bought out by the majors) but the reality is that - thanks to technology -- small labels and bands without labels have a better chance of making a dent now than they did at any other time.
If you read between the lines, what Jobs recommends for the next paradigm shift in the music industry is movement toward what has already started to evolve in Europe: A performance royalty combined with a recording media tax.

[sabriel9v]

Jobs makes some very valid points (as usual) but his reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with "the hippie culture" and everything to do with sound business practices,
Although steeped in a counter-culture personna, Apple is and always was about the Benjamins. They developed and protected their operating system so that no one else could take advantage of it. The short era of "open source" Macs was quickly removed when Jobs came back to save the company from extinction. You won't hear Jobs making a case for removing protection from the Mac OS so it can run on PCs that cost half as much as Apple hardware for a damn good reason - $$$$
He made an exclusive deal with Verizon for the iPhone because it assured Apple a huge profit. If Apple was a "Power to the people" kinda company, it would have made the iPhone available to all service providers right from the launch.
Jobs isn't at war -- he's in business and he's damn good at it. He knows market share is a bullshit metric and has guided Apple to profitability by not playing the commodity game. BTW: Apple reached a milestone this year when its market cap exceeded that of IBM. In other words, Apple is now bigger, more profitable and more successful than IBM.
Now Jobs is recommending the elimination of DRM, which makes sense if all the other pieces are put in place to fairly compensate the writers and artists. The idea that the music industry is more monoploized now than in previous times is just not true. CBS, EMI, Phonogram, RCA and Warners dominated the business in the 50s, 60s and 70s,
There have always been indie labels (most of which were bought out by the majors) but the reality is that - thanks to technology -- small labels and bands without labels have a better chance of making a dent now than they did at any other time.
If you read between the lines, what Jobs recommends for the next paradigm shift in the music industry is movement toward what has already started to evolve in Europe: A performance royalty combined with a recording media tax.


A performance royalty combined with a recording media tax hmmm...can you go in depth on that one?

[Scafeets]

Here's a good explanation of the performance royalty model. (http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/performance+royalties)

The recording media tax stated out in Europe and Japan as a "blank tape tax" on cassettes, where a few cents of each sale went into a phonograph royalty fund similar to the way mechanical royalties are distributed to musicians in the U.S. This was extended to include recordable CDs and ultimately, jump drives and MP3 players. The tax is based on capacity and doesn't amount to much, but at least they're compensating performers, not just songwriters and publishers.

[sabriel9v]

Here's a good explanation of the performance royalty model. (http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/performance+royalties)

The recording media tax stated out in Europe and Japan as a "blank tape tax" on cassettes, where a few cents of each sale went into a phonograph royalty fund similar to the way mechanical royalties are distributed to musicians in the U.S. This was extended to include recordable CDs and ultimately, jump drives and MP3 players. The tax is based on capacity and doesn't amount to much, but at least they're compensating performers, not just songwriters and publishers.


Ahh good ol artistshousemusic.org :cool:

[Scafeets]

Ahh good ol artistshousemusic.org :cool:

Not my first choice for information, but an expedient resource for long-winded explanations........:p

[56madigan]

Does anyone know the Blueridge Guitar company that makes this brand?
Need addresss or telephone. ASAP Thanks