

If the Internet was around before recorded music would we have record labels? - lewisflude
http://lewisflude.tumblr.com/post/22457371154/if-the-internet-was-around-before-recorded-music-would

======
thirdsun
Absolutely. Labels shouldn't be reduced to the large majors everyone has in
mind when talking about the evil music industry. There are a lot more niche
labels that focus on very specific genres and audiences.

A lot of them are very passionate about what they are doing and are as music
loving as their listeners. They act as a curator by selecting and developing
artists, a ability that becomes increasingly underrated in times of services
like EchoNest - while I really like what those guys are doing, as a user of
various music services I tend to notice that all those discovery features
provide very similar results - probably due to the fact that they are using
the same APIs by EchoNest. That makes it hard to find new quality music.

Therefor it's good to have a curated selection like the catalogs of small and
caring labels that give a human touch to a selection process that is a
refreshing equivalent to the popular "You might also like..."-feature. Of
course I can only speak for my personal interest, but being on the release
schedule of labels like Morr Music, Kranky, Secretly Canadian, Domino, 4AD or
Sub Pop is usually a very good indicator for music I might enjoy. Surely there
are examples from other genres too.

Nevertheless things can also work out without labels: I'm a big fan of
bandcamp which has a lot of talent to showcase and does almost everything
right for listeners and artists alike. From the wide range of lossless formats
to the flawless iOS audio player or the flexible pricing configurations - if
you want to offer your music without a label, bandcamp is the way to go.

Both approaches offer benefits and I'd like them to co-exist.

~~~
vibrunazo
Why exactly do you think curated content would magically disappear from the
internet? The very website you're using right now was created specifically for
content curating.

Content curating is an ubiquitous trend in the internet. Startups are built
every day, focusing specifically on this problem. And the fact that you're
posting here on Hacker News makes me assume that you think it's working.

Yes, record labels also curate content. But that's so easy to replace. If
curating music is the reason why you think record labels are useful. Then
that's just one more evidence they're useless.

~~~
jessevondoom
It's a little silly to say that record labels only curate content. Of course
that's the easiest thing to replace. They also negotiate IP rights in every
country in the world, handle any sample clearance, handle accounting for the
publishing and sync copyrights on every individual song for every release,
handle accounting of royalties for every credit songwriter and player for each
track released across every service and distributor, front large sums of money
to make recordings possible, front large sums of money to make touring
possible, fulfill merchandise globally, market the music, handle production of
product, handle distribution of product, mediate between the dozens of parties
involved in nearly every transaction, and take the heat for the entire
process.

Yes there are a lot of really bad record labels, but the hard working people
at Sub Pop, Domino, Mom+Pop, and dozens of other indies are integral to the
success of artists. Marginalizing them or even playing devil's advocate
claiming all they do is content creation is silly. It's akin to saying all
Facebook does is "make a website."

The music industry is far more complex than people assume — so while massive
change is certainly needed, thinking that a simple HN upvote system is
remotely related to the work of a label is silly.

Vilifying all labels based on the majors is like vilifying all startups on the
behavior of only Oracle or Google.

------
steve8918
The thing I really regret the most about Kurt Cobain dying is that he was only
a couple of years away from the Internet taking off.

If _any_ musician would have taken the Internet and ran with it, I truly
believe it would have been him. He really didn't give a rat's ass about the
music industry, and I think he probably would have started releasing music for
free and circumvented the record labels. And since he was the biggest star at
the time, circa 1994/1995, in typical fashion, other bands would have copied
him and it would have changed things forever. I really do believe he would
have been the catalyst for change in the music industry.

Instead, we had Metallica that wanted to keep the status quo, and instead of
having a music revolution, we had an emboldened RIAA suing people for hundreds
of thousands of dollars for downloading MP3s.

My understanding, but far from any form of authority on the subject, is that
the artists get very little from music sales these days, and most of their
money comes from touring, which is why ticket prices are so high these days. I
would understand a Red Hat-like model where the artists distribute their music
for free, but charge a lot for performances, this would be fair. But since
we're paying $1/song, and the artists aren't getting much of that, what it
means is that everyone is getting screwed except for the middleman, ie. the
record label.

~~~
qq66
The thing about the Red Hat model is that it's a choice of a particular
software company to decide which model they choose to pursue. Autodesk charges
a lot of money for its proprietary products, and will sue you if you try to
pirate them, and Red Hat will give you the software for free and charge you
for services.

The objective of the RIAA lawsuits isn't to kill the Red Hat model for music
(although perhaps they would if they could) -- it's to preserve the Autodesk
model for music as an option. I don't think they're going about in in the best
way but I can see why they are doing it -- they believe that the Autodesk
model is as economically and morally legitimate one as the Jonathan Coulton
model of distributing music for free and then making money on touring.

------
jimmytucson
It's crazy to think music in America was actually commoditized before being
distributed and consumed in recorded form. Back before record labels there
were sheet music publishers. Instead of a phonograph or a CD player, people
owned pianos and vocal chords. When the latest smash hit came out, you went
and bought the sheet music and performed it yourself for your friends and
family. That was the American popular music industry.

So it's worth asking, is the thing of value here the actual sheet of paper
with the music written on it, or the grooved metal cylinder, or the vinyl, or
the mp3? Obviously yes, to some extent.

But imagine if you were around in the 1850s and one of your buddies stops by
and bangs out "Old Folks at Home" on the piano, totally by heart. And maybe
after a couple of times, you kinda figure it out yourself. And then you go to
somebody else's house and do the same thing.

Is this the 1850s equivalent of peer-to-peer file sharing?

You start to realize, a song has been bound to a physical object for so long,
we've begun to confuse the music -- the actual information -- with the
physical object that holds the information. Maybe back in the 1850s there were
renegades who ran around teaching people Stephen Foster songs and the
publishing companies took a hit and sent the sheriff after them. It seems
ridiculous but that's basically what's happening today with the RIAA and file
sharing.

~~~
superuser2
I have never understood the idea that only "objects" can have value.

1) I'm paying for a formal education, not the books and the audio of the
lectures. Those are often available for free, but the formal seal of approval
of a university (not the sheepskin + ink) has market value.

2) I pay for The New Yorker, not the pages it's printed on.

3) A startup pays its programmers for software, which is really just ideas.

4) A company pays for the design of its building, not the drafting paper and
pencils.

5) A company pays a manager (at least theoretically) for leadership, not for
the transferring of ink to post-it-notes and calendars.

6) Millions of people pay for iPhone apps, which are not physical goods.

7) I'm paying (through insurance) for medical advice, not the negligible
fraction of square footage I occupy while sitting in my doctor's office.

\--

Buying recordings is a voluntary transaction. If you don't find them valuable,
don't participate. But you are still no more entitled to the sound of an
artist's voice than your employer/customers are entitled to the value you
provide.

Open Source is cool. Public broadcasting is awesome. Band Camp is amazing, and
I agree the mainstream record label cartel is nasty. I hope we move away from
it. But just as hating Walmart doesn't make shoplifting okay; disapproval of
the music industry doesn't make piracy okay.

Yes, the witch-hunt is too much, but wherever did we get the idea that
intellectual creation shouldn't be worth anything?

~~~
jimmytucson
I'm so bad making my point on the internet that I sometimes say the opposite
of what I'm trying to say. What I should have said is, music has been bound to
a physical medium for so long that people confuse the thing of value with the
object that holds it. So I agree with you... sort of.

But I'm curious: what is your opinion about the guy who doesn't buy sheet
music and just memorizes the songs and teaches them to people? Do you feel he
is in some way guilty of piracy?

~~~
superuser2
The guy who memorizes songs and teaches them to people, at least the ones I
know, don't have the mentality of "I want this song but 99 cents is too much
and information wants to be free," he says, "I love this and I want to
publicly engage with it." In the modern world, he's a YouTube cover artist,
which I support wholeheartedly. Just as there is nothing wrong with burning a
friend a CD for her birthday, or playing your iPod at a private party.

This doesn't threaten artists or deprive them of money you otherwise would
have handed over, it just creates new ways to promote and engage with the
artist's creation. See also Spotify, music blogs (IMHO not really piracy, but
shouldn't be done without the artists' permission), radio, Pandora, last.fm,
etc.

Pirate Bay is the guy who prints his own scores of someone else's work and
leaves thousands of free copies on the street outside the sheet music store.

------
fumar
Mainstream music, if definable, is a crazy beast. It is fickle, yet,
predictable. Last year's top singles sound like today's top singles. The major
record labels need to make money in a predictable fashion. It stifles
creativity. It creates a barrier for entry.

I have been making electronic music for almost ten years. I have participated
in many netlabels in that time. I like the idea of making music and letting it
spread online. I have yet to achieve any level of success. I can not compete
with major acts. My marketing budget is zero.

Record labels have a function. They curate music for people who do not have
invested interest. I would not be happy if my music became popular. I like my
little niche. I like being free of record restrictions. Some labels are
amazing like Kranky. They do things differently than most, very strong
aesthetic choosing.

I miss Napster's community aspects. I learned a lot from sharing on Napster.
It opened my ears to music that was different from my status quo. I wish it
was still around. Music as a whole would be in a different place.

------
zerostar07
To answer the original question, we would probably have viral music videos
instead of records. And judging from the current quality of viral content, the
music would contain lots of fart sounds.

 _Essentially as an artist, you need to make money_

As a person, you need to make money. As an artist, you need to make art. That
doesn't mean you 'll get rich.

~~~
lewisflude
That's very true! Many of my friends are fantastic musicians who are on the
dole in London. Being a musician isn't the best idea if your aim is to make
money!

~~~
davedx
Indeed, all the people I know who DJ, produce or play in bands also have day
jobs. Not a single one makes enough money from music to live off it.

------
IsaacL
Interesting - I wrote an article a few weeks ago exploring this very same
premise: [http://blog.i.saac.me/post/what-if-bittorrent-was-
invented-b...](http://blog.i.saac.me/post/what-if-bittorrent-was-invented-
before-the-phonograph/)

(Apologies for self quoting)

Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s say that BitTorrent, or something like
it, was invented before the phonograph. Civilisation passed straight from live
music only to ubiquitous copying without ever passing through the age of
controllable mass reproduction.

That is, every time some wandering minstrel composed a new melody on their
lute, the entire world would be able to listen to it again whenever they
wanted. Would people still describe that as “stealing music?”

I think they wouldn’t. In fact, the whole concept sounds pretty awesome,
doesn’t it?

I think if we’d never passed through the copyright age we’d rightfully see
BitTorrent as one of the greatest advances in history. All of human culture
available for free! The only downside — and it is a big downside — is that
it’s cut off the main income stream for all the people who actually produce
this culture.

------
stcredzero
I think there's a potential problem when development and curation is attached
too closely to marketing. It's analogous to what can happen in big software
companies when development becomes sales/marketing driven.

Separating these functions might be the big thing the Internet does/is doing
for music. Why not separate out marketing, and have artists come to and pay
music marketing companies? In a way, this is what already happens, with major
labels getting signed artists into debt. This would eliminate conflicts of
interest with artist development and curation. For that matter, separate out
artist development, so big companies aren't motivated to turn everyone into a
machine for producing mainstream genre music. Also, by separating out the
function of curation, tastemakers can concentrate on being great tastemakers
and be free of pressures from the marketing department.

------
paulsutter
The issue is "discovery" of new music. Labels use experts, and the Internet
hasn't yet created a way to crowdsource the process. When it does, labels will
become unnecessary.

Fandalism could use competitions to select raw new music, Kickstarter could
fund quality production, and Pandora could inject and A/B test the candidate
songs?

Manufactured stars were natural with broadcast radio. Labels and DJs could A/B
test few songs, so they choose artists and songs carefully by a formula.
Feedback came as phoned-in requests and sales of singles, heavily biased by
the labels' initial choices. iTunes and Bittorrent haven't done much directly
to improve A/B testing bandwidth.

If the problem can be solved for music, the experts who choose the movies and
shows that get made could be the next to be replaced.

~~~
mertd
I discover far more music via online streamers (Pandora, Grooveshark, Last.fm,
Stereomoood et. al) than I ever did through conventional channels.

Furthermore, feedback collection is trivial. Very few of the actual listeners
would ever bother to call a radio station to request a song. Online however, I
give "thumbs ups" all the time on Pandora, because there is a solid incentive:
it helps to train the music selection algorithm to my personal preferences.

~~~
paulsutter
Exactly! Now let's use those mechanisms to replace record labels.

\- How can club owners learn what new bands to book? How can they inform all
the nearby fans?

\- How do we get the full feedback loop going all the way back to artists?

\- On Pandora you only year professionally produced music. How do we get music
production crowdfunded effectively?

Maybe Fandalism can collect that data from the streaming providers and make it
available for musicians and club owners?

I would spend a ton more money on concert tickets if I could always see a list
of upcoming concerts by the musicians I hear on Pandora. Surely we can do a
better job then record labels of getting musicians paid.

------
frankdenbow
Labels play a role in artist development that is underrated, so yes. They
still play a huge role in marketing and promotion, although that power wanes
as we get better tools for surfacing great artists on the web.

------
paulhauggis
Yes. Look at Apple and the app market. They are essentially in the position of
a record label.

Most people that make music or write software don't have the skills or the
time (or they just aren't interested) to also manage the marketing and many
other of the business aspects.

So there will always be a need for this sort of service.

------
DrJokepu
A false statement implies any statement.

That being said, the post itself is not really about record labels or the
Internet. It's actually a pretty thought-provoking article.

I'm personally glad that the 1800's, the 70's or the 2000's are gone and will
never return. We have something different today and it's important to
understand that it will be gone by tomorrow. We never really understand the
present, it's much easier to evaluate a bygone era in retrospect. We don't
really know if Spotify, Facebook or RIAA has any impact on today's music (or
culture in general) and we won't know until any of these won't matter anymore.
So my suggestion for the author is to follow the advice of his last sentence;
stop worrying and enjoy the music.

~~~
lewisflude
That's the plan!

------
Tycho
If you look at classical music, in Mozart's time and before, everything had to
be heavily patronised by aristocrats, and furthermore audiences demanded to
hear something new every time they went to the concert hall, or they'd feel
ripped off.

In Beethoven's time and onwards, when the music became more commercialised
through selling sheet music and making more of an enterprise from concerts, we
saw an explosion of creativity and also virtuoso talent, and audiences started
to appreciate the music more as a permanent artefact, valuing the composition
as well as the interpretation. Seems like commercialisation supported by
copyright made for a more optimal appreciation/demand for music.

------
jebblue
I think the answer is yes but they would not be so obvious. They would be more
like business developers but dedicated to the music business on the web, web
music consultants which is what they should be focusing on learning how to do
now.

------
alexirobbins
I have been working on a solution to exactly this issue. What we came up with
is a crowd-sourcing artist discovery system that lets users find the best up-
and-coming acts, keep up with their favorite artists (and buy their merch),
and receive recommendations for the best shows in their area. Looks like MTV
is going to beat us to it. <http://www.topspinmedia.com/2012/03/topspin-mtv-
artists-mtv>

------
serviceanimals
No of course. And it should be enought to realize how non sense is a Record
Label to have the privilege to determine what you can do or not about
something they already sold.

------
talleyrand
"My dad, who was heavily into bands like The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen and
Siouxsie and The Banshees,"

Boy, do I feel old.

------
aw3c2
yes of course. just look at the job netlabels do at curating and caring for
their (usually) consistent genre/style. as a music lover, I follow many
netlabels and most provide me with stuff I like all the time.

------
diminish
Or would Napster be more powerful than MPAA?

