
How the Music Business Spent the Summer Killing Itself  - makimaki
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=130766
======
mattmaroon
All articles like this fail to understand the reason why this is happening.
They're looking at the companies as if they were run by people who were forced
to hold their shares for the next 25 years. They're not.

They're run by execs who know they won't still be working there in 5 years and
who get paid mainly in stock options. (That's how most public companies are
run). The incentive of the people who run the company is just to maintain what
little they can for as long as they can, and they're actually doing a pretty
good job of it.

With the possible exception of suing actual customers, they've done a
fantastic job of maintaining the status quo just long enough for them to cash
out their options every year for some amount of profit.

~~~
qwph
This seems to imply that in 5 years (or less) time, we can expect the music
industry in its current form to collapse in on itself?

Or am I reading too much into this? Otherwise it might not be too bad a time
to start thinking about what Music Industry 2.0 might look like...

~~~
jwilliams
What I don't understand is why the back catalog isn't more of a draw - in the
music industry, but especially in the film industry.

Instead of trying to push new releases, you could be flogging (selling) a raft
of your back catalog for almost zero marginal cost. Aside from some perennial
classics, this catalog must be earning nigh on zero.

There is lots of obscure music and film that I'd happily buy/view/etc if the
cost was low.

~~~
tjr
There is a lot of obscure music I'd happily buy even if the cost was the same
as the new stuff; I'd just like to be able to acquire it!

~~~
jwilliams
Yup!

This is key. The Internet is a new distribution channel - the marginal cost is
very low compared to traditional methods...

It's perfect for selling IP that can't beat the higher marginal cost for
traditional distribution methods. There are probably orders of magnitude more
people that would pay $1 to watch "They Live" than would fork out $10 to buy
the DVD...

~~~
netcan
We'll see. I'd love to see a massive groundswell in music. But so far, we
still have junkie 'hits'. Most peoples itunes playlists are essentially like
the other guys' itunes playlist.

------
AndyKelley
I actually buy CDs, and I discover lots of new music through Pandora and
Last.fm. The music industry is trying to _promote_ album sales by killing
internet streaming?

~~~
netcan
I'm not sure about streaming. But they do have some evidence that keeping hits
off of itunes for some big names can improve album sales enough to make it
worthwhile. Short term & silly. But there is reasoning.

------
dmix
Title correction: "How the Music Business Continued to Kill Itself this
Summer"

------
run4yourlives
Call me when they're actually dead and I can get into music again. Until then,
meh.

------
DenisM
Gosh, you would think they would take a summer break, no?

------
trezor
Well. If you by "the summer" mean "ever since Napster hit the internet and
digital music became mainstram", I'll fully agree.

Though it is interesting to see how even _marketing people_ , not just geeks
or "pirates" are starting to catch on to these people doing absolutely
everything wrong.

