[lbo-talk] Ubuntu stuff

[Matt]

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 01:48:40PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Re: that political angle. Excuse my cynicism, but I think a lot of  
> people who kvetch about paying to download stuff from iTunes or paying  
> for software are more exercised by the paying part than the political  
> part. They want stuff for free. Yeah, I like stuff for free, too, but  
> really, don't people deserve to be compensated for their labor? It  
> sucks when record companies get the money instead of musicians, or pig  
> publishers instead of writers, but reducing the payment to 0 isn't  
> going to raise the income of musicians or writers.

You are excluding the middle - replacement of the legacy business
model of the record companies and movie studios with one which
compensates artists and just doesn't create as many gazillionaire
executives.

There was an article a few years back in which a music industry
insider revealed what we all knew about their business model (I think
it was linked from Barry Ritholtz's blog): they are only focused on
creating the next Britney Spears or U2.  Meaning, an artist who gets a
lot of radio play and media attention with maybe one or two catchy
tunes, so they can sell tons of CDs at $18.99, even though the other 8
songs on the CD are shit.

Similarly, movie studios are always after the blockbuster - the $120M
movie which brings in $500M - and everything they do is designed to
funnel cash to and from a blockbuster.

Absolutely people want some stuff free - because they've been paying
ridiculous amounts for things for so long.  What we are seeing is a
shift to a new business model (one that predates Rock-N-Roll,
actually), where musicians make a very comfortable living actually
performing their work, and selling t-shirts, stickers, etc.

I admit that I will not lose sleep if the next U2 or Britney Spears
"only" pulls in a few hundred thousand a year and has to keep making
new material and touring to do it. 

Media companies have ALWAYS been nothing but middlemen - which was a
necessity when the distribution of the media required a lot of
capital.  But now the cost of distribution is approaching zero, and
the media companies are struggling to keep their business model alive.

Don't let Lars Ulrich fool you - the campaigns against "piracy" have
nothing to do with ensuring artists get compensated for their work -
they always have and they always will - but preserving the role of the
media companies as arbiters of what is produced, and as who controls
how it is distributed.

Matt

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