Quote :

"They'd rather try to reach profitability by suing their customer base rather than transforming the business model into creating a product that people want to buy. "

This is an example of where corporations are able to make much, much more of a profit than they would be able to normally (in a free market), specifically because the government allows them to treat digital copies as real property. Our current VP is on record as saying that downloading a song is the same as breaking into a retail store and taking merchandise. Reforming intellectual property rights (and in large part, eliminating them) would go a long way in destroying awful pop music.

Quote :

"How can an artist make money if they can't tour? How can artists' families make money if the artist is dead? I guess their only option is merchandising?"

Even if you can't do a national/international tour, you can still make pretty good cash doing local shows...but it shouldn't be about the money.

People continue to purchase and collect physical media. Hard drives fail - I've lost multiple music libraries in my life. It happens. A disc can have a longer lifespan, so there's still some money to be made there.

[Edited on May 11, 2011 at 6:00 PM. Reason : ]

5/11/2011 5:56:22 PM

Quote :

"Sure, the latter takes more talent and has more depth, but I quit caring long ago. This, I think, is how most people feel."

This is true. The question is, why did you stop caring and/or did you ever really care to begin with?

5/11/2011 6:17:48 PM

Let's Push Things Forward

5/11/2011 9:58:24 PM

I'm going to agree with the OP. Kids and women are responsible for bad pop music

6/8/2011 12:58:05 AM

everybody seems to be sampling 80's and 90's dance/pop beats in their songs these days.

We live in a society where the way to make money is by catering to the masses. If the current model works and is making money, no need to fix it.

6/8/2011 12:15:19 PM

industry sucks. keep it out of music.

6/8/2011 12:32:08 PM

Quote :

"everybody seems to be sampling 80's and 90's dance/pop beats in their songs these days."

Another thing that's been happening since the mid-'70s.

6/8/2011 3:07:56 PM

i get all these lawyerly newsletters ever since law school started and the one i got yesterday had a front page article reprinting a $20,000 winning entry to the GRAMMY foundation that argued for a "natural talent" certification for music. an actual sticker on the cd that says something like "this work was performed mostly by humans with little computer aid".

i could feel myself getting more and more infuriated as i read on. maybe ill try and put some hard quotes in later but essentially the person argued that since music production is increasingly moving to homemade studios there's no way to tell if someone is naturally talented at playing an instrument/singing or if the computers/post production are doing all the work (as if major producers don't fix up big time artists now). im sorry but you can already tell who has talent and who is overrelying on autotune and such but besides that computer generated music is itself a genre that should be embraced and just because its in its infancy (relatively) doesn't mean its an inferior product.

then i remembered its for the GRAMMY foundation so its probably record label types who are bleeding money and still looking for a quick buck without you know actually improving the industry...

6/8/2011 3:25:54 PM

looking for a quick buck... by giving away $20,000 in a contest.


I do think "computerless" albums would probably sell well to that specific lo-tech market. That said, most people simply don't care one way or the other.

6/8/2011 6:27:44 PM

Quote :

"Even if you can't do a national/international tour, you can still make pretty good cash doing local shows...but it shouldn't be about the money."

i still don't understand this... why do people have to tour in order to share and profit from their music?

also it has to be about the money... isn't being an artist... from ballet to graphic design, to filmmaking... a job?

6/8/2011 6:34:54 PM

Quote :

"looking for a quick buck... by giving away $20,000 in a contest."

$20,000 is a nice lunch for the people we're talking about.

6/8/2011 6:38:20 PM