Problem: Record companies aren't happy. Artists aren't happy. Consumers are still happily stealing music.
My solution to the whole recording industry shenanigan : Record labels stop selling to consumers, and sell more or less exclusively to companies for marketing rights.
You've heard all the pop hits on car commercials, etc. Record labels start charging subscription rights from Volkswagen, Pepsi, Viacom, and Microsoft instead of pay-per-album from the consumer. A company that buys into a label has rights to use any of the labels tracks at a heavy fee to market their goods. A startup record label gets money from startup businesses to finance startup artists, and you never know when one of them is going to hit just right. The songs are purchased from the label on a per-usage basis in addition to the subscription fee, and the label then pays the artist on a per-usage basis. A popular artist will get more money for their most popular tracks. The artist also gets all proceeds from tours and promotional goods. An artist that is not signed makes money from advertising on their website where their mp3s are available, from playing shows, from selling cds and the now antiquated records off of their website, but since promoting artists to companies costs nearly nothing and offers a wide variety, most bands that are worth anything will be able to pick and choose from the people that they offer their tracks to, and may even be able to go through several labels unless the label is willing to contract out the artist in order to have exclusivity. The album as a whole will go out of style, and new tracks will pop up from artists all the time for download. Anybody can have one hit track, but not everyone can write an entire album. Download services turn into market watch tools, seeing just what is most popular. iTunes does it already, with its top downloads. Another thing the Venerable Steve Jobs understands:
Music majors are pushing for variable pricing on iTunes, allowing them to charge more for sought-after new hits than for older tracks. But Apple boss Steve Jobs has dismissed their pleas, saying in September that the record companies were "getting a little greedy."
See, that's part of the problem. You can't charge the consumer extra just because other people happen to like what they like. That's not really fair, to make someone with mainstream taste pay more for music than someone with obscure taste. BUT you can charge the companies more for the popular music. You want to attach our precious song to your item, pay this price. Else, we save it for someone who will and you can find a track that isn't so popular.
So. Laugh at me if you want, but it seems like nobody is giving any thought to any ideas that go outside of the standard recording industry business model, and I believe that people have got to clear the dust out of their noggins and talk about silly ideas in order to fix shit once in a while.
So, talk. Hit me with some economics.
sgerin@gmail.com
alas, everything you've said is impeccable, although to see things like that in black and white almost seems like a bad science fiction future.
fuck the industry, and please allow me to eat your brain, should anything ever happen to you.
<3
needs some work but still quite unique. The major flaw is DRM, so long as the RIAA is dictating things, ideas liek these will be few and far in between.