ADISQ still clueless about the Internet (6)
ADISQ, which represents the music industry in Québec, is holding a series of talks and roundtables in hopes of understanding the Internet and how they can possibly fit with the new media. The talks began yesterday; high on their agenda is cooperation with ISPs, bandwidth throttling, net neutrality, new strategies and new business models, and new public taxes.
Yesterday, most speakers seemed to agree that ISPs must pay a compensation to the industry.
I have no words to state how stupid this would be (although less stupid than their last common declaration), and for the first time, was feeling sympathetic to the Bell representative, who claimed they shouldn’t be the only responsible. For ADISQ, here is a bunch of facts which happenned in the music industry for just the past month:
- iTunes is now the #1 music retailer in the US, with 19% market share, just in front of Wall-Mart (apr 3rd 2008)
- Myspace has opened a new music business, with 3 music majors, (Apr 3rd)
- Amazon is now #2 in digital music sales (mar. 26th)
- Univeral Music has launched Jiwa in the US, a freely avalaible website where users can listen to +250.000 tunes. The website is monetized by advertising and part of the revenues go directly to the artists (mar. 25th 2008)
- Nine inch Nails got $1.6million from their latest exclusive online album (mar 14th 2008)
ADISQ just proved again they are a dinosaur, clueless about the fact that majors are dying, that albums sales, as we know it, is a thing of the past (except for those rare moments where you buy them as gifts), and the key is having artists embracing the new distrubition channels and talking directly to their fans.
I’ve rarely seen such backward thinking, except perhaps from the MPAA in the US. EXTREMELY frustrating to have such antiquated thinking when the web has been around for almost 20 years now…
They are failing to adapt, big time.
Well, in France we have the same situation, if not worse.
The music industry has even won a battle by having users to pay a tax on any device that includes storage.
That’s completely ridiculous and I still don’t undertand how such thing could have been accepted.
As they say on Digg : Epic fail!
It’s more like MPAA & pal… 10 years ago! Instead of pissing of their clients (bandwidth throttling, net neutrality, new public taxes) they should just sell their music where we can see it eg not in a music store.
I’ve always found it funny when I hear an “artist” complaining that file-sharing is depriving him of his revenues. The recorded music industry is, in terms of human history, a pretty recent development. There were artists for thousands of years before somebody figured out a way to record sound-waves and replay them.
Real artists will still be able to continue making money — NIN and a great deal many others have shown that. Bubble-gum artists, though, just can’t become zillionaires anymore. Same for has-been artists that would like to continue making money off of old recordings. Performers have to learn their living the same way everybody else does: by working every day of the week.
And I’m pretty old-fashioned myself: I buy most of my music in CD form. I put some of it on my MP3 player, but there’s something about having a real quality work in your hands. The catch, of course, is that I find it increasingly hard to find music that is worth my time. There’s a tremendous amount of garbage out there. Hence my current addiction to classical recordings which, it must be said, suck in MP3 form.
Amen to that! Couldn’t agree more…
ADISQ, get over it, it’s done, over. If you’re business isn’t working anymore, don’t complain, just change your business model.
People who used to sell ice 50 years ago and didn’t convert to fridges are now out of business. This is what’s going to happen to you too very soon!
Do I feel bad? Do I care? Not at all. I have no pity towards any dying industry. That’s the very basic of our capitalist model! If you can’t survive, die. But please shut up and die quickly as no one cares about you anymore.
Karim,
great point, especially about musicians who should work like everyone else every day.
eventually, they should perform every day, reach out to their audience, speak to them 1-to-1, do their own evangelization/marketing… I’ve seen a case study for this, and it takes only 1000 fans for an artist to get a decent yearly income.
So yes, let’s go back to the old definition of musicians. Of course, they won’t get filthy rich with that model, but they will have a more genuine relationship with their fans, and maybe a more fullfilling job.
Leave a Reply