Good music doesn't need a record label anymore, their function has become redundant and they take a disproportionate amount of the profit anyway.

These days it's probably easier for artists to set up their own website and handle their own promotion and touring. They can then sign with a smaller label who will treat them great and help them with recording and distribution.

I think it's possible to imagine a reinvention of the music industry that is pro-artist. More room for smaller labels and smaller artists who are, on average, making much better music. I mean if major label albums were good instead of being glorified singles then people would buy them.

The RS article only mentions it in passing, but I'd sure like to see if there's a correlation the graph of the increased consumer spending on DVDs and the graph of decreased spending on CDs. I bet there is. I me personally frequently find myself shelling out $20-40 for DVD box sets, and it feels to me like that's coming out of the same pocket that would have spent the money on CDs. I bet a lot of other people feel the same way, especially as the average street price for DVDs has steadily dropped and the street price for CDs has steadily risen ("I can get sound plus picture for $19.98 or just sound for $17.98")

To reiterate: people mostly rented VHS tapes, but when DVDs hit big, they started buying those and, it's my opinion that they bought DVDs instead of buying CDs. Yet, I frequently see articles on the decline of the record industry that don't even mention this possibility.

The business couldn't exist without them, but they take in the shorts everytime some rich CEO doesn't make a nickel. Same in true in book publishing.

I look forward to reading the RS article. I have noticed that since Salon published the letter I wrote to the NARAS board (which my Dad sat on at the time and whose name also graces the document) not much has really changed in the metanarrative.

http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2003/02/01/file_trading_manifesto/index.html

One of the most misleading numbers continues to be the total number of albums sold. The available research at the time showed that the record industry released 11,900 fewer titles in 2000 than it released in 1999, a 25 percent decrease, yet the total number of units shipped decreased only 10.3 percent and the dollar value of these units fell by only 4.1 percent. This combined with a 12.53% increase in the cost of a CD in the 90s could realistically be seen as primary factors driving the decline of sales of the music industry.

Having worked in the belly of the beast for years I can also tell you from personal experience that executive hubris, ego, and fear are at the actual root of the problem. It's one of two motivating factors in my opinion that precipitated the 25% decrease in new product from the music industry.

It's also interesting to note that American Idol has the support of the music industry farming out their stars to sit in as guest performers and judges. American Idol is a way for the music business to exploit new talent using their existing catalog. In that way, it is very crafty. They are able to create new pop stars while exploiting existing intellectual property. I believe this shows how far the dial has been tilted from finding, nurturing, and exploiting new talent to repackaging proven valuable intellectual property. A record label's catalog is vastly more valuable than the artists that created the works.

These confluence of factors: the rise of the digital age, the increased exploitation of existing catalog, along with a generally hostile attitude towards the music consumer are working together to change the topography of the Music Industry. How this plays out over the next 5-10 years will be very interesting indeed.

I'm not okay with a music landscape that indie rock only.

A third fewer artists signed draconian deals (a friend in the music industry once told me that a standard contract basically required the band to go gold to avoid bankruptcy) with mega-corporations? It's not like they aren't being heard.

Straight to the internet releases supported by satellite radio (I know XM had one or two stations devoted to unsigned artists), the rapidly falling cost of self-publishing, and the growth of e-commerce and social networking are shifting the profits and maybe more importantly control over the work back to the artists.

5 years ago the cost for 2 people to see a major act, buy 2 t-shirts and get the CD was about $270 around here - $85 per ticket for good but not great seats, $45 for a shirt that would last more than 6 months, and $15 for the CD - and that was for a show with 3 major corporate sponsors. And they wonder how they are losing the kids? Shortsightedness and greed, that's how.

Bemoaning the fact that the record industry is dying and being replaced by something better is like bitching that Colonial America was replaced by the United States.

The record companies screwed themselves and artists will be both hurt and helped by this. The big bucks may be harder to come by (not that it's ever been easy), but artists will have more control than ever over their work if they so choose.

For the most part, I have never enjoyed buying albums, even though I am a musician. Most of them have a couple of good songs and the rest is filler. CDs have always been overpriced. I applaud the ability to download only the songs I choose and then, if an artist has created an album's worth of really quality music, I'll buy it.

If you look around, you'll find that all kinds of music is out there for free and for purchase, not just indie rock. A lot of it is dreck, which is where the opportunity will be for guidance and even thoughtful record companies, but there's some amazing stuff you can find with just a little digging.

The music industry is going to look entirely different 10 years from now and that's scary and exciting.