And the next big, "sex, drugs, rock'nroll' thing will be...what? In the 20s, 30's, 40's it was movie stars and novelists, maybe? 50's, 60's, 70's etc. it was 'recording artists'. Who's next?

Er, get your head out the sand Corey; it's already like that!

"It wasn't just that it was free music -- radio offered free music. But whatever you wanted was free (whenever you wanted it). The Internet is music consumerism run amok, resulting not only in billions of dollars of lost sales but in an endless bifurcation of taste. The universe fragmented into sub-universes, and then sub-sub-universes. The music industry, which depends on large numbers of people with similar interests for its profit margins, now had to deal with an ever-growing numbers of fans with increasingly diverse and eccentric interests."

How true is the above? I doubt the "billions of dollars of
lost sales" and I also doubt a big part of music swappers go for the eclectic stuff.

http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/0502_mdia.htm

"MCA Records spent about two years preparing Carly Hennessy for pop stardom, and about $2.2 million to make and market the 18-year-old singer's first pop album, "Ultimate High."

But since "Ultimate High" was released in stores nationwide a few months ago, it has sold only 378 copies-amounting to about $4,900 at its suggested retail price."

over 2 million lost here...

"As a result, industry executives estimate that major-label releases must on average sell about 500,000 copies just to break even. Of the 6,455 new albums distributed in the U.S. by major labels last year, only 112 have sold at least that many. "

bad mathematics:

2.1 x 10^6 x 6343 > 12 x 10^9

sure, 2 million wasn't lost on every release, but if you just look at what they probably lost due to the insanity of their marketing and production schemes, it seems pretty reasonable that it'd be billions they'd lose.

m.

Sounds like they're suffering from a poor business model to me. $2.2mil is an obscene amount to record an album. Now they want DRM to prop it up. Face it, the big record labels are obsolete.

They were already obsolete before MP3s and CD-Rs. Look at the early 90's, and the slavish signing of every Seattle-grunge Nirvana soundalike they could find.

Boy, this would be a wrenching transition if it happens. Mind you, I think it would be great if it did, but the lack of glamor in the book industry is a pretty stark contrast to even the lower end of the music industry.

1) didn't napster provide a burst in CD sales?
2) bandwidth is not as free as oxygen.
3) moby is not martin amis.

One thing the music industry has that authors don't is the appeal of live performances. Now that you can get music easier than ever in digital format, the value of seeing the music performed live becomes more important to the listener. Furthermore the easy accessibility of music allows the more eccentric artists to actually have an audience should they roll into your town. I think this is a fabulous trend! Unfortunately for authors, book reading evenings still fail to get my juices flowing 90% of the time.

Ticketmaster will still do a fabulous job profiteering, trust me.