Today(s) labels [...] have gone bonkers!

Postat: 2005-10-25 kl. 17.26

En artikel om fördelningen av vinsten för digital musikförsäljning i Wired (skivbolagen tycker insamlingsorganisationerna [som STIM] tar för stor del av kakan och stämmer dem] refereras först Steve Jobs, om giriga skivbolag där han konstaterar att distributionskostnaderna är lägre för digitala filer, sedan BPI [IFPI:s motsvarighet i Storbritannien], som säger att distributionskostnaden är en liten del av totalsumman - det är marknadsföringen som kostar. Då kliver Pink Floyd:s gamla manager Pete Jenner in och talar om att de är dårar (långt citat, men det är bra):

While sales of CDs are declining, labels are merging, cutting artist and employee rosters, suing consumers and royalty collectors, and looking for new ways to shore up revenues -- like selling ring tones.

[...]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has called labels "greedy" for ongoing attempts to increase the cost of digital music downloads. [...] Jobs has noted that online sales offer significantly lower costs. Labels don't have to pay warehousing, pressing, printing or transportation costs, he has argued.

The BPI spokesman, however, said manufacturing costs are "relatively insignificant" in comparison to promotional costs.

Jenner said the labels' basic business model -- cultivating a few hit acts to subsidize several money-losing ones -- is flawed. "That's not a good model. Successful acts subsidize the failures," he said.

In addition, the labels spend far too much money promoting acts. He said when Island put out the first Pink Floyd album, it took out one half-page ad in NME, a U.K. music newspaper, and the band became the United Kingdom's biggest act.

"Today labels use billboards, four-page ads and television spots -- for a single! It's gone bonkers!" he said. "They have completely lost the plot."

He added, "Labels are prisoners of existing price and business models. They need to move to a different way of doing business, looking at music use, not sales."

Wired Divvying Up the Download Payload (2005-10-24)