Here's one of my hobbyhorses again. You're probably all bored
with reading about it, but the juxtaposition of the following
two news stories was too much for me to resist.
(1) "Music industry seeks to change tune as sales stall"
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010928/en/music-industry_1.html
Two of the major labels, EMI and BMG, came out with very disappointing
financial reports.
On Friday, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
(IFPI -- essentially the global version of the RIAA)
reported sales for the first half of 2001 were down:
-5% by value
-6.7% by units sold
Quotes:
> ``What we're seeing is a serious structural shift in the music
> industry. It's not a short-term problem --
> on a compound basis over the past five years, music sales have
> fallen 1.5 percent each year,'' said
> Helen Snell, analyst at ABN Amro.
note that "over the last five years" means that
the start of the slowdown goes back before Napster
and before CD burners became common.
> ``The industry has to go back to basics and reinvent itself.
> It needs to look at the whole concept of
> ownership of music.''
One wonders what that means. I think what
it means is that, like Microsoft, the industry
wants us to pay ongoing license fees to rent recordings.
> While the knee-jerk reaction of most music groups is
> to shave costs back to the bone, analysts say
> they must still pour money into finding hot, new acts
> and throw themselves more vigorously into
> developing the next format to replace the CD.
Oh dear. The success of the CD rollout has the industry
thinking it can snap its fingers and everyone will rush
out and replace their entire library.
What they miss completely is that the switch to the CD
was consumer-driven. Most of my friends were eager to
*flee* from their LPs, the cleaning rituals and
the finicky turntables. CDs offered a real improvement
in sound quality for everyone (except maybe the most
wealthy analog fans) plus convenience and durability.
Consumers have already made their choice for the
next format: the Mp3 file. The industry has no intention
of accepting the consumer decision.
-------------------------------------
The labels made great piles of money re-selling their 60s and 70s
catalog on CD; this torrent of money obscured the crisis that was
developing in their new artist sales.
New artists just weren't selling as well as the old artists did.
The labels tried to hide this crisis when they banished catalog sales to a
separate chart -- it was too embarrassing to see new hot-selling
releases intermixed with old dinosaurs like DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
and JOURNEY'S GREATEST HITS.
What the industry doesn't grasp is that the LP-> CD replacement was
a one-time bonanza. People replaced LPs because they were worn out.
CDs, on the other hand, are generally in as good shape as the
day they were sold.
-------------------------------------
(2) "'O Brother' Soundtrack Is Talk Of Bluegrass Convention."
http://www.vh1.com/thewire/content/news/1449510.html
Mercury Records reports that worldwide sales of the O BROTHER album
are now up to three million copies. This is astounding for
a fairly traditional folk/bluegrass/old-timey collection with little
promotional push and little radio airplay behind it.
T-Bone Burnett produced the music for the film and the CD.
You probably never heard of him unless you are a certain kind of
music fan; he played in a great 1970s group called The Alpha Band,
he played backup for Dylan for a while, he's married to an interesting
pop singer named Sam Phillips, he's done some work with Richard
Thompson.
In this article, Burnett is being
quoted about how the inspiration for the O BROTHER tunes came
from a conversation
> ...with the abstract artist Larry Poons, talking about Ralph Stanley.
>
> Burnett said Poons had remarked to him that, "We live in an age
> of music for people who don't like music." This set Burnett to
> thinking about real versus manufactured music. "What he was saying
> was this: the record business learned years ago that not that many
> people like music. Some people can do without it, some people are
> annoyed by it... The basic record company philosophy has for some
> time been that if you remove the aspects of [a particular form of
> music] that the audience finds challenging, you have a better
> chance of selling the stuff. ...
So I'm starting to get optimistic about the crash in the music business.
It's possible that the public at large is losing interest in music
as mindless entertainment.
I'm hoping that maybe the music which was made solely to provide a
return on capital will get out of the way, and maybe what's left
of the music business can be handed back to people who actually
care about music.
71 responses total.
((Yeah, this might have gone into the Napster item, but it was too big, and it's about a larger issue than Napster. Linked between Agora and Music, of course.))
Actually, I didn't replace a LP library. I figured out that LP's were a losing proposition, waited for CD's to come out, and invested in a CD library. I also have a small cassette library, which I accumulated before CD technology was cheap enough, mostly involving non-mainstream musicians who were never available via LP's. My buying patterns may have matched what Ken describes as a "conversion to CDs", perhaps preceeded by a "renting music on tape" phase, but my actual reasons are actually significantly different, and based more on perceived durability and "per-play" low cost (and accessibility to fringe-market artists) than the music industry might like to believe.
I'm with you on this, Ken. If the RIAA forces all new music to be published in a format incompatible with legacy hardware or fair-use rights, I will stop buying new music. There's plenty of stuff out there that's very listenable, and new laws like the DMCA can't touch you for copying it *because it's not protected*. Somehow I can't get upset about someone copying a Miles Davis CD; it's not like the artist is losing any benefit, or had children who are still minors. If I can't get some legacy Weather Report in CD, I suppose I'll "pirate" it. I won't shed tears over that either; the term of copyright is unconscionably long. Then there are independent artists, who probably won't have the clout to get their music into the RIAA-approved formats because they can't get major-label contracts. However, they'll still be able to print CDs for cheap. I find a lot of their stuff to be very listenable too, and I support them with my money when I can find them. I doubt that the CD is going away any time soon. I'm going to buy Chris Smither's next CD, and Greg Howard's too. What is going away is the hype-inflated balloons like N'Sync. They're a pox on music; I can't wait for them to disappear.
And a lot of those studio execs think the quick fix is to come out with another format, so people will be encouraged to replace their catalogs again as happened when cd's came out. but the problem is that mini-cd's, dat's, cd-dvd/dvd-audio's .etc are all nice but dont represent enough of an improvement over cd's for most to want to spend the money to replace them. in fact the next step isnt a new format to keep people coming into record stores, but rather the elimination of record stores. when you can buy and store all your music as computer files efficiently, there wont be a need to even step out of the house.
I acquired an LP collection in the past three years and have collected lots of used tapes to tape them to. Have never bought a CD. It helps not to be a fussy listener, and to like classical music. The quality of LPs is good enough for me - that of 78s was not. I have five free turntables and about 15 tape decks (most probably fixable) so am set for life. Radio is free and sounds even better than my tapes. Why pay for music at all?
As was the case in even lp's: once you've a friend owns a copy, the duplication is trivial.. ANY format they try to impose is gonna' be a royal pain - to themselves - because "damnfew" are going to buy the new devices and media, but copies will be available within a day ;->
People will always find a way... the hackers of the world will always find a way, and the "casually dishonest" who home copy for friends will be out in the cold, as will be the people who want to archive their own damn music for their own damn usage.
What of material no longer in distribution? CDs that have
gone out of print. LPs that never been released as CDs?
When a record company takes existing stock and liquidates it,
marking it as a 'cut-out', they are giving up on selling that album
(regardless of media) at their full price (to distributors), and
instead are just selling the plastic. The artists do not receive
sales royalities on those units, nor do the liquidated unit count
count as units sold.
How can I be harming a record company or artist by passing
some of that music along to others?
After the copyright has expired you can do so freely.
But copyrights don't expire any more. Any time some get close, Congress extends the term again.
(Unless the technology prevents you...)
Shakespeare isn't under copyright. ;} then again, specific audio performances of Shakespeare can be under copyright... Copyrights don't really expire, but creators can release items into public domain.
I thought many items enter the public domain automatically after some time. What are the circumstances for that? "Clementine" is in the public domain, but "Happy Birthday" is not. Why?
"Happy Birthday" is a lot newer than "Clementine", that's why.
I don't understand any of this enough to verify the accuracy, but there is a table available here: http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm "When Works Pass into the Public Domain" Includes material from new Term Extension Act, PL 105-298
Past a certain number of years after the creator's death, material becomes public domain. However, new laws are occasionally passed which extend that certain number of years. Conveniently enough, these laws are always timed such that Walt Disney's copyrights never expire. Funny how that works... Really, though, I shouldn't be explaining this, because I'm sure someone who knows more than me will come along and render this post irrelevant. <g>
Wow. I've been rendered pre-emptively irrelevant, even. Mickey slipped in.
Here's another page that has an simple message: Sound Recording Rule of Thumb: There are NO sound recordings in the Public Domain. http://www.pdinfo.com/record.htm - The Public Domain Information Project.
Good information in both #15 & #18. Check again on recorded music in 2067.
"Happy Birthday" also has a weird story to it. The melody itself is something like 120 years old or so, but it was only formally copyrighted after the family of the "composer" sued. "Happy birthday" weren't the original words; they were the words of the new version being sued over. I believe the original words were "Merry Christmas to you, ..." But this entire anecdote is from memory because I'm too lazy right now to look it up online. =} So I could have mashed it up terribly.
(I thought it was "Good morning to you.")
Re #9: What DVD is still going to be playable in 95 years? Even if the copyright expires, the anti-circumvention clauses of the DMCA do not. Once you can no longer buy a DVD player, you will forever lose access to the content on your DVDs because circumventing the access controls to play them remains a felony even after 95 years. Even hacking something to let you skip past commercials (something that DVDs can and do forbid) is probably enough to get you tossed into prison, especially if you have the temerity to tell the public how to do it for themselves. Congress is busy screwing the consumer (citizen) at the behest of the RIAA and MPAA. I love my country, I'm *disgusted* with my government.
Are you certain that the anti-circumvention measures of the DMCA really apply to uncopyrighted material? That sounds suspect to me..
"Good Morning To You" sounds about right to me also. Then again, there could well be dozens of versions...
Re #23: If I remember correctly, the anti-circumvention measures of the DMCA apply to the *potential* use of technology, not the actual use. Sort of like making it illegal to own matches because they *could* be used to commit arson. The free dissemination of information is a cornerstone of a democratic society. This includes the right to pass along information which you receive to others, possibly by making multiple copies. The copyright laws were originally intended as a limited exception to protect the rights of authors to receive reasonable compensation for their creative efforts by granting a *temporary* exclusive license to reproduce and sell their work. If I remember correctly, when I was younger, copyrights on published material were valid for something like 27 years, renewable *once* for an equal period of time. After that, the work went into the public domain. The modern trend to make copyrights longer and longer is certainly not in the public interest, and hardly protects the original authors, who will almost certainly have been long dead by the time the copyright on their stuff expires (if indeed it ever does). Whose interests do perpetually- extended copyrights serve, then? It's pretty clear to me that they serve the interests of extremely wealthy publishers who have the power to buy Congressional votes. Laws like the DMCA and the proposed SSSCA are, in my opinion, are horrible inventions intended only to provide tools for the enforcement of these undemocratic perpetual franchises. Can you say "We *really* need campaign finance reform"? I knew you could!
Very well "said," John. I agree.
"Good Morning" sounds correct to me, too. I threw out "Merry Christmas" because I thought it scanned the same as "Happy Birthday," but it didn't sound right at the time.
Yes, the information on the page cited in #15 looks accurate to me. Very much agreed with both russ and remmers here.
"We *really* need" requirement of direct popular YES vote to impliment do's and don'ts. I for one can't imagine something like the DMCA getting that kind of approval.
Re 29. Unfortunately, I can. And worse things.
Direct popular vote of laws is, as a general policy, a really bad idea. What Congress can be convinced to fall for is as nothing compared to what the general public can be convinced to fall for.
Anyone who doubts #31 should take a look at the content of legislation passed by popular vote in the last 20 years in California.
So how is it easier to buy 200 million people than to buy only 435 people? Even so, I would propose it as a third requirement *on top of* getting through the House and Senate.
re #33: > So how is it easier to buy 200 million people than to buy only 435? Who needs to "buy" them when such a huge percentage of television and radio stations are owned by only a few media conglomerates? Besides, you'd only need to influence a majority of the voting population, which is a much smaller number than 200 million..
Repent! The end is near! polygon agree with me! ;-) I don't think we need campaign finance reform to fix this matter. A simple thing, like defining a Constitutional limit to the term of copyright and defining fair use that cannot be limited by either legally-backed technology or contract, would do the job. I think a term of 28 years would be good. I've never been able to keep collecting paychecks on work 28 years after I did it; that ought to be enough for anyone.
(Russ, Larry agreed with me in the same week. It could either mean he's getting soft, or we're both starting to make some degree of sense. No comment on whic it is, or some combination thereof. ;} )
Re 35. Oh, come on, you and I agree on lots of things. Re 36. So are you going to agree with me and russ on copyright? :-) I thought not!
#37> I don't know, I haven't been paying enough attention to what you've been saying. ;} On the comment you've made a few times, that the current copyright law is absurdly complex, silly, and dysfunctional but basically allowing copyrights to be extended ad nauseaum, I agree. I'm not sure what your specific suggested solution is, if you'd care to summarize, I'll register agreement or disagreement. =} I think thing sshould be copyrighted a reasonable amount of time, say, ten years from initial publication or twenty years from initial production, whichever comes first. Something like that. And none of this "it's not copyrighted till the author decides to submit it, and only then does the clock start running," or whatever it was you said (it's late, my memory's rusty). From what I've seen, I don't recall ever being in enough disagreement with you on the subject to sit up and comment. ;}
If Drew's idea were put into effect, the populace would be in a continuous state of bombardment of political ads, to an extent that would make the height of recent presidential campaigns look quiet. It may not be true that referendum legislation is _always_ stupider than what's passed by legislatures - and the remote possibility of doing an end run around legislatures is useful to protect - but most of our really stupid ideas have come up that way, notably massive property tax cuts and "stop me before I vote again" term limits. Turning this back to music, Congress chose the Star-Spangled Banner as our national anthem some 70 years ago. I'd hate to think what the public would choose, and worse still the continuous re-votes on the question.
When I was in elementary school, the student with the highest grades had to sing the national anthem at graduation. They made an exception for me because the high notes were impossible. They could have at least picked something easier to sing. Any reason we could not change the national anthem every year?
re#40: At first I thought what a dumb question. And then as I believe the only truely dumb question is the one that is never even though of much less asked... The US could change the national anthem every year, and maybe someday it will (in my opinion twood be a bad sign). But one could dismiss the question, 'yeah, next thing you know we change the flag every year'. Fact is, while we don't do it every year the last time we changed the US flag was as recent as 1959 - not that long ago and it has gone through many many changes over the course of our nation's history. But on the other hand it is the same flag - same design, same concept so I guess its the same flag. (If you look at the 1813 US Flag you would recognize it - the flag that inspired 'our national anthem' -sung to the tune of a popular british drinking song...and written during the 'War of 1812') (We all know the proper lyrics to the brit's national anthem, "My country tis of thee, Sweet land of Liberty...." written much earlier.) I guess the answer is, "Because that would not be proper". And yet, what kind of an answer is that? What is a 'national anthem'? An enduring musical symbol of the nation. Well, then we can't change it every year. Yet, until 1916 when Woodrow Wilson ordered that it be the 'national anthem' played by the military and naval services we did without an official one for 126 years - and since it wasn't written until 1814 we'd done without it specifically for 24 years (or longer depending on if you think the USA was founded in 1776 or 1790). (One could suggest that the 1931 Congressional Act of 3/3/1931 officially designating by act of congress a fact that had previously been ordered 'by executive order' was simply 'the commies have a cool national song, we should have one too' while at the same time making a point in the struggle between the executive and legislative branches.) It should be noted that the third 'verse' of our now 'National Anthem' was not sung by the time it became the 'official' - so we do change it, although not every year. My own opinion is that as the pace of cultural changes due to technology increased there was a social need for 'constant enduring symbols' sort of as an 'anchor' or 'security blanket' ((C)Shultz). We socially need cultural ikons. One should note that the first thing the successor nation to the USSR did was to revert to the old Czar's colors (without the royal crest), and the second was the choose a new 'national anthem'. And just recently they reverted to the old 'soviet' anthem, but with new lyrics.
I'll enter a separate item for discussion of direct versus representative voting.
This item didn't really go where I was hoping it would; we already had the Napster item. One particular meltdown I've been watching is the sales of Mariah Carey. Virgin/EMI lured her away from Columbia/Sony with a deal worth between 80 and 100 million dollars for four albums. However, the sales of her new album GLITTER have not been impressive at all. The album debuted at #7 with first week sales of about 116,000 copies; this was roughly one-third of what her last album sold in its debut week. The album has steadily marched down the charts. As of today it's at #34, with total sales of about a million. Admittedly this includes the month following the attacks, but even in comparison to other CD sales right now, this is an incredibly bad performance, given what EMI invested in her. (A million CDs sold would be a fine figure if the label hadn't invested around 100 times that in the artist...) (For comparison, the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou," which cost next to nothing up front, is at #19 on the chart.) EMI chief Ken Berry has been sacked, though the Mariah deal was probably only part of his problems; he failed twice to get the company merged with another label. There's a published rumor today (http://www.newmediamusic.com) that EMI is looking to extract itself from its contract with Mariah. I suspect -- haven't done the research -- that the multimillion dollar advance deals given to superstars have almost always failed for the labels. I shouldn't just pick on Mariah here: I very much doubt that REM's megadeal paid off for Warner.
We've heard for years that multi-million dollar deals for mega-stars have been killing the balance sheets of the big record companies -- I think the first time I heard a similar story the album in question was Michael Jackson's follow-up to "Thriller". So why do the record companies keep making them and if the deas are such financial poison why aren't the companies making them being eaten alive by competitors who aren't making the same mistakes? Also, in what universe could it *ever* have appeared to be a good idea to spend $80M for four Mariah Carey albums? Even if you assume you can make back $4 for every CD you sell, that still means that the four albums are each going to have to sell an average of five million copies apiece. I can't think of *ANY* acts whose popularity I'd care to guarantee over the course of four yet-to-be-recorded albums. With typical album release schedules that's a timespan of four to ten years in a remarkably fickle industry.
I think the answer to the first part of Mike's resp:44 is :: there are only five major record companies, and they are all making the same mistake of wildly overpaying for yesterday's top talent. Entry to the oligopoly has proven impossible for anyone for at least 25 years, though the Zomba label is making a good run at it.
I thought the REM deal was bad when it was made. It's the number of albums expected to succeed that's the problem. Almost nobody produces an album any faster than two or three years a pop anymore, if they're successful. That's a span of 8-10 years that the albums in such a deal fall over, an eternity in the music business. No artists produce that many hit albums in a row anymore, particularly not after already having had enough hits to engender such a contract.
What are the five major companies and how many minor ones are there? (roughly, or do you count anyone with a CD burner)
The five major companies, roughly in order of size:
Vivendi Universal (formed by Seagram's (the liquor company) merging
Polygram and MCA, then becoming
acquired by a French conglomerate)
AOL Time Warner
Sony (main US brand is Columbia)
EMI
BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group, which bought out RCA
years ago.)
Those five companies are generally believed to control 85% of
the recorded music market; that number keeps shrinking every time
I see the figure reported over the last decade.
EMI tried to merge with both AOL Time Warner and BMG, and IIRC
anti-trust regulators shot down both deals because they were not willing
to see the number of large music companies decline to 4.
The only large independents I can think of off the top of my head are
Zomba and Palm Pictures. The small independents might be uncountable.
I'm talking about real businesses selling manufactured CDs, not
"anyone with a CD burner." Maybe we could find a membership count
from a trade association for indie labels -- was that NAIRD?
After a little Google search: NAIRD renamed itself as AFIM, the Association For Independent Music, and their online directory lists 531 members, not all of which are record companies. It looks like the list is almost all North American.
A long time ago, in the days of primarily singles, my father pointed out that less than half of the songs of even a top artist were hits: the B side was almost always a write-off.
Re 50. Or *designed* to be a write-off. Does anyone remember "You Know My Name, Look Up The Number"? I have heard it twice ever, once in high school, and again on a very peculiar radio show, which described it as "one of the more *obscure* songs by the Beatles."
Yes, "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" (available on one of the
"Past Masters" singles CDs, though I can't recall which one) is pretty
bizarre and atypical for a Beatles song, though it's not the only oddity
they ever produced just to fulfill the need to have a song to put on
a B-side or fulfill some contractual requirement. In fact, they even
wrote a song just about this phenomenon and released it (along with a
couple of other distinctly second-rate efforts) on the "Yellow Submarine"
soundtrack. It's called "Only a Northern Song" and Harrison's lyrics
are pretty blunt about the subject:
If you're listening to this song
You may think the chords are going wrong
But they're not..
We just wrote it like that.
It doesn't really matter what chords I play
What words I say
Or time of day it is
As it's only a Northern song
It doesn't really matter what clothes I wear
Or how I fare
Or if my hair is brown..
When it's only a Northern song.
When you're listening late at night
You may think the band are not quite right
But they are, they just play it like that
It doesn't really matter what chords I play
What words I say or time of day it is
As it's only a Northern song.
It doesn't really matter what clothes I wear
Or how I fare
Or if my hair is brown..
When it's only a Northern song.
If you think the harmony
Is a little dark and out of key
You're correct, there's nobody there.
It doesn't really matter what chords I play
What words I say or time of day it is
And I told you there's no one there.
But I digress.. Getting back to the subject at hand, how is it that the big-five record companies can make umpteen-million dollar mistakes time and time again, pass the costs along to their consumers, and still not get dismembered by their competition. Is there any sensible way to account for this without concluding that some pretty serious anti- competitive collusion is keeping new players from threatening the entrenched powers? Even with only five major players (and a small army of smaller labels that are essentially vassals of whichever large conglomerate controls their distribution) doesn't it seem like a company which sinks $80-100M into a "sure thing" like Mariah Carey and then can't get it back should really be hurting compared to a company willing to invest that same $80M+ into developing and promoting 50 relative unknowns in the expectation that maybe one or two of them can be developed into Mariah-level sellers?
What, me? No, I'm not going to dispute that, Mike. It sure seems like there ought to be competition eating their lunch.
Sunday's New York Times has a large piece on the difficulties facing the classical music CD business. The article starts with Tower Records' decision in May to stop ordering from the major independent classical distributors -- the article does say that Tower and the distributors have recently come to an agreement. But with Tower failing in its traditional role as the leading retailer of serious classical music, and with the major labels abandoning the field, the article is skeptical about the survival of the business of manufacturing and distributing physical discs. One person quoted in the article brings up the point that David Bratman and I had made earlier: browsing for classical music doesn't work in the online CD stores like Amazon.com, and most of the serious classical collectors seem to be dedicated browsers. The article suggests that, like it or not, the classical music business will rapidly be forced to pure digital distribution, and everybody better get the bigger bandwidth needed to download larger works at higher fidelity. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/arts/music/21TOMM.html
The classical CD sales crash again, this one from an online magazine: http://www.classicstoday.com/features/f2_1001.asp "The Death of Deep Catalog" The argument is that the small classical labels have poured out vastly more CDs than the retailers or the market could absorb. The retailers have mostly responded by dropping classical music. The article says that even Amazon has backed away from trying to stock a comprehensive catalog. Quote: > As the flood of new releases and reissues continues > unabated, labels and distributors seem > unwilling to acknowledge that the death of the > deep catalog store, largely a product of their > own stupidity in flooding the market with rafts > of discs that no one wants, has thrust onto them > a new responsibility: that of dealing with the public > directly in place of retailers who can't or > won't any longer. The ability of chain stores to > suck up new releases and let them sit around in > the bins practically forever has, up to now, > insulated producers and distributors from the > uncomfortable reality that the audience for their > productions might be vanishing, small, or even > nonexistent...
The reason the majors can pour out millions for overpriced artists and not get eaten by the competition is that it's a good short-term strategy, and all the competition in the same league is doing the same thing.
I'm trying to remember if those megadeals actually count a lot of money earmarked for promotion and such. Would certainly make more sense that way, as a business decision.
I'm sure that whatever counting scheme they use would be unrecognizable to most of us, but it's still got to be impossible to make some of those deals pay no matter what sort of accounting tricks you engage in..
Still more classical bad news. This is from http://www.gramophone.co.uk, which appears to be only operational with MSIE. Nimbus Records, a leading British classical label and UK distributor, has gone into receivership. In the article, they say that they had been struggling for a while, but the collapse of business in the US after September 11 made it impossible to continue. The article says that another British classical distributor has closed recently, and yet another closure is imminent.
I wonder if they're connected with Nimbus the CD manufacturer and mastering house?
Usenet reports indicated that the Nimbus record label sold off the CD manufacturing operation some time earlier. Copied from resp:music3,4,56 :: The venerable Canadian firm Sam the Record Man, once the largest music retailer in Canada, has filed for bankruptcy. My obituary for the store is in the Music conference, in the CD Store Obituary item -- I mean, the Music Retail item. :(
Matt Drudge pointed to this item from the Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/1348770p-1418333c.html A number of big-time musicians are organizing a series of concerts to raise money for a legal battle over their claim that the record companies systematically underpay royalties and generally cheat the artists. Participating musicians include Elton John, No Doubt, the Eagles, Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks, Offspring, and Weezer, plus unnamed R&B and country performers.
LA Times story: the record biz is reeling from big dollar contracts given to big name stars whose sales have plummeted. Our sample artists are Mariah Carey, REM and Macy Gray. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000102156dec26.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines %2Dbusiness%2Dmanual (sorry about the wrap) "Labels Singing The Blues Over Expensive Failures" quote: > The Carey deal has turned out so badly that EMI music chief > Alain Levy, hired after the album was released, has initiated an > unusual attempt to cut the company's losses. Representatives for > EMI and Carey declined to comment. But several sources close to the > talks say EMI is pushing for a settlement with Carey under which > the singer would receive a multimillion-dollar lump sum in exchange > for agreeing to exit EMI's Virgin Records label. > > "The cost of doing business is out of control," said one label chief > who spoke on condition of anonymity. ...
Yeah, those elected officials can get pretty expensive...
They just don't have the morals they used to. Used to be when you bought a senator, they stayed bought. Now you have to keep paying out over and over...
resp:43, resp:64 :: It was quite entertaining watching EMI deny the story leaked by the LA Times on 12/27, that EMI was looking for a way out of its $100 million contract with Mariah Carey. About an hour ago the news hit the wires: it's everywhere so I won't bother with a link. EMI is paying Mariah $28 million to go away. Ms. Carey collects a total of $49 million dollars for her one album GLITTER which sold 2 million copies. In the Reuters story at the NYTimes, some analysts think EMI was too quick to bail out on Mariah, who was the top-selling female singer of the 1990s, after one disappointing album. (2 million sales is disappointing!!!!!!) Factors contributing to poor sales of the album were a September 11 release date, and Ms. Carey's physical and emotional health problems which prevented her from supporting the release with public appearances.
vh1.com has different sales numbers for the GLITTER album, though I suspect VH1 used USA sales and Reuters used world sales. From VH1.COM: > The news comes on the heels of much industry speculation > that the singer would be axed from the label, since her first > Virgin album, Glitter, is considered to be one of the biggest > commercial disappointments in recent years. The LP has sold > just over 500,000 copies since its release September 11, > according to a paltry figure compared to some > of Carey's previous albums for former label Columbia. By > comparison, 1999's Rainbow sold more than 2.9 million copies, > 1997's Butterfly sold more than 3.6 million and 1995's > Daydream sold nearly 7.5 million. Geez, what did the execs at EMI think when they looked at her sales trend for the late 1990s? No wonder former EMI head Ken Berry got sacked.
Wow.. Even using the higher sales figures (2 million copies) that's still $24.50 she's receiving per CD she actually sold. To put it another way, if EMI sells half a billion records this year, they'll essentially have to slap a ten cent Mariah Carey tax on every one of them. Better get shopping kids, the record companies are in trouble and they need your help!
Selling 500,000 copies of an LP is rather astounding these days. Now selling 500,000 copies of a CD might be considered nice.
Distribution North America (DNA), which I believe to have been the leading distributor of indie rock CDs, has gone bankrupt. Ugh. When the leading indie distributors went *boom* ten years ago, some stuff went out of print, and some labels went away because they couldn't absorb the loss of income they were due from the distributor. Here's a story from the MSU State News: http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=8889
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