as prev. said:
1)death by stupidity;
2)dont let the door hit your ass on the way out!

Interesting… I used to buy about 1 album/month. Once it was revealed that Sony put malware on some of their CDs, I essentially stopped…. I think I’ve bought less than one every other year, all of which were because I loved a piece from the radio.

Personally, I’d appreciate it if they’d stop treating their own customers as criminals. Then I might consider buying more frequently again.

I work for one of the big 4 labels. I hold a senior position in finance. So I’m not a creative, I’m one of the guys in suits you self appointed music gurus hate, so I expect some abuse. But here goes anyway in trying to explain some of this.

To paraphrase Lars Ulrich, a record company’s primary role in the industry is to be a bank. The labels scout for talent and then lend money to new (and often established) artists, give them access to studios (less of an issue in the digital age) and provide the marketing, promotion and distribution. All of these expenses are then set off against the royalties earned until the advance (loan) is paid off and then we take a cut of future earnings.

You can argue that all of this can be done by small indie labels or by the band itself using some laptops and Facebook. And that’s true and good luck to them. But only the large labels have the financial muscle to bankroll a large number of potential artists in the hope of revealing a few stars who make music that people want to hear.

Like a bank who lends money to small business or mortgages, labels are supposed to have expertise in picking enough winners to offset the loses from the losers. That’s what is supposed to make them profitable. You can scream all you want about faceless suits and evil corporations screwing artists and profiteering, about it being money and not the music etc etc. But at the end of the day, profit only comes from finding artists that the public wants to hear.

Now of course the model is broken. The labels don’t make profits because no-one pays for music. The artists don’t make money because no-one pays for music. It hasn’t hit yet as the labels are still paying artists but are going bust. But you lose the Big 4 and most of the successful artists around now will be broke. This rubbish about concerts filling the gap ignores the economics of touring I’m afraid.

The industry is only surviving on catalogues. The only artists still making money are people like the Rolling Stones, Depeche Mode, The Beatles, Queen etc who were invested in and supported in the bad old days when people paid for music.

With no profit in making music, the quality of artists will fall (if it hasn’t already) and all you will get are bland, generic, safe bands and singers who pump out low risk stuff so they can at least get 500k sales and make a modest living. You will never get the geniuses and iconic music makers of the past as no-one will take a risk on anything other than established artists or those that sound like them.

Why? Because no label will be big enough to take the financial losses from the bad calls necessary to sustain them until they make a very right call. Small indy labels can never pick up this slack and will similarly have to look for safe, generic stuff or go bankrupt pretty quickly.

In 5 years time when there are only 2 or 3 big labels, look at the music available and when you see it’s all rubbish you will see I’m right, but by then it will be too late.

Right now we are getting by on the fumes of talent nurtured in the bad old days when labels made money and could invest. Those times are coming to an end as we speak.

So to all those simpletons who like automotons bash the big labels and rub their hands with glee when the Big 4 report losses and one of them looks like disappearing, thanks for helping make modern music rubbish and for dancing on the grave of the creativity you claim to worship.

I’m not saying free is bad or that any of this is not inevitable or in fact a bad outcome, but people who refuse to pay for music need to understand that there is a cost and the cost is quality, diversity and choice. If you still chose to steal music after considering that, then fair enough, it’s a free world. But only chose to do so after considering the cost because once the music industry is dead, it won’t come back.

@Music Guy

Not all music comes from the big labels.

If they can’t adapt to the effect the Internet has on their business, then they should die. Music is already being generated by bands who do not sign to anyone, who produce their own CDs, who do all their own promotions, who connect with their fans over the net. Now that their audience is so accessible, they don’t need the big labels anymore.

Don’t think for a second that the loss of Warner Music is going to put even a dent in the amount of music being consumed. People will look elsewhere, and they’ll find other bands to listen to whose labels haven’t decided to lock away their greatest assets. If the big labels won’t give them what they want, they’ll pirate. If the labels die, they’ll listen to independents with working business models. But music will always be made, and in an age where a video can be sent around the world and seen by millions of people in a single day, it will be heard.

Personally, I’m fairly sure the big labels will fold sooner or later. The recording industry can’t survive where the Internet has made recordings close to worthless. But as Mike likes to say, the music industry is booming like never before, so y’know – no huge loss there.