Copyright Law

Why the Big 4 record labels are dead

By Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman

I know this is off-topic for this blog, but just wanted to share this thought with my readers.

I just attended a talk this morning at the Silicon Alley Breakfast Club, where one of the panelists was Jessica Morris of OurStage.com.

OurStage is a site which permits any musician or filmmaker to put a 15-second segment of his or her work on line, and have it exposed to the world at large (presently more than a milliion "uniques" per month) for competitive judging, commentary and feedback, the opportunity to win prizes and mentor opportunities, and other good reasons to post 15-second slices of their work product.

I asked Jessica if musicians can sell their whole songs there, too. She said sure, it's 99 cents per download, of which the musician gets 80 cents.

So any musician could go to OurStage.com, get free exposure for his or her music, and even sell his music to the public, receiving more than 80% of the purchase price.

And anyone who likes music can go there, listen to their heart's content, buy something if they like it, and be sure that more than 80% of what they spend goes right into the artist's pocket, where it belongs.

Four questions:

1. In such a world, who needs record companies?

2. If people don't need record companies, wouldn't record companies have to somehow make people want to do business with them?

3. Who thinks the RIAA's litigation campaign is a way of making musicians want to do business with the Big Four record companies?

4. Who thinks the RIAA's litigation campaign is a way of making music lovers want to buy their music from the Big Four record companies?

Anyone who can't figure out the rather obvious answers to those 4 questions, doesn't deserve to be running a record company. (Or should I say "running a record company into the ground")?

Keywords: digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property

Full post as published by Recording Industry vs The People on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).