RESPONSE TO: Nic Brisbourne @ DFJ's great blog THE EQUITY KICKER (www.theequitykicker.com)
Another example of ‘free’ as a business model from the music industry..
Having spent most of my working life in the music industry as a Manager, who nurtured a handful of acts who went on to be internationally successful and many more whose music I still love today, but nevertheless didn’t get their big break, I’m ambivalent still as to whether we are making progress or dumbing down creative quality across the globe.
On the one hand some of the DAT’s I have of acts you’ve never heard of are still some of the best I’ve ever listened to and the new platforms are providing easier routes to get those to wider audiences to mutual benefit. On the other hand though, I think what people forget is that without the machinery, money and skill of most of the big Record Labels that are currently being Lehmanised, I doubt most of the revered artists of ours, or our parents generations, would have happened virally by social networking had it existed then.
Given that no pure socially networked album release will ever recoup a million dollars of recording costs and several million in marketing from advertising, I personally think we bite the hand that feeds us at our peril, by de-valuing what Record Labels do. Sure some of them are blood sucking b****s, take my word for it, but actually most provide a filter against the overwhelming sea of average and as long as millions of people still check in at the same time every day for Sex and The City, Friends or Eastenders etc. then I also feel we are still a long way off people not wanting ‘blockbuster artists’ as Simon calls them and do hope that once all the idealists have finished watching their anarchy play out, they’ll once again look for quality, scale and exclusivity for the very best musicians. After all, what happens to all those kids who wish they could be famous if their best hope is 5000 Facebook fans and whatever CPM fraction that relates to in royalties, based on those current business models.
Anyway, that’s what we’re planning ahead for as some of you know…
Watch this space - jan [at] http://www.famebook.com
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