[Wolves] LUG Meeting 'free music' discussion continued - Anti-iTunes site

[Andy Wootton]

chris procter wrote:

>>iTunes Music Store - facelift for a corrupt industry
>>
>>http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
>>
>>Woo
>>    
>>
>I agreed with most of the page up until:-
>
>"Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album
>sold, a huge amount considering how little they have
>to do."
>
>All they have to do is provide the bandwidth, servers,
>diskspace, credit card taking systems, methods to pay
>the recordlabels artists etc, advertising, sys-admins,
>designers, management, people to negotiate the
>agreements, and the offices and infrastructure to
>house all of the above.
>
>Simple.
>  
>
It sounds very similar to LUG Radio and the LR Live ticketing system to 
me. It's only massive because they chose to dominate the world. If there 
were just some open standards for controlled downloading of  music then 
the load could be shared with others for the cost of providing the 
service. New bands could give stuff  away free and as their reputation 
grew they could charge more.

>iTunes isn't a hugely profitable business for Apple,
>it was designed to break even and promote iPod sales
>  
>
Using one market to support another! Don't we all disapprove when MS 
does that?

And they have broken even despite first year set-up costs. How many 
years did Amazon take to break even? So it's profit all the way from here.
Is Apple's contribution worth 3 times more than that of the people who 
created the music? If they allow the bands to sell freely through other 
channels that compete in the on-line market then I withdraw my objection 
- but something tells me that is not the case.

>and though iirc it does make a profit now its probably
>less then the money some big artists make a year.
>  
>
The big artists can look after themselves. I'm concerned about the good, 
small ones.

>The cry of retailers are evil becuase the record
>companies are evil is just dumb. If you dont like
>record companies blame the record companies themselves
>  
>
OK. "We don't stock a new record until it is in the charts" HMV, The Fort.
i.e. Let the independents take all the risk then use your buying power 
to undercut them. EVIL!

>(and conversly if you have a legitimate grip against
>iTunes then blame Apple not the record companies)
>
OK. The record companies finally have some competition, unfortunately 
from a company that has a monopoly position on digital music hardware 
and intends to use proprietary formats and DRM to protect it. EVIL!

For the record, I have never knowingly downloaded music without the 
artist's permission.I don't agree with the form of protest that is 
proposed but I know enough talented, desperately poor musicians (no, not 
Jono) to believe this is a serious problem and there may be a 'free 
software' type solution. Making music is cheap, recording is cheap, 
Internet distribution is cheap. "The music indutry" = Marketing and 
lawyers keeping people in their place to preserve the status quo (No, 
not The Status Quo. Pay attention, I'm ranting.)

>chris
>
>p.s. does music want to be free?
>
Does software? I argue that it is the same thing. People used to be able 
to make a very good living once they broke into the closed market but 
other people are willing to provide the same service or better for 
nothing. The big record companies play the same game as Microsoft. They 
tell people what to want then sell it to them, protecting their market 
however they can.

I posted the link because of a discussion late one recent LUG meeting. 
The two musicians present both said that it was more important to them 
that their music got to their audience than that they made a lot of 
money. Most talented musicians usually just want to play live to as many 
people as they can (especially cute ones of an appropriate sexual 
persuasion.) To do that they need people to have a chance to hear their 
music and decide for themselves whether it is good.

Woo