I think you're discounting the entire middle ground between a Madonna or U2 concert versus a group of guys who play the bar circuit.CanadaRAM said:
It's fairly common knowledge that the profit side of the music industry comes from ticket sales and non-album merchandising.
A band that's "touring" for $10 cover at bars isn't in the same "music industry". It's kind of like comparing MLB players to kids playing baseball on a playground.
That's a bit disingenuous.
The RIAA (or global variants thereof) are really just their own monopolies. While there's a "choice" for the artist, the choice isn't very realistic.
Yes, you could refuse to sign. And it would mean the difference between your album being in every big box store in the country, versus you selling your album out of your trunk in the local Wal-Mart parking lot.
Ani DiFranco is an exception, rather than the rule. And it's only through years and years of word of mouth that she really gained notice from the mainstream. In business terms, compare her with Tori Amos. By and large, their audience is similar... but you can't tell me that more people recognize Ani DiFranco than Tori Amos. And you can't tell me that by virtue, Best Buy / Target / Wal-Mart / etc. is going to stock literally hundreds per-store of whatever Tori decides to release, versus five or ten copies of Ani's new release (if that).
Signing with a label gives you more than advertising and promotion. It gives you access to shelf space. Short of being someone as recognizable and well-recieved as Ani DiFranco... you can't walk in to Best Buy's corporate office and say "Hi, my name's Joe. I'm in a band called Sonic Death Monkey. We're really good, so can I sign you up for a few thousand copies to sell at your stores?". At least... not without expecting them to laugh you out the door.
The record companies are there because of decades worth of payola, conglomeration with radio and television stations, and monopolistic practices. There's no alternative that's as viable, and implying that there is is nothing less than delusional.
You can't seriously believe this.
What you're describing has been going on well before people were pirating music en masse. This terrible future you're predicting has already happened. It happened decades ago.
The RIAA is far closer to the MPAA and SIIA/SPA than the AMA or similar trade organizations.
The RIAA/MPAA/SPA are the only trade organizations that exist largely to sue their own customers. Most trade organizations exist (on some level) to prevent their members from being sued. There's a very substantial difference there.
Your analogies don't hold water.
Like it or not... moral or not... people are downloading music. Since it isn't a tangible product, a better analogy would be "...is equivalent to telling the artist they can have $1 an hour, or $0 an hour."
Consumer goods like running shoes are tangible. If I'm Nike, I know that I need X number of shoes that cost $Y to produce and net $Z in profit. If I'm a consumer, I know that those Nike shoes cost $89 at every store and that I can take them at that price, or not have them. I may really like the side of the shoes, but not the tongue or sole... but the shoes can't be broken in to pieces that I can do anything useful with.
Music just isn't the same, and the customers are proving that. If I'm A&M Records, I know that I want to sell X Vanessa Carlton albums. Beyond that, there's no Y or Z as with the shoes. The album has 14 pieces, some people may want all 14, some may only want 1. Because I want to make $Z in profit, I'm going to sell them all as one package for $18... take it or leave it.
The consumers are starting to answer with "Fine, I'll leave it.". Unlike shoes or other consumer goods, people can want pieces of the finished product without wanting the whole. Because they're profit-driven, the record companies have all but eliminated the sale of singles. So as a consumer, I may really like one song on an album, and it may be worth a certain amount of money to me. But as it stands, my options are either: 1) pay $18 and hope the remaining 92% of the album is as good or 2) pay nothing, get the one song I wanted in the first place, and contemplate how the artist theoretically lost about $0.23 that I would have gladly paid if I was offered a product I wanted. And then contemplate further that the artist lost nothing, because I never would have bought the album, and could just as easily have waited for the song to get played on the radio again and recorded that to a CD so I could listen to it when I wanted (which is perfectly legal).
Pandora's metaphoric box has already been opened. Scads of RIAA lawsuits may slow things down temporarily, but the end result is that they're going to spawn more and more sophisticated P2P networks until they're so well spoofed and encrypted that it will be nearly impossible for them to discern who is downloading what.
Just imagine in the next decade, with greater broadband penetration, fiber connections to consumers, free public wi-fi (all things that are in process as I type this). We're talking about even more people who can download and upload songs faster than they can listen to them. And at the same time, we're talking about people having computers powerful enough to do encryption on the fly (let's be realistic... just about any computer you can buy off the shelf today is more than capable of it). Not to mention greater backlash from anti-RIAA zealots, who will invariably start setting up off-shore anonymizers, and similar services.
The future is way too close for the record companies to continue on their current path. Their business model is failing, and they're not adapting. So the tables are turning. Sooner than later, it'll be the consumer who is saying "I'll pay $0.05 for that song. Take it or leave it."
If they don't adapt, they'll fail. It's as simple as that. And if they fail, it opens the doors wide for new music, unsigned artists, and more. If the people (read: the consumers) are already getting their music online instead of from the radio or MTV (and the numbers seem to support that's what's happening already), the marketing, promotion, and other services major labels provide will become less relevant.
Who cares that Columbia got Jessica Simpson airplay on 240 stations and that her new video is on MTV and VH1, when the brunt of those listeners have abandoned the radio and TV in favor of podcasting, or streaming media?
