Recording Companies

I am super sorry. It was meant to be a comment but it made it into being a whole blogpost, so I decided to post it. If you are interested in the topic please read. If you want just to read the feedback and get an overview of this post, read the beginning and then the last paragraph.

Nice lesson today! I am really enjoying these Fridays much.

To sum up my feedback today:
Nice prezi with great UX. Everyone should think about it, these can get really confusing. Overall I enjoyed the contents of the presentation. It was well prepared.

And I don't necessarily agree with Cai about DXing. It seems to be more of a hobby, than anything too important and mainstream. I used to chat and broadcast music with friends on short waves when I was a teenager and this double sided communication with first "prosumer" models is probably more valuable. DXing is basically a hobby about tuning in long distance stations and finding and tinkering with signals, at least that's what I get about it today.

Props to Sindy and Iina for their videos and interview, that was really cool! I personally only wished for better recording quality and editing. I wonder what did you use for the recording in the end?

I have few comments about the discussion... I am pretty sure Riikka wanted to say much more than she actually did, but the crowd really overpowered her.

It is important to understand that Record Label is not the greedy company owning rights and law-trolling everyone when someone breaks their territory. I know there are some undoubtedly absurd things like sampling being considered "theft" or prohibition of non-rightful covering, but without RLs there would be no music.

RL is kind of a Venture Capitalist, or Angel Investor if you want who picks few talented, usually poor artists, gives them the money (as Riikka told me: on small indie RL level it is ranging from 2k - 10k €), helps them produce their music into an album, gives them contacts, promotion and pushes them to gigs. And that all is an uncertain investment, which may be a great failure, that can bring the whole label down.

So the first thing is to make the whole business sustainable and viable for the company, so it can A) Push more artists to people B) Maintain the artists and help them grow , when this is covered, then it can come to the Artists' fees and revenue. I believe that for most beginning musicians making money with music is a nice bonus instead of granted expectation. The fact you reach your audience and get your track into radio is much more rewarding for an emerging talent.

As Yonathan said, the problem is not the labels, it is the people, who rather steal music than buy it... but it is also a matter of convenience, efforts and marketing. I know how annoying it can be waiting for your fav music to come out in your country (not that it's so much of an issue nowadays), plus buying music is usually quite inconvenient thing, requiring you to go through all the hassle with credit cards, picking the right format and so on.

Whilst piracy is simple - within 10 minutes you are likely to find and download whatever you want, for free. And that's where internet services step in... iTunes revolutionized (note: gosh am I actually using this word in connection to Apple?) the music market and threatened classic distribution channels. Getting your song in matter of seconds for 0.99€ is just brilliant. Then Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody and similar services are doing even better service to the public by offering their music conveniently for free! How amazing! Of course you can subscribe (and you should) for even more convenience and good moral standing.

There is the other side of it. Music has always been part of human culture and therefore it should be somewhat accessible for free by everyone. Everyone should be able to remix it and use it as part of their cultural genome as they please. If you ignore piracy as plain lazyness and rebellion against the capitalist, those thoughts are indeed honorable and beautiful. However both parties are not very diplomatic in this case. Massive pirating of music is REALLY hurting Recording companies and forcing them into even more vigorous pursuit of profit (only to overcome the increasing loss and maintain the level of NET salaries), forcing them into demanding ridiculous and absurd laws, royalties, taxes, forcing them into bloating our broadcasts with more and more ads to make them sustain. No business wants to disappear, and especially when the business is over 90 years of tradition. Pirates should understand and consider this. And Labels and Broadcasts should attempt to change their business model accordingly to 21st century.

We are in stage of transition. We are dematerializing our worlds, pursuing the virtual. Objects (including CDs, Vinyls and such) are becoming obsolete with the spread of internet connection and computing devices. It won't take long and there will be the ultimate model for such business. But until then, we need to remain patient and thoughtful. And if you think you know what it takes, go out and start your company, it is an opportunity not only for you, but also for many future music star artists and record companies to survive and emerge into a new, more democratic and cultural age.

tl;dr:
Don't be a prick and read this... at least the last paragraph