Moore signs of record store doom

A VC: Should WiFi Be Public Infrastructure?

It's happening. WiFi hotzones are rapidly becoming a reality--if I had the time today I'd look up the growth and give a percent change, but take my word for it that the phenomenon is real.

And once WiFi becomes ubiquitous, the CD as we know it will disappear from relevance. The CD has already gone the way of the stamp among anyone below the age of 14--the newest music-buying generation doesn't want to buy CDs at all.

The subscription model

Satellite radio is putting a hard drive on their receiver

Tivo for your radio.

If you had Tivo for your radio, why would you ever purchase a CD?

How will the RIAA address this? Well, it's fair use recording of the satellite signal for sure. So there's not really much for consumer rights issues. But if you were the RIAA, why would you authorize your signal to be transmitted like this via XM?

The RIAA needs to address this immediately.

This guy thinks we should abandon DRM

It's not going to happen anytime soon.

But you should read this just to provoke fresh thoughts.

So, you think this whole Internet thing might be a bit overrated

My sense is that many music industry executives are waiting for more powerful industries (i.e. television and film and porn) to develop copyright control mechanisms. Meanwhile, entertainment culture continues to move rapidly forward.

As I have noted before, it's perfectly reasonable to utilize resources to protect your property.

But it's unreasonable to ignore reality.

For example, enormous back catalogs remain unavailable on iTunes. While Apple's capacity is somewhat of a factor, the main factor is that priorities are different at the major labels.

Where are you Rhino? Who is the next Ted Turner, a rich music lover who would be willing to snap up hundreds of thousands of songs (at a good price) and then spend the next ten years releasing them?

Increasingly, it seems that other industries will show the record execs how to move the old product digitally. And most likely, that will be a good thing.

Shaking up Spin

Let's see how far he gets in the coming year.

SPIN has been circling the drain for several years, and if it's not entirely Editor Sia Michel's fault then I would be interested in knowing who gets the blame.

Editorially, the magazine continues to slump: Under Hill and Michel's reign, we've seen covers with Kurt Cobain--an icon but hardly trendy or hip as the magazine aspires to, the Vines--who released a D.O.A. album hosted by possibly the most annoying frontman ever, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (twice), Morrissey--whose commerical relevance ended in the 80s, the Beastie Boys--following a string of "mature" albums went AWOL for four years, the Hives--another D.O.A. album that has gone positively nowhere, and Coldplay--multiplatinum, non-hip band. If the cover signifies hipness a la the overrated Dizzee Rascal and the Streets (two acts who still have no prayer of breaking big in the U.S.), then why doesn't Hill back up his bravado and start pimping something from the streets or college radio?

It was bad enough watching SPIN struggle with identity in 2003--every vain attempt to mimic Blender screamed with desperation--but with the wishy-washy editorial year that the magazine is closing out, not many people think that SPIN is returning to it's red-headed stepchild roots.

That said, the increase in ad pages is a cause for hope, if only because it means the magazine is on more stable financial footing. But at what cost did this increase in pages come? The cynical would point to a lack of market leadership instead of original editorial content.

We hope things will get better, but we have a sneaking suspicion that, like the old lady Rolling Stone, SPIN is doomed to mediocrity.

Every single person in the music business should read this article.

Wired 12.10: The Long Tail

The changes to the business are obvious but rarely so perfectly delineated.

Lots to say on this in the very near future, but the article is full of accurate academic application.

Goin' Indie

I have neglected to comment on major label efforts to refine their A&R process and overall development efforts.

I always take a macro, academic view on these things, and then try to infuse my consideration with the personalities at hand, although the latter is only for fun as the academic view is much more predictive.

The major labels would like to make their development costs lower--that is, they would like to lower the costs involved in taking a nobody and turning them into a somebody. They still want to be the star makers, they just don't like the idea of starting from scratch. As I've noted before, the goal is always to mitigate risk (and for some labels the short term reasons for stability are different, but the long view is the same) and this is one of the best ways to do it. The downside is that it lowers the profit margins if you pay someone else to take on the risk you don't want.

But let's step back and take a look at other key elements in play, notably company culture. Indie labels usually operate on low margins, high risk, and are successful largely due to a mom-n-pop company culture where everybody does a little bit of everything, and at the end of the day everyone's happy to be pimping little bands that they all love. Nobody's getting rich and nobody cares too much.

This isn't true at a major, where many (if not most) do not have an emotional or financial stake in the majority of the artists. Sure, you've got some A&R people who will go to bat for their acts, but at the same time the opporunistic motives for an A&R person (and also, fear of losing their job) forces them to always keep one eye open for acts that will be their next meal ticket. So beyond a few key people at a major label, the company's culture is task oriented and heavy on hierarchy. It's nothing like an indie.

The bands that move from an indie to a major typically are slightly older and hopefully wiser, and typically are going to a major for a chance at the golden ring. Or, at very least, a couple of records and tours where they can eat and sleep well. But the handling of acts changes internally when the jump is made, and the publicity mechanisms are vastly different. Most bands do not handle this aspect well.

More on this later.