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Comment by seertaak | Hacker News Reader

> Record labels promote and distribute music.

True, but not exhaustive. As I explicitly mention above, they also find (in some sense, act as a filter) and finance new acts. And, in any case, you seemed to have ignored my point that recording engineers, producers, etc. are very much a part of the phonographic industry. Care to explain how "new communication methods" have rendered them obsolete?

> New communication methods mean old ways of promotion and distribution no longer work.

The millions of drivers in the world who listen to the radio disagree with you. And do you really think that just because the internet exists, people don't register offline advertising anymore?

> New ideas like TheSixtyOne.com etc. are great approaches to new means of connecting musicians with music lovers.

Thanks for letting me know about that site, it looks really cool!

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Fair responses.

I guess I'm imagining that artists and recording engineers etc. could connect themselves without giving away the majority of the profits to a third party. I don't know enough about the industry to know if this is possible.

Offline advertising still works I'm sure but I guess because of the circles I'm in even "regular" (non-geek) people are willing to use technology to find the music they like. I don't know how hard it is for small artists to sell their stuff on iTunes but like I said sites like TheSixtyOne help but ultimately I think that the role of the broadcaster is becoming diminished (and this is evident in all broadcast industries such as t.v., newspapers, movies, music, gaming and more) as people look for better ways to connect with content creators that don't involve both them and the creators being shortchanged.

You are right about radio being popular but this is more a case of being everywhere. I think it's role is being diminished as you see a lot more people walk around with mp3 players etc. listening to the music they want.

The point I'm awkwardly making is that the value of traditional distribution is not necessarily so valuable now. To borrow an Australian example, it's like Telstra (the central phone company) trying to punish people back into using them and not competitors after years of being shafted when there was no competition.

I'd like to see companies considering initial piracy a marketing cost - the people that don't end up buying probably wouldn't have anyway and you'll end up gaining loyal customers who like what they've seen/heard.

> I'd like to see companies considering initial piracy a marketing cost - the people that don't end up buying probably wouldn't have anyway and you'll end up gaining loyal customers who like what they've seen/heard.

I'd very much like to see it as that also, but sadly it flies in the face of most of the evidence. Anecdotal stories to the contrary notwithstanding, the majority of studies indicate that filesharing replaces demand for (paid) recorded music, rather than stimulating it. Moreover, a bird's-eye view, it is difficult to reconcile the piracy-as-free-publicity (and hence as a stimulus to demand for music) with the rather obvious fact that, even adjusting for lower average prices for music (due to the renewed strength of the singles market thanks to iTunes), revenues from recorded music have fallen drastically over the last ten year (not adjusting for the singles/iTunes effect, revenues are down by 50% in less than ten years).

>the majority of studies indicate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

>that filesharing replaces demand for (paid) recorded music, rather than stimulating it

"Altin asked Wallis if there is any connection between illicit downloads and lost sales in the music industry. Contradicting the opinion of John Kennedy of the IFPI in his testimony yesterday, Wallis said that downloading caused an increase in sales of live event tickets and although there has been a reduction in CD sales, this won’t continue.

Wallis went on to explain that while some people download, these people also tend to buy more CDs than others that don’t. It’s not just downloading causing competition for the industry, other things have an effect such as the growth of computer games, he said."

"Professor and media researcher Roger Wallis appeared as an expert witness at the Pirate Bay trial yesterday. He was questioned on the link between the decline of album sales and filesharing. Wallis told the court that his research has shown that there is no relation between the two."

I suppose you did read TFA and related so you know who the man with the flower-showered wife is.

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