The Scourge of the Music Business -- Who Pays?

There is a lot of scuttle and divisive talk in the news today about music on the cloud and how this could hurt the artists, whether the music business is getting better or in decline – it goes on and on. Simply put – illegal music and those who are out to make a buck by proliferating it for their own pocketbook – are the scourge of the business. In some cases it is a “little guy” who wears the hat, but more often than not – it is a powerful conglomerate, what we politely refer to as the “majors”. You can cut data anyway you want to make your point. And the majors do it well – they have the money and power behind them to shape the dialogue any way they want it to be. I happened upon this interview (http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/neil-portnow-123.htm) with the President/CEO of The Recording Academy Neil Portnow, which I found very interesting in light of what is being discussed. When your focus is the artist and your hopes and dreams for their success, you get a very different perspective. That’s what I liked about this interview…plus Portnow says lots of thing that jive with my philosophy on the new music business. A few of the highlights:

The fans’ love of music remains strong. Music will never go away – yes, the channels we use to get music might transition over time, but as a whole – people will always want/need access to it. The biggest issue as Portnow sees it – and I definitely agree – is how do we make the industry profitable for the artist AND for entrepreneurs on the business side? Our business’s foundation is based on finding new and lucrative distribution channels that are good for the artist and the distributor. One way we seek to do that is to connect artists with charities – opening up more opportunities to sell music, to connect the music with good and broaden the visibility of the artists and their art. This is a win/win on all sides, particularly because more music is being produced by the indie sector than ever before. This means all of these independent artists need the right channel to get to their fans and charitable causes have more potential to make a difference because of the support by indie musicians.

One last but very important point Portnow makes that needs to be highlighted: don’t kill off the CD business prematurely, he says. And he is absolutely right. It might be a shocker, but it is true -- more than 70% of all music sold is sold as a physical product in a RETAIL STORE. Crazy, right? In the end, the consumer will decide how they want their music. At Altavoz our mission is to provide music in all the ways and in all the places fans demand it. We will keep on putting music in stores – CD and Vinyl – and will make it available through streaming and download, mobile – you name it. As Portnow rightly says, we are entering a period of time where multiple formats will exist side-by-side. It is the company that can leverage all of these formats and channels for good that will succeed.

JS

We have set up a Facebook group for the Buy Indie Support Locals movement

Future of Music Today: Altavoz Street Team members sought in the DMV

Future of Music Today: Altavoz Street Team members sought in the DMV: "Loading..."

There has been ZERO investment in USA distributors

Distribution, too, has been changed substantially by the Internet. Caves (2000) emphasizes a number of factors favoring large scale enterprises in physical distribution during the physical era, including a need to get a large quantity of physical product into many stores before popularity wanes Page 25

 Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie?
The Supply of New Recorded Music since Napster


Joel Waldfogel
The Carlson School and Department of Economics
University of Minnesota and NBER

Name me one investment that the VC or any us financial institution has made  in 15 years to support the distribution aspect of entertainment goods.

The whole media fell over themselves to ape the words of the founder of MP3 who claims CD will go to Zero.  So all the fools in the investment community lap it up like cool aide and keep the hegemony of the majors alive (est  earning 99 percent of the profits in entertainment while only supplying 20 percent of the products) and killing the non major aka U.S. based Distribution companies.

We can show rejection letter after letter from the investment community for geo-centric distribution and legal streaming and downloading of entertainment.. And, if you consider the nature of technology they have by investment choices put more people to work in India then domestically and here's the shocker they helped to undermine the US Economy.

We did have a robust export business for U.S. produced entertainment goods, And that happens when ecosystem of artists and professionals can come together to co-create. That market is the US music and film community.  Want to know what happened.  Ask Bob Geldoff.

“I’ve heard a million cool bands at complacent and smug festivals, but the music I hear is continental navel-gazing. Don’t do it – look up. Address the world with confidence. Don’t turn inward. Don’t be scared of the future: look at it cold-eyed and try to create a new world with your values.

The reason that this music is not being heard in public is that today the pain or rock against which art bangs forth our values is in direct opposition to the oppressors of our time aka -  The Major Entertainment Company's.  We have a whole blog now to support our campaign Buy Indie Support Locals.

Right now they are still suing the fans and they earned another first recently by suing a consumer in court over a copyright violation. No one ever tried that and in industry that depends upon fans jumps the legal shark yet again.  They are sick, disparate and have no model for the future heck they make some of the dictators look like philanthropic hero's

FYI note to all investors that rejected our plan. If we find that they illegally user our music personally or via a copy they invest in.  We will use the RIAA to sue them into the ground.

In the words of Nelson on the Simpson's. HA HAA

DC judge backs mass P2P anti-piracy litigation | MyCE – My Consumer Electronics

DC judge backs mass P2P anti-piracy litigation | MyCE – My Consumer Electronics


Hello, this is the first time a consumer(2) has been dragged to federal court over a copy right violation. Want to get a great lesson our the US's history with regards to IP theft.

Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization [Hardcover]
Pat Choate

If folks stop buying the Major's releases and supporting their artist they won't have the money or will to sue the consumers.

Buy Indie Support locals.

How One Music Startup Is Defying the Odds By Breaking the LAW

How One Music Startup Is Defying the Odds By Breaking the Rules


The fact that this company got 800k and their plan is in no way directly connected to artist is a total joke. Here's the funny part. Altavoz launched 3 streams for Microsoft's windows media and had 74 thousand individuals on it daily in 2000 and we couldn't get 10K. We did it with scrapes. Mind you this music was also legal.

The part of this plan that I highly question is the fact that this company is going to stream this music and they think that somehow, someway they don't have to comply with the same rules that others that stream music have. Like having to pay sound exShaITge.

How to you stream music for free.

We also pointed out that folks down more the 3 bucks a day on designer coffer and scoff at the idea of payin artist for their work. Maybe this company would like it if we took all their workers and had them come over and do some role for us without compensations. Oh wait. the promise of paying a company that will pay another company and it claims that they will pay the artists is good enough for 800k and mention in the press these days.

Oh well, you get what you pay for right..........

Mi2N.com - US IP Czar Proposes Limits On Civil Rights And Liberties To Protect Big Content

Obama Administration is showing that they know very little of the state of the music business and or they are just stooges for the Major labels.

Which by our reckonin'  are stealing American jobs, and taking Profits overseas and now they want to fill our prisions with folks that do what radio users do every day~ hear music without the artist being compensated.

Mi2N.com - US IP Czar Proposes Limits On Civil Rights And Liberties To Protect Big Content

" White House's IP czar Victoria Espinel is calling on Congress to further expand and toughen U.S. intellectual property law, which is already among the most sweeping and strictest in the world. Copyright regulation has grown into a massive and complicated bureaucratic system, which has lost sight of it purpose and limits. The capture of this Administration and key members of Congress by the powerful special interests called Big Content continues to grow as demonstrated by this report, which fails to address the need for a balanced reform approach.

Espinel is asking Congress to expand federal wiretapping laws to pursue those accused of infringing on copyrighted material, and to ensure that illegally streaming movies, once considered only civil infractions, be treated as felonies".

Geldof: Only rock can save the music business :: Rock News Desk

Geldof: Only rock can save the music business :: Rock News Desk

Altavoz co-ceo Nelson Jacobsen has a different take on this and it seems we have seen this story line play out else where.

Independent Music is good for American Jobs.

So let's face it the way the world of entertainment works, The Majors are on top driving 90 percent of the profits.   So what have they done?

They have done the same thing that every multi-national company has done.   Take all the jobs and money out of the US economy and laugh all the way to the off shore bank.

Now lets' look at the difference between Indie & Major record companies.

• Majors- think Halitburtonization of whole business model. 
• Indies- think mom & pop, local owned business.

The continued attention to all things Major Record label related and for their financial gain has actually hurt the US.  Now! if we lift up the covers and take a look at who they are in bed with - There is a reason why the main stream media covers them relentlessly. They are part of the same eco system and it is used to to reinforce their business model. Rest assured they are still making loads of money the Entertainment Business grew by 2.3% in 2009.  Yep during a recession.

Now! over here in the Independent community we are all operation daily in our local markets, our suppliers are often local design, manufacturing, and packaging firms. All of these checking accounts are often serviced by local banks and the artists, bands, and labels all live in these communities.  So we are hosting our whole eco system in the US Economy.  Where are the Majors?  Where ever the best Tax policy for them and their profits exist.

The sad truth in light of this is that the US Government, Congress and So called trade groups are actively undermining the Independent market ever day they show up to work -if you call it that- Because Indie's are not in Washington  with lobbyist lining their pockets with drugs, sex parties and wild boozed filled nights there is no heed paid to the local music business.   And,  Politician have the nerve to point at music as some bad influence.

So it begs to ask....who's business is better for the US Economy.

1 sided conversation with Google about their cloud blackhole

altavozdistroco Altavoz Distro Co 

Bangs head against wall @gmail put the email from google custoserv n spam filter so we had to dig 2 get this......I-am-not-kidding 2nd #FAIL

2 minutes ago 

altavozdistroco Altavoz Distro Co 

Our whole business is at a standstill because @googledocs don't have their FKIN form tied to a real mail box. UHAV2BJOKING @google #fail

5 minutes ago 

altavozdistroco Altavoz Distro Co 

@google something broke~ <docssupport@google.com>... Mailbox disabled for this recipient (state 14).

8 minutes ago 

DConeCity DC One City 

 by altavozdistroco

Business of Cloud Computing: What happens when Google Docs fails. businessofcloudcomputing.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-h…

19 minutes ago 

altavozdistroco Altavoz Distro Co 

We've received your message. We appreciate your taking the time to contact us, and @googledocs

1 hour ago 

altavozdistroco Altavoz Distro Co 

Seriously @googledocs

1 hour ago 

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altavozdistroco Altavoz Distro Co 

Atten @googledocs we need our doc back so we can do what we do. This not working is, well not working for us. #Justayin

1 hour ago Favorite Reply Delete

Don't worry about all the reconstruciton

We are in the process of moving out servers to the cloud and fixin up the various Altavoz social media properties.

We will also be putting up our information about One on Ones at Narm11.  

DMV Music Council: If you ain't here you aint in th Music Biz.

DMV Music Council: If you ain't here you aint in th Music Biz.: "85 Percent of the music buyers in the U.S.A. are all connect to one EDI system and if your distributor is not part of that EDI system they a..."