Following the release of his new album, Year Zero, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor sounds off on his blog about anti-consumer pricing, calling out Universal Music Group in the process:
As
the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their
answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the
consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind:* The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero
is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people
steal music. Avril Lavigne’s record in the same store was $21.99
($18.21 US).By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his
response was: "It’s because we know you have a real core audience that
will pay whatever it costs when you put something out – you know, true
fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy."So… I guess as a reward for being a "true fan" you get ripped off.
This does beg the question: How do bands with avid fan bases around the world (Radiohead, NIN, etc) circumvent the entire label process completely? How soon will this be a viable option for any band?
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How do bands with avid fan bases around the world (Radiohead, NIN, etc) circumvent the entire label process completely? How soon will this be a viable option for any band?
I don’t understand why this question gets asked. The answer is simple afaic:
a) release music on the net for free; no subscriptions and no ads. Free.
b) musicians receive income from their concerts where what’s being sold is an Experience. Prices will rise and concerts will be for the privileged. That’s the price for Free content (because almost nothing is ever *truly* “free”).
c) labels effectively go away and what’s left are aggregation and recommendation sites that leverage the time it takes to parse through all the material into ad revenue.
d) for some musicians, they can pull a Moby and license their music for other commercial interests.
And this can all happen now.
The mistake imo, is that people downloading music via P2P are actually helping to keep the labels alive. So long as the product to which they have control garners attention, they have leverage. Taking the content without remuneration is a selfish act that only prolongs the situation and potentially impacts the entire music scene in the worst way. The key imo to expediting the shift is to ignore the labels and their product. Some labels will transition (perhaps into aggregation/recommendation systems), some will morph into other services and some will fold.
May 14th, 2007 at 3:42 pm