Death to the labels!
Let's start with the sad. 95% of the world's population are people who, in principle, are not capable of more or less positive creation. However, this layer is necessary to ensure the existence of the remaining 5% in a market economy, because it is widely known that the higher the intellectual level of a person and his creative abilities, the worse he plays the role of a consumer in the market system. That is, roughly speaking, the more a person is able to create, the less he will consume. And vice versa. Evidence of this position can be found on the Web yourself, who does not agree with it - your right, the humanities, allow pluralism of opinions.
Now, a little introduction.
A lot of people with whom I spoke in one way or another make one big mistake when talking about copyright and the role of labels in the development of the music industry. They believe that the role of labels is only to make money on artists by circulating and selling discs (which, as all greedy children know, should be sold for a penny, since the price of replication is the very penny) and the whole world would only be happy if if they all suddenly boarded a rocket and flew to Mars. At the same time, Radiohead is constantly cited as an example as an indicator of a commercially successful “free” project.
In principle, talking to such people about copyright in the music industry is like talking to a 3rd grade graduate about relativistic physics ("well, when I click the switch, the light immediately lights up, so the light spreads instantly"). If we take into account that 95% of the population, in principle, are not only capable of creating, but also of comprehending, it becomes very sad, because it is clear that you will never explain your position to a person if he is not able, in principle, to understand it, and even capable - does not want to accept. It’s like a woman’s logic - any argument can be not only refuted, but rejected, even if it is logically flawless (“this cannot be because I don’t believe in it”). Therefore, the article is written for an intellectual minority with whom a positive discussion is possible.
This is the end of the introduction. Let's move on to the main topic. Many of the points that I put forward may seem controversial, your task is to find them, carefully re-read, understand and understand what it is about. Only then can one argue. I do not pretend to be the ultimate truth, but I am not interested in talking with stools.
In a market economy, a very important factor in successful business (which involves making a profit) is the division of labor and specialization. A dozen narrow specialists in the conditions of mass production solve the task much better, faster and cheaper than one person with a wide specialization. With this, I hope no one will argue. In order not to crawl beyond the limits of the indicated conditions, we will talk exclusively about mass culture, leaving aside the art house and its semblance. There are completely different laws.
In order to convey your creation to the final listener in order to receive money from him, the team of performers is required to perform the following actions:
1. To assemble and organize a team of like-minded people united by one goal, able to work together. Like-minded people are needed so that the group does not fall apart in the first months of existence due to creative differences, and the common goal is to mobilize forces to achieve it.
2. To write material that will potentially be in demand by the consumer - this is necessary for the ultimate commercial success of the project.
3. Find the tangible and labor assets necessary to realize the goal. It can be instruments, money for recording, as well as intangible things such as playing skills, a sense of rhythm, charisma, etc.
4. Record material.
Next, the question arises - what to do with this material, because the ways of monetization are quite foggy.
To begin with, the material may not be commercially viable. For example, a group plays music that very much resembles the songs of the notorious VIA "Aria", or is another clone of the Cinema. In this case, the group simply dies quietly in obscurity, where it, in fact, belongs to it.
But let's say the band’s music is really interesting to the potential listener. However, he (the listener) does not know anything about this group. And the task of the group is to bring its music to the listener, and then the money from the listener into your pocket.
Here a certain intermediary appears, which is called the "label". The label is both a professional listener (reviewer, editor) and distributor. It is the primary buffer that eliminates the hopeless clones of VIA Alisa from the reincarnation of Louis Armstrong. The result of the label’s work is the fact that more or less popular groups that have a contract with the label, really are a product of the level “above average”, and the listener does not sink into the sea of information garbage.
Distributing discs as the label’s main income is a completely different matter. It’s just a earnings model that can change at any time. However, if the label cannot be rebuilt for the new model, it will disappear, and then it will begin interestingly.
A disoriented mass listener, accustomed to explaining to him what is good to listen to and what is not (well, you love the voiceless Shevchuk, I know!), Is buried under rubble debris produced by 95% of which he belongs. As a result, self-organization of the system will occur, as a result of which it will go into a state with lower entropy. Target associations of people will appear that will somehow help the listener filter the music. It can be anything - both in the LiveJournal and a habrabotim site with self-regulation and filtering of content by the listener. One way or another, they will help students make their choice. Naturally, after some time, these services will monetize. Monetization models, however, are still unclear, it is doubtful that this will be advertising - most likely, a paid subscription, or paid access to content. In the second case, we get an analogue of the labels, which over time will devour a larger and larger percentage of albums (aityuns), and in the first, the system will be much more interesting.
It is known that a person is a social being and dependent on the opinion of the crowd. The crowd, in the absence of external control, is a stochastic unstable formation, very susceptible to external fluctuations. That is, as applied to our case, the positive rating of the album is a catalyst for making positive ratings in the future, and even hiding ratings is not a panacea - according to comments, reviews and other sources, a person is able to track the opinion of the crowd in order to be “on its own wave”. Plus, the inertia of thinking, because of which the passage album of a famous group can get a much higher rating than a bright album of an unknown group.
Thus, content self-regulation will occur according to an exponential scheme - at the top there will be a very small number of performers who got there due to stochastic fluctuations or by contractual methods. Below, all the same perturbations will occur, and hundreds of good teams with good music will wonder why the community does not notice them.
However, this is only one of the models. The second model - “pay as much as you want” - disappears immediately, because 95% do not want and do not want to pay. In principle, it doesn’t work very well anymore - only Radiohead and a couple of the teams that were the first and already promoted by the labels managed to collect a more or less decent amount. The rest (and thousands) collect pennies. That is, the effect of positive feedback is also manifested here - the better the team is promoted, the more money they collect, the more money they collect - the better it is promoted, and so on. It will still be impossible to get out at least to zero balance for an untwisted team.
The third model is negotiable. Musicians sign a contract with listeners, according to which a new album will be laid out free of charge after a certain amount is formed on the account. The effect is the same - 95% does not want to pay and will wait until the "rich" make the required amount, but for the nameless team this way is completely dead for obvious, I think, reasons.
The division of labor, thanks to which musicians write music and labels sell it, is quite effective. This separation must certainly remain, otherwise the music will finally turn into the category of expensive hobbies, and you will not hear about musicians more often than about collectors of stamps.
In general, even if the labels die, nothing will change much. There will be no more good music, no less bad music, it will also be difficult for beginners to break through, and old-timers will be able to earn money on their own behalf. Because it is not the labels that dictate it, but the very model of the market in which we all live.
I propose to discuss together - what should be the ideal system that could save performers from the untwisted effect?
Now, a little introduction.
A lot of people with whom I spoke in one way or another make one big mistake when talking about copyright and the role of labels in the development of the music industry. They believe that the role of labels is only to make money on artists by circulating and selling discs (which, as all greedy children know, should be sold for a penny, since the price of replication is the very penny) and the whole world would only be happy if if they all suddenly boarded a rocket and flew to Mars. At the same time, Radiohead is constantly cited as an example as an indicator of a commercially successful “free” project.
In principle, talking to such people about copyright in the music industry is like talking to a 3rd grade graduate about relativistic physics ("well, when I click the switch, the light immediately lights up, so the light spreads instantly"). If we take into account that 95% of the population, in principle, are not only capable of creating, but also of comprehending, it becomes very sad, because it is clear that you will never explain your position to a person if he is not able, in principle, to understand it, and even capable - does not want to accept. It’s like a woman’s logic - any argument can be not only refuted, but rejected, even if it is logically flawless (“this cannot be because I don’t believe in it”). Therefore, the article is written for an intellectual minority with whom a positive discussion is possible.
This is the end of the introduction. Let's move on to the main topic. Many of the points that I put forward may seem controversial, your task is to find them, carefully re-read, understand and understand what it is about. Only then can one argue. I do not pretend to be the ultimate truth, but I am not interested in talking with stools.
In a market economy, a very important factor in successful business (which involves making a profit) is the division of labor and specialization. A dozen narrow specialists in the conditions of mass production solve the task much better, faster and cheaper than one person with a wide specialization. With this, I hope no one will argue. In order not to crawl beyond the limits of the indicated conditions, we will talk exclusively about mass culture, leaving aside the art house and its semblance. There are completely different laws.
In order to convey your creation to the final listener in order to receive money from him, the team of performers is required to perform the following actions:
1. To assemble and organize a team of like-minded people united by one goal, able to work together. Like-minded people are needed so that the group does not fall apart in the first months of existence due to creative differences, and the common goal is to mobilize forces to achieve it.
2. To write material that will potentially be in demand by the consumer - this is necessary for the ultimate commercial success of the project.
3. Find the tangible and labor assets necessary to realize the goal. It can be instruments, money for recording, as well as intangible things such as playing skills, a sense of rhythm, charisma, etc.
4. Record material.
Next, the question arises - what to do with this material, because the ways of monetization are quite foggy.
To begin with, the material may not be commercially viable. For example, a group plays music that very much resembles the songs of the notorious VIA "Aria", or is another clone of the Cinema. In this case, the group simply dies quietly in obscurity, where it, in fact, belongs to it.
But let's say the band’s music is really interesting to the potential listener. However, he (the listener) does not know anything about this group. And the task of the group is to bring its music to the listener, and then the money from the listener into your pocket.
Here a certain intermediary appears, which is called the "label". The label is both a professional listener (reviewer, editor) and distributor. It is the primary buffer that eliminates the hopeless clones of VIA Alisa from the reincarnation of Louis Armstrong. The result of the label’s work is the fact that more or less popular groups that have a contract with the label, really are a product of the level “above average”, and the listener does not sink into the sea of information garbage.
Distributing discs as the label’s main income is a completely different matter. It’s just a earnings model that can change at any time. However, if the label cannot be rebuilt for the new model, it will disappear, and then it will begin interestingly.
A disoriented mass listener, accustomed to explaining to him what is good to listen to and what is not (well, you love the voiceless Shevchuk, I know!), Is buried under rubble debris produced by 95% of which he belongs. As a result, self-organization of the system will occur, as a result of which it will go into a state with lower entropy. Target associations of people will appear that will somehow help the listener filter the music. It can be anything - both in the LiveJournal and a habrabotim site with self-regulation and filtering of content by the listener. One way or another, they will help students make their choice. Naturally, after some time, these services will monetize. Monetization models, however, are still unclear, it is doubtful that this will be advertising - most likely, a paid subscription, or paid access to content. In the second case, we get an analogue of the labels, which over time will devour a larger and larger percentage of albums (aityuns), and in the first, the system will be much more interesting.
It is known that a person is a social being and dependent on the opinion of the crowd. The crowd, in the absence of external control, is a stochastic unstable formation, very susceptible to external fluctuations. That is, as applied to our case, the positive rating of the album is a catalyst for making positive ratings in the future, and even hiding ratings is not a panacea - according to comments, reviews and other sources, a person is able to track the opinion of the crowd in order to be “on its own wave”. Plus, the inertia of thinking, because of which the passage album of a famous group can get a much higher rating than a bright album of an unknown group.
Thus, content self-regulation will occur according to an exponential scheme - at the top there will be a very small number of performers who got there due to stochastic fluctuations or by contractual methods. Below, all the same perturbations will occur, and hundreds of good teams with good music will wonder why the community does not notice them.
However, this is only one of the models. The second model - “pay as much as you want” - disappears immediately, because 95% do not want and do not want to pay. In principle, it doesn’t work very well anymore - only Radiohead and a couple of the teams that were the first and already promoted by the labels managed to collect a more or less decent amount. The rest (and thousands) collect pennies. That is, the effect of positive feedback is also manifested here - the better the team is promoted, the more money they collect, the more money they collect - the better it is promoted, and so on. It will still be impossible to get out at least to zero balance for an untwisted team.
The third model is negotiable. Musicians sign a contract with listeners, according to which a new album will be laid out free of charge after a certain amount is formed on the account. The effect is the same - 95% does not want to pay and will wait until the "rich" make the required amount, but for the nameless team this way is completely dead for obvious, I think, reasons.
The division of labor, thanks to which musicians write music and labels sell it, is quite effective. This separation must certainly remain, otherwise the music will finally turn into the category of expensive hobbies, and you will not hear about musicians more often than about collectors of stamps.
In general, even if the labels die, nothing will change much. There will be no more good music, no less bad music, it will also be difficult for beginners to break through, and old-timers will be able to earn money on their own behalf. Because it is not the labels that dictate it, but the very model of the market in which we all live.
I propose to discuss together - what should be the ideal system that could save performers from the untwisted effect?