RE: music business slump

From: Dirk van den Heuvel (dirkv@groovedis.com)
Date: Thu Nov 29 2001 - 03:10:23 CET

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    This sounds good, but don't believe it. Small indie labels are hurt far
    worse by casual copying and mp3 trading because 1)they less paying
    customers to make up for the losses, 2)their market is more specialized.
    When 5 million buy a new Metallica CD and 500,000 copy it, Metallica
    still made a ton. When 800 copies of a small import comes into the
    country and 100 people copy it it's a huge loss. Percentwise it may be
    close but the impact is much greater since 800 paying customers don't
    pay for much to begin with. Think of whether or not that small label
    will still be around next time to make a copy of a copy for your pals.
    You'd be surprised how many small labels are run by people part-time
    because they can't afford to live of the label.

    Now I'm a 110% for real audio samples and mp3 SNIPPETS, but when the
    full tracks are available as mp3s or people start trading CDRs it's
    usually bad news for the small labels I deal with.

    Dirk van den Heuvel
    President/GM, Groove Distribution
    "Your Guide To The Underground"
    http://www.groovedis.com

    -----Original Message-----
    From: thomas.giles@st-annes.oxford.ac.uk
    [mailto:thomas.giles@st-annes.oxford.ac.uk]
    Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 7:18 PM
    To: acid-jazz@ucsd.edu
    Subject: Re: music business slump

    > Sh*t... I'm buying more than ever... probably because I have access
    > to resources that help me find music I like (ex: this list, web radio,

    > etc). That said, I can see how the bootlegging side is hurting
    > companies. I just had a neighbor ask me to help her create a bootleg
    > compilation of some African music. When I tried to explain liscensing
    > to her she either refused to listen to me or just didn't give a darn.
    > Really cheesed me off....
    >
    It occurs to me that its only really the majors that are hurt by
    .mp3s. Underground music sales are supported by collectors -
    people who are not content with just getting cheap CDRs of stuff.
    We love vinyl, damn it! Given that mainstream (& non-web) radio
    doesn't feature much of the kind of music discussed round these
    here parts, its only good that we can get hold of mp3s of stuff, if we
    can't get the records. Consider this: if JCR emailed everybody
    small snippets of the new Jazzanova album (or some such
    smallish label did something like this) and you listened to it for a
    month before it came out, and it was wicked - because it will be,
    lets face it - how much would you want to but that LP?! You want it
    so much more than anything else!
    What we shouldn't let happen is bootlegging, this is certainly
    reprehensible, and dangerous for both majors and minors. But is
    there really a lot of professional bootlegging of underground(ish)
    stuff? I don't know 'cos i've never tried to buy it. Making CDs for
    your mates however, is essential to spreading the word. If none of
    this happened all the small record labels would go out of business,
    and then who'd care about royalties?

    regards
    >>>tg





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