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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