Thanks to heystoopid for writing in with his following story:
Whilst browsing the web and the blog boing boing, I came across the latest article in the the Rolling Stone Magazine about the continuing decline of the once great music industry as we know it, and how they threw away an opportunity of a lifetime in 2000 to join the new electronic age of the emerging power of the Internet as a new marketing force!
"This is the first part of a two-part series on the decline of the record industry. Today we're including Brian Hiatt and Evan Serpick's report on where the music business went wrong, from the current issue of Rolling Stone, as well as an interactive graphic illustrating the industry's slide. Tomorrow, check back with RollingStone.com for interviews with industry leaders on the future of the music business."
Anyway the effect of decline of this once great industry can be seen in two ways one at normal retail surviving chain store level (applying the Wal-Mart sales concept) where floor space is being turned over to selling Video DVD's and the second is at the second hand store level where sales area of second hand audio CD's is now being diminished to be replaced again by used video DVD's!
In the short term it looks like the big four are about to rapidly shrink in numbers if this continuing downward trend, on the other hand for recording artists who are touring and taking in stacks of cash from cashed up fans, the record companies are about to grab a bigger slice of that pie! It looks like the future for all recording artists in the short term is about to take another downward spiral unless they embrace a direct marketing concept eliminating the ever greedy but dying dinosaur of last century that the baby boomers created!
The source boing boing story can be viewed here.
Discuss this article with your fellow community members! We appreciate your valuable input, but please keep the reaction policy in mind and make sure your reaction is constructive.
By
Mike (guest),
Sat 30 Jun 2007 02:06
RIAA.......you are history "GET OVER IT"
By
rla,
Sat 30 Jun 2007 05:00
Well the article is pretty much on, but not new news at all. A street corner sax player with a tin cup would have predicted this outcome five years ago. The record industry could be saved, but instead they will continue their suits and now will alienate their own artist by picking away at their concert merchandise sales. Next they will want a piece of the sponsorship and endorsement deals. All this is going to do is strengthen some of the direct and independent artists who aren't going to allow themselves to go down with the RIAA ship. The RIAA has threatened scores of P2P outlets and user with suits, screwed up HD radio, darn near destroyed fair use and alienated consumers who they rely on for income. Thousands of college students who witnessed the RIAA suits and institutional intimidation are now out in the world and they wont forget how the RIAA has operated. Man oh man RIAA! You guys sure cooked your own goose. Time for you creative geniuses to get out of the ivory towers and go get a real job. The party is over.
This message was edited at: 30-06-2007 05:05
By
agomes,
Mon 2 Jul 2007 16:02
No surprise. At the end they are coming closer to their goals --- dematerialize music sales.
End of pressing, printing cover and/or sleeves, distribution costs and no need to give away the retailers margin profit.
Ah! They still blame piracy and use other bla-bla to convince us about the guilty for the damage to commerce and reduce the chances we say: NO, we want physical discs with no compressed musics, instead of bauying compressed files over the internet!
The first round was the failure of SACD and now we are closer to lossy compressed files being accepted as normal or the good thing to buy at high prices.
By
Yea Boi (guest),
Mon 2 Jul 2007 16:05
Good article, if the RIAA would have come to some type of universal agreement when Napster came about, where both sides were happy, this could have been a whole new ball game. You dug your own grave RIAA out of CORPORATE GREED. Serves ya right, guess your 6 figure income wasn't enough, you wanted more of the cut of downloaded music too. Now they are trying to go after merchandising and tour sales lol.
And most of the prices I see for legal music downloads is ridiculous. Like people are really going to pay $1.99 for some iTunes shit with DRM. No thanks, I'll get my music elsewhere for a more reasonable fee. Should have jammed to the old school DMX, STOP BEING GREEDY, might have learned something from your own music.
By
Scourge (guest),
Tue 3 Jul 2007 00:15
Ya, screw them. I'm still pissed that the industry STILL is too lazy to put CD-Text on all it's new cd's. So, I can make a better quality cd at home, why should I buy one? The price of cd's should be half of what they are now for new releases. All cd players should have cd text reading ability. AND, HDCD was awesome! All these improvements were available on current technology, yet the record industry said screw it, do as LESS as possible and keep the prices high.. so F them.. they desreve to rot in hell.
I would like to add the trash they are releasing nowdays. Why can't they cater to other tastes instead of always trying for the 10-25 range.
Teens & Early twenties are the people with the most disposable cash. That's where the money is.
The important thing to note is that this is the end of the RIAA, not the end of the entire music recording industry 
We all need music 
