Re: (TV) Re: Music industry collapse?

[Maurice Rickard <maurice@mac.com>]

At 2:02 PM -0800 1/24/03, Mark G. Ryan wrote:
> For me, the credibility of Wired magazine collapsed along with the
> ".com"s that it championed.

Good point.  Arguably it ended when they sold out to...Newhouse, wasn't it?

> This is a good article, but in typical
> fashion it confuses a long term problem (music downloading piracy)
> with an immediate one (CD sales and concert attendance are down).
> The latter is something of a crisis, if the numbers in the press are
> accurate.

Well, I don't know.  The economy's certainly a contributor to the 
decline, but so is the sense that a) music can (should) be easily 
available electronically, and b) the Man is sticking it to artists. 
Granted that these are gross simplifications, but I suspect that many 
people do think that way at some root level.

> So, if the recording industry is about to collapse (which I doubt),

It does indeed seem unlikely--multibillion-dollar industries don't go 
away overnight.

> More likely that we will just see further
> consolodation in the music industry.

Considering how poorly the last few mergers have gone, I wonder about 
this.  If the current situation (declining revenues) continues, I'd 
think that either the industry will have to change (not necessarily 
for the better but change) or something will rise in its place.

> If Wired's style of journalism had been around back when
> the cassette recorder was introduced, Congress probably would have been
> pursuaded to outlaw it.

I don't think you can lay this all at the feet of Wired--it implies 
that misguided lawmakers read Wired--but it's an amusing quip.

> The Internet did not invent illicit copying or
> bootlegging, and frankly a Chinese knock-off CD is a much bigger threat
> because it is a real substitute for the orginal product (cover art,
> liner notes and all).

Good point.  And in the Great (relatively) Untapped Market, no less.

> Sorry, but when I hear the music industry whining about its situation
> it has got itself into, I think of Evita Peron.

Ah, yes.  Or as TMBG sang, "you made my day, now you have to sleep in it."
--
Maurice Rickard
http://mauricerickard.com/
--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"