Anyone can set up a site with MP3 downloads and a Paypal option.
Not true, as I know from experience. Setting up and maintaining a decent website takes a lot of knowhow & work. To build an online music store from scratch, you need all kinds of back-end database knowledge. If it was easy, there wouldn't be programmers charging £300 per day to do it (and they are constantly busy, at least the ones I know are). The reason myspace works so well is that it's based on a template that musicians can get their head around, and it includes the networking features. You
could build that into a standalone site, but most musicians dont want to learn programming to that level - if that was what they wanted to do they'd be web designers, not musicians.
i read myspace will take 45% of takings, which is better than (major) record companies, but they have far higher costs e.g. manufacturing, marketing etc.
Blunt is spot on to point out that online co's have costs too... I would say in addition that major record companies
do have fixed costs, but they also use every contractual opportunity to fleece artists - some of their scams are hair-raising. Their manufacturing costs are also nowhere near as much as they claim (I know, I used to work in a pressing plant).
Basically, the whole economics of the music industry is about getting artists into as much debt to the label as possible and keeping them there - labels will throw money around on video shoots and marketing, because the costs are then passed on to the artist and untimately get deducted from their royalties (like a bank giving you a credit card, because they know they'll collect many times over as you struggle to pay it back). Bear that in mind when assessing what major labels say about their costs.
i find it ironic and amusing that people seem to regard murdoch as the great new hope for music. least bad option? what the hell are the others like?
to say that "he's sincere in his vision for the future of media and I think he's bought myspace as a central part of that, not just as a cash cow" goes against his whole history in business too.
Bassnation, where do you want me to start? Conrad Black? Richard Desmond? The beancounters at Bertlesmann & Universal, who are currently trying to slip a merger past the EU which has already been rejected once? Look in every media boardroom and there are usually far,
far more odious people than Murdoch in there.
Matt, I can't see much evidence in Murdoch's business history to support that. All his big acquisitions are strategic - there's no major company that he's asset stripped or killed off through neglect, and how many career CEOs can you say that about? He's been the main driver of developments in the UK media for the last 2 decades, whether that's a good or a bad thing is open to debate but it shows that he does and must work strategically. People quite rightly have a problem with him because of his political meddling and the consequent bias on Fox and in his papers, but on a business level I think he's one of the more enlightened operators in the media (*ducks*).
a burgeoning network of DIY music...
I dont see a burgeoning network of DIY music, as far as online sales are concerned. I just see tiny, isolated labels and artists shouting into a void. Like I say, I would love for there to have been a genuine indy collective emerge to make use of the web's potential for DIY musicians but nothing like that has happened. If you compare the model proposed for Myspace to what's actually on offer to DIY musicians at the moment, instead of to what they would have in an ideal world, it's got to be a good thing.
F&ck me, can't believe I'm using my evening to defend Rupet Murdoch :slanted: