radarthekat
About
- Username
- radarthekat
- Joined
- Visits
- 325
- Last Active
- Roles
- moderator
- Points
- 8,812
- Badges
- 3
- Posts
- 3,898
Reactions
-
Jimmy Iovine reveals what's wrong with streaming music, talks Steve Jobs
You answered most of the issues you raised. I’ll try to put it more succinctly, using other professions as an example.dysamoria said:Am I the only one that read his quotes in a Joe Pesci voice?
Let me see if I understand this:
The streaming companies, in order to make more (any?) money, want to sidestep the problem of paying licensing to the record companies for all the content they own, right...?
They want their own content ownership, which they think will come from amongst all the unsigned independent artists, so they can have “original” content on their streaming services...?
In effect, the streaming companies want to become “recording” companies, and basically repeat the whole cycle of the recording industry having a say as to what artists make and how it’s marketed...?
Is that what Iovine is saying?
I don’t know where he gets off saying that it’s a great time to be a musician. It’s a great time to be a person that wants to make music (because the tools are plentiful and even free), but this is the opposite of a good time to expect to earn an income off of being a musician.
There’s just no money in it. Even live performers struggle to make an income, and they put out way more work just for the little they make (travel, lodging, marketing, practice, maintaining a live band, maintenance of equipment and vehicles, etc).
There are countless artists who make great stuff, but they have zero exposure to an audience that wants their work. This is despite the claim of full and direct access to the world.
Iovine sounds like yet another lucky entrepreneur who thinks the examples of success he’s been surrounded by are proof of how it can work for everyone and anyone (survivorship bias).
The music software and hardware business really lives off of the money coming from hobbyists, not paid musicians or studios. The stats collected by developers have indicated as such. The number of hobbyists far surpasses the number of people making a living off of making music (and the corporations make the bulk of the money possible, all on licensing of content).
There’s no access point for the average artist. No path to having an income because there’s more than enough content available and the average artist doesn’t have the marketing might of a corporation (which they waste on 100% owned manufactured content, instead of finding interesting artists out in the world).
Half of my own music library is music that was OFFERED for free online by the musicians that made it, and mostly because they saw no way to make money with it. They wanted someone to at least hear it, so they gave it away.
I struggle constantly with getting myself to work on my music simply because of the reality that it will never provide me with any financial income. There’s no audience. The music business (and our dying economy & culture) have seen to that. People don’t even really value music much at all.
Music is not a rare commodity. With all the commercially manufactured music constantly being pushed out on the radio, malls, restaurants, TV, and every other place with speakers, music is not a compelling item to seek out. Music has become homogenous, and the culture does not value uniqueness. They’re taught not to, by popular culture manipulators (ie marketing).
Blah blah blah, who cares. I’m just one of thousands of artists who will permanently be stuck without an audience for, or an income from their art, struggling to afford just barely subsisting in my life, let alone being able to afford BEING a musician.
It is NOT a good time to be an artist.
Last comment: Visual artists are in the same spot.In baseball or soccer, there’s not much room at the top. How many Major League Baseball players are actively playing each season. One thousand? Those guys get the big bucks, and there’s not much money left for the millions who also love and play the game.But while it’s clear that baseball as a profession offers enormous income at the top, it’s also recognized that there’s a huge air gap between the relatively few who get to play at those levels and everyone else. With millions upon millions passionate about the game, and those same millions willing to play for free due to their love of the game and their drive to compete, we don’t hear the same level of frustration about the majority not being able to make a living playing baseball.It’s almost as though musicians, who presumably are musicians because they have a similar level of passion about music as people do about baseball, don’t understand that if you’re doing something that a huge portion of the population would do for free, you can’t reasonably expect to be able to make a living off it.You should, in fact, not be surprised that there forms a market for that product that parallels the markets for other endeavors huge numbers of humans are passionate about and willing to engage in for no pay. Like sports. A small number of superstars showing off the game at its highest level, inspiring the rest to emulate. Does the world need a million top-paid baseball players to showcase the game? It apparently does not. And that’s the role of top athletes, when you think about it. To showcase their sport. You need more than one, because they need competition at their level, but you don’t need more than a few dozen. And so what has evolved? Yup, a market that supports a few dozen top Olympic skiers, a few dozen top body builders (we’re talking the ones who get the big bucks) a few dozen major league baseball teams, football teams, soccer teams, nascar teams, formula one teams, etc. It would be inefficient to have a world where there were tens of thousands of top baseball players. You just don’t need that many to showcase the sport and inspire kids around the world to dream and find an empty lot to get some exercise in.And so it is with music. There are relatively few, at any given time, active at the top of each genre, showcasing that genre and making the big bucks.All others better be sufficiently passionate to make their music for free or for less than required to make a living. Because the world has spoken, has arranged the market as it has and just doesn’t afford the vast majority a means to make a living as musicians. You may think otherwise, but I’ll offer you this simple mind experiment. Imagine if all the money takes in by the record labels, which artists have long complained they don’t get a fair share of, magically had gone into the artist’s pockets. So now all the money made in music goes to the artists who make it. After marketing g expenses, etc, honestly accounted for. How many artists would that support with a decent living? Pick a number. And what percent of those who dream about being a musician, spend money in instruments and equipment, travel to gigs, etc, would still be left without sufficient income to support themselves? The vast majority is the answer. More than half the kids I grew up with, significantly more than half, had the dream. Music is so fundamental to being human, the market will always be flooded at any level of income with aspiring musicians. And baseball players. The lights and the cheering crowds are seductive. But someone has to do all the other jobs that make the world function. Not many complain there’s no money to be made as an electronics engineer. Because the need for that greatly creeds the need for musicians at all levels, and so there’s both more money going into the engineering trades and it’s more evenly distributed. That’s just how the world gets structured.
-
Apple allegedly discussing Touch ID reinstatement, Mini LED screens with supplier GIS
What idea is that? Insecure face recognition or ill-functioning under screen fingerprint recognition? Because that’s where we are at present in Androidland.bulk001 said:A year from now Daniel will be telling us how Android stole this idea from Apple ...
-
Editorial: Does Apple have the mettle to fight for Mac success in the Pro market?
The next segment will undoubtedly be about use of all that power to develop and test AR apps for the iOS ecosystem, which should soon include AR glasses. Those apps are going to require a hefty development tool like these new Mac Pros.
-
Editorial: Will Apple's $6k+ Mac Pro require brainwash marketing to sell?
“ Apple once had—much like Microsoft Surface or Google Pixel today—a tight, cult-like following of a few million people,...”
There always exist a cadre of early adopters who are a bit more visionary’s than the masses. I’m only sorry to say I wasn’t one of them. In the 90s and first decade of this new century I mocked the Apple Macheads as I struggled along with viruses, DLL incompatibilities and registry hell on a series of unmemorable Windows PCs. It was a virus that wiped out what became my last Windows box that finally led me to try a MacBook Air. Several generations of iPhone, iPad, iPod and AppleTV later I have never once looked back.
-
OLED patent aggregator suing Apple over implementation of every screen it uses
Usually when you go after the final product manufacturer it’s a case of indirect infringement; use of infringing technology in a product. I’m this case the manufacturer (Apple) would hold its supplier liable via indemnification clauses in the supplier contract.22july2013 said:The patent system and the court system are both vitally important institutions. Let it play out.
But I certainly find it interesting to wonder whether a patent owner should be suing the final merchant or the initial merchant of the part. I suspect the patent owner can choose either.
But by suing Apple for direct infringement it’s implied that Apple introduced the infringing tech and not its suppliers. So either they are suing for something Apple introduced to the OLED tech specific to Apple’s implementation, or the plaintive is going to have their suit rejected.
