Jacqueline wrote:
> I just got the newspaper from the musician's union
> and there is quite a controversy over the MP3 site
> and how they have made available copywritten
> music to the masses. Personally, I have not spent
> much time using MP3 technology but it did cross
> my mind that people could get music off the internet
> instead of buying it. Anyone have any comments?
I'm against it.It's said that most people keep on buying cds regardless of
MP3 technology, but I think they'll stop doing that as soon as it becomes
more practical to download mp3 files to portable players, like Rio and
others.
What's so bad about it? Well, can you imagine all the effort and money
involved in recording an orchestra? Who will ever do that for free? Who's
going to pay for sound engineers, studio technicians to do a good job if
that won't be profitable? How about good-quality pop music? Why would
someone bother to gather talented musicians from around the world to record
a cd if they won't be able to pay for that? All the income for good
musicians doing good music, be that classical, jazz or good pop music, would
come from live performances only, and that would make good mp3 files too
expensive for the profit achieved.
And then I think another 'phenomenon' would be intensified: 'produced'
artists. That is: musicians and bands like Backstreet Boys, C. Aguilera and
the like would proliferate in the media, since the only way they would be
able to do big business as they do today would be through overexposition in
the media to attract people to their 'live' performances, buy their
products, etc. Product licencing, like shampoos, notebooks, etc, will become
those artists' main income source ( they may already be that, but it'll be
intensified ).
Instead of signing contracts with record labels, they'll start doing that
with agencies that will deal with their whole image, maybe the media itself
will be their agents, and if you can say that already happens in a certain
way ( a record label which has a big magazine that writes wonderful reviews
about that company's musicians/ singers. Something like Sony and Newsweek, I
should say. ), it'll become standard practice in the future if the media
hires musicians directly.
That's it.
Best regards,
Caio Rossi
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