Legalization of Marijuana
From Jacks blog I learned about the histroy fo marijuana and how there actually seems to be quite a bit of negative impact from the criminalization of Marijuana. I was surprised to find out that Marijuana costs the government millions of dollars a year in jainling offenders who have broken the law. I found it interesting as well that many offenders have actually owned the marijuana legally and where jailed unjustly. The fact that Barrack Obama is working towards rethinking these laws was nice to here about as well.
Internet Music
Although Joe's blog was similar to mine, I still learned a lot form visiting his wiki page. Most of the inforamtion that I have written down about interent music was taken from his hard research. I learned from him how the internet is hurting record sales and is also utilized in helping promote obscure artists. I was also interested to find that the recording industry is where the interent has hurt labels the most. I would have assumed it would have bben the promotional aspect but Joe's wiki shed light on this topic for me.
Drinking Age
I thought Natalie's wiki did a great job in telling me about a contemporary issue I didn't even know existed. I had no idea that many government officials were rethinking the drinking age and that maybe the dirnking age was going to be lowered to 19 or 18. Natalie raising the question "How young is too young" was also very inciteful and her voice thread was very informative about thsi topic. I though that the fact that the drinking age was hightened just to combat drunk driving was also very interesting.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
My essay for Independent Music
Independent Music, A Changing Industry
To begin, I chose to do my independent study on independent music and its effect on the music industry for a variety of reasons. The first of which is that I am myself an independent musician and looking to make a career out of it. To be perfectly blunt, I figured that if I could research independent music in my spare time and get an A in school for doing so, why not? The second reason is really just legitimate interest in the topic. The music industry is a fascinating topic for study and the resent arrival of independent music only colors this topic further. My researching this I learned a variety of things ranging from how the Internet has affected the music industry to the best way for an obscure indie artist to get recognition. In this blog post, I will give a brief summary of everything I learned while making this blog and my wiki page.
The first and one of the most important things I learned was how the music industry itself was changing due to the arrival of widespread indie music. There are two ways to look at this situation, one from a corporate standpoint and the other from the position of an artist. From the corporate perspective, independent music is literally dismantling the industry. This is due to the fact that a large record label is no longer needed by artists to produce their music and to provide them with a studio in which to record their music. “Today’s technology allows artists to produce a record for about $500 when about 10 years ago a $30,000 music studio was needed”. Another factor that is contributing to the decline of corporate music is the fact that music labels are no longer really needed to promote music. The Internet has pretty much taken over this aspect of the industry. The Internet allows anybody to post his or her art on it for absolutely free. Where an industry was once needed to create a buzz about a band or record, now the simple act of uploading a song onto the Internet can be the only requirement to get noticed. The final and perhaps most important reason that the music industry is failing is because of a rapid decline in cd sales. This is once again due to the usage of the Internet. “Streaming music and the illegal downloading of music from p2p sites has almost replaced the previous practice of buying cds or vinyl records”. The Internet has also created a proverbial catch 22 for artists themselves. If an artist is obscure and not yet realized, the Internet is a fantastic resource and utility to promote their music. Usually these artists are more than willing to give their music away for free just for exposure. As an artist becomes more famous though, the Internet actually bites into their income because it hurts their record sales. The topic of the Internet and its effect on the music industry requires an essay by itself. Well, the good news is that there is one at my friend Joe’s blog. I will provide a link to it in my bibliography.
The effects of independent music from an artist’s perspective are much more rosy than from the corporate one. Independent music has opened literally an entire new world of music that would have at one time been squashed by the industry. Usually an artist on a major label is owned by the label and not allowed to be very creative with their art. The label only cares about selling cds so anything that will produce a it is god while anything different is shunned. Independent music allows artists to be creative again because they are label independent. The shear amount of music available has grown exponentially as well because more bands exist now than ever before that are able to promote their music using today’s sophisticated recording technology and the Internet. Artists now stand to make much more money than before as well. This is due to the very simple fact that now an artist gets 100% of their profits from merchandising, cds, concerts etc. than say the previous 2% they would have made under a label. This is fantastic for artists. “Previously, artists were forced to sell millions of records to make any kind of profit. Lets say they make $2 for every $12 record sold (the label keeps the rest). The artist is making only 2 million dollars for selling 1 million cds! Well, an independent artist can sell their record for $10 and keep all this money per record sold. Now lets pretend they sell ½ of what the artist on the label sells which would be 500,000 cds. They just made 5 million dollars, which is 5 times more than the artist on the label! This is very exciting because it is easier than ever before to make money from music” (Chris Powers).
In conclusion, Independent music has revolutionized the industry in a variety of ways. This topic is important in contemporary society because it is create a vivid new landscape for the consumer to take part in. If you love music, now is a great time to be alive! Independent artists are making more money and promoting more music than ever before. From a corporate view, this is awful because the labels themselves are crumbling but from a artist’s view, this is fantastic! The Internet has revolutionized these practices as well as has the recent arrival of cheap yet sophisticated recording equipment.
Bibliography
(Here’s Joe’s blog)
joesprettyrainbow.blogspot.com/
www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all
www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/
www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/04/illegal.downloading.is.here.to.stay
To begin, I chose to do my independent study on independent music and its effect on the music industry for a variety of reasons. The first of which is that I am myself an independent musician and looking to make a career out of it. To be perfectly blunt, I figured that if I could research independent music in my spare time and get an A in school for doing so, why not? The second reason is really just legitimate interest in the topic. The music industry is a fascinating topic for study and the resent arrival of independent music only colors this topic further. My researching this I learned a variety of things ranging from how the Internet has affected the music industry to the best way for an obscure indie artist to get recognition. In this blog post, I will give a brief summary of everything I learned while making this blog and my wiki page.
The first and one of the most important things I learned was how the music industry itself was changing due to the arrival of widespread indie music. There are two ways to look at this situation, one from a corporate standpoint and the other from the position of an artist. From the corporate perspective, independent music is literally dismantling the industry. This is due to the fact that a large record label is no longer needed by artists to produce their music and to provide them with a studio in which to record their music. “Today’s technology allows artists to produce a record for about $500 when about 10 years ago a $30,000 music studio was needed”. Another factor that is contributing to the decline of corporate music is the fact that music labels are no longer really needed to promote music. The Internet has pretty much taken over this aspect of the industry. The Internet allows anybody to post his or her art on it for absolutely free. Where an industry was once needed to create a buzz about a band or record, now the simple act of uploading a song onto the Internet can be the only requirement to get noticed. The final and perhaps most important reason that the music industry is failing is because of a rapid decline in cd sales. This is once again due to the usage of the Internet. “Streaming music and the illegal downloading of music from p2p sites has almost replaced the previous practice of buying cds or vinyl records”. The Internet has also created a proverbial catch 22 for artists themselves. If an artist is obscure and not yet realized, the Internet is a fantastic resource and utility to promote their music. Usually these artists are more than willing to give their music away for free just for exposure. As an artist becomes more famous though, the Internet actually bites into their income because it hurts their record sales. The topic of the Internet and its effect on the music industry requires an essay by itself. Well, the good news is that there is one at my friend Joe’s blog. I will provide a link to it in my bibliography.
The effects of independent music from an artist’s perspective are much more rosy than from the corporate one. Independent music has opened literally an entire new world of music that would have at one time been squashed by the industry. Usually an artist on a major label is owned by the label and not allowed to be very creative with their art. The label only cares about selling cds so anything that will produce a it is god while anything different is shunned. Independent music allows artists to be creative again because they are label independent. The shear amount of music available has grown exponentially as well because more bands exist now than ever before that are able to promote their music using today’s sophisticated recording technology and the Internet. Artists now stand to make much more money than before as well. This is due to the very simple fact that now an artist gets 100% of their profits from merchandising, cds, concerts etc. than say the previous 2% they would have made under a label. This is fantastic for artists. “Previously, artists were forced to sell millions of records to make any kind of profit. Lets say they make $2 for every $12 record sold (the label keeps the rest). The artist is making only 2 million dollars for selling 1 million cds! Well, an independent artist can sell their record for $10 and keep all this money per record sold. Now lets pretend they sell ½ of what the artist on the label sells which would be 500,000 cds. They just made 5 million dollars, which is 5 times more than the artist on the label! This is very exciting because it is easier than ever before to make money from music” (Chris Powers).
In conclusion, Independent music has revolutionized the industry in a variety of ways. This topic is important in contemporary society because it is create a vivid new landscape for the consumer to take part in. If you love music, now is a great time to be alive! Independent artists are making more money and promoting more music than ever before. From a corporate view, this is awful because the labels themselves are crumbling but from a artist’s view, this is fantastic! The Internet has revolutionized these practices as well as has the recent arrival of cheap yet sophisticated recording equipment.
Bibliography
(Here’s Joe’s blog)
joesprettyrainbow.blogspot.com/
www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all
www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/
www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/04/illegal.downloading.is.here.to.stay
Sunday, December 7, 2008
A INTERENT SCAVENGER HUNT. OH MY!
Sometime this next week I will be posting a series of questions followed by a link to several different websites for the answers. This way, you all can pretty much research this subject the same way I did and thus become as knowledgeable as me :). Well, expect the post sometime around the middle for the week and I will leave a special prize at the end for whoever completes the scavenger hunt first!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Some interesting Statisitics
While I was searching the web for some more relevant info regarding the music industry, I came across some interesting statistics. The one I found most poignant is shown below:
According to this graph, it would appear that streaming is the most common medium for people to access music from the web. I found this surprising and a little worrisome. It surprised be because this would mean that the majority of people do not download their music anymore, they steam it off of a website for a one time use. This worried me because this would cut out all sales of music over the internet all together. I guess it is a good thing for artists' merely trying to get exposure. The other surprising aspect of the graph was that it showed that legal downloading is more common then illegal p2p downloading. It was also nice to see that the amount of legal downloads increased over the past year. Well, make what you want of the graph, but I think it speaks volumes about the internet and how it is effecting music today.
According to this graph, it would appear that streaming is the most common medium for people to access music from the web. I found this surprising and a little worrisome. It surprised be because this would mean that the majority of people do not download their music anymore, they steam it off of a website for a one time use. This worried me because this would cut out all sales of music over the internet all together. I guess it is a good thing for artists' merely trying to get exposure. The other surprising aspect of the graph was that it showed that legal downloading is more common then illegal p2p downloading. It was also nice to see that the amount of legal downloads increased over the past year. Well, make what you want of the graph, but I think it speaks volumes about the internet and how it is effecting music today.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A Treasure Trove of Music Biz info
Well, I was researching some books on the music industry when I came across one called the Future of Music written by Davis Kusek and Gerd Leonherd. I was about to purchase it on amazon when I discovered that it is available as a free download podcast off of itunes! These two authors definitely did their research because the shear wealth of knowledge contained within the book is astounding. Here, paraphrased, is an excerpt from chapter 6.
" The music industry no longer solely caters to the "popular market" where youth make up a large demographic. In times past, this was where the majority of record sales was because the music was popular, thus the term pop-music was formed. Now since the internet has taken over, more music than just "pop" can be heard. The "net" generation actually end up using the internet as a means to find new music and then purchase it. Speaking of the net generation, online music retailers such as iTunes actually sell a larger bulk of music digitally than other companies that sell compact disks! The youth actually benefit from free online music sources because a credit card is no longer needed to purchase music. Napster cited this as a major hurtle because the majority of the youth music demographic don't have access to a credit card."
This is what the book looks like.
This is just but a taste that this book has to offer. I will be posting more upon it soon.
" The music industry no longer solely caters to the "popular market" where youth make up a large demographic. In times past, this was where the majority of record sales was because the music was popular, thus the term pop-music was formed. Now since the internet has taken over, more music than just "pop" can be heard. The "net" generation actually end up using the internet as a means to find new music and then purchase it. Speaking of the net generation, online music retailers such as iTunes actually sell a larger bulk of music digitally than other companies that sell compact disks! The youth actually benefit from free online music sources because a credit card is no longer needed to purchase music. Napster cited this as a major hurtle because the majority of the youth music demographic don't have access to a credit card."
This is what the book looks like.
This is just but a taste that this book has to offer. I will be posting more upon it soon.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Internet Good for Record Sales?!?!
Well, I've been scavenging the net to find some of the positive aspects of Indie Music. Surprisingly enough, I found that the internet is actually helping record sales of independent artists! It seemed to me that the internet would hurt profits since you can just download media for free. This following Article I think helps explain this point: "
The Changes in What Was Being Sold
The profile of what was being sold was also changing.
While speciality retailers carried inventories of 2,000 – 10,000 titles in their larger stores, Big Box stores carried fewer selections, focussing on the 200 titles that represented the bulk of music sold. The result of the shift in market share to the Big Boxes has reduced the variety of titles available not only in the Big Boxes but, because of the changed economic model due to the loss of volume sales, in the specialized retailers as well.
Summarizing the situation then – in today’s world of physical sales, fully half of the retail volume is accounted for in destinations that carry limited inventory and where inventory selection does exist, it is in the aisles of retailers who are struggling to survive.
With time, as more and more specialized retailers either disappear or scale back on their operations, the scenario for choice at brick and mortar retail will probably worsen.
The specialized retailers who continue selling music today often have relegated music to a secondary position within their stores as a matter of survival. Prime retailing and display space is given over to DVDs and Gaming – the Hail Mary pass for those retailers – at least for now." http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/pubs/music_industry/3_e.cfm
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