“Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s Warner Music Group, once derided as an awkward investment in a troubled industry, is starting to gather a little steam,” Sandy Brown reports for TheStreet.com. “Bronfman’s $2.6 billion buy of the Time Warner music division last year, along with a group of private-equity hard chargers, was written off as little more than a vanity play for a self-professed music fanatic cum media mogul. After all, the music industry has been hit by rampant piracy and declining retail sales, trends the industry has been unable to contain. But the tables may be turning. Described as a noncore asset at Time Warner, Warner Music now looks like a play on a management group that saw the time was right to get into an industry in transition.”
“Part of the reason for the uptick may be what Bronfman has said recently regarding file-sharing, industry pricing and pay-for-content as it is distributed on newer platforms,” Brown reports. “‘We are really the arms suppliers to a significant series of wars going on,’ Bronfman said at a recent conference. He noted what he called the device wars, ‘as Sony, Samsung and others come after Apple’s dominance in the device space,’ as well as content distribution wars among telcos, cable, broadcast and others. Plus, Bronfman said, there’s ‘opportunity for penetration on existing platforms like mobile, where, despite drastic changes we’ve seen in digital, we have yet to sell a single song.'”
Brown reports, “Bronfman would like to change the balance of what the music labels get paid for and what they give away. He says that 20 years ago the industry gave music to MTV and made that business successful, and that has more recently been the case where iPods are concerned. ‘We’re selling our songs through iPods, but we don’t have a share of iPods’ revenue,’ he said. ‘We have to keep thinking about how to monetize our content for our shareholders where we’ve been creating value for so many other streams.'”
“Though Bronfman and his group have seemingly put Warner Music on the right track, some investors still think Time Warner made the right choice in bidding adieu to the music business,” Brown reports. “The challenge for Bronfman is to prove those problems aren’t too big to overcome.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wethinks Middlebronfman has popped his cork. Now the greedy @#$%&! wants a share of the hardware revenue, too? Did the record labels get a cut of turntable sales for umpteen years? Did Sony pay Warner Music a percentage of each and every cassette Walkman they sold? For the love of Jobs!
From Middlebronfman’s iPod voice recorder: “Note to self: don’t forget to call the iPod case and accessory makers, we deserve a cut from them, too. And the headphone and speaker makers. Oh, and those guys that make the chips inside iPods, too. And copper smelters! And the plastics makers!! And the LCD screen makers!!! And, and, and… more later. Money, money, money! Ah-hahahahaha!!! (singing) money, money, money, money!“
We hope that someday Steve Jobs is the one who eliminates the middlebronfman and allows the artists to go directly to their fans via iTunes; no more outdated ideas like making an album a year (you write a song, record it and release it via iTunes whenever the creative urge hits) and no more greedy, waste-of-space middlebronfman types always getting in the way with their stupid money-hungry ideas and disproportionately outsized takes.
[Note: MacDailyNews coined the term “Middlebronfman,” a combination of “middleman” and “Bronfman,” in an article on Monday, October 03, 2005 with the sentence, “Eliminate the middlebronfman.” Full article here.]
Related articles:
Apple’s iTunes Music Store dominates as digital music sales more than triple – October 03, 2005
Dvorak: record companies’ biggest concern about Apple’s iTunes is clear and accountable bookkeeping – September 29, 2005
In 99-cent fight with ‘Looney iTunes’ labels, Apple CEO Jobs will get whatever Jobs wants – September 29, 2005
Warner music exec discusses decapitation strategy for Apple iTunes Music Store – September 28, 2005
Warner CEO Bronfman: Apple iTunes Music Store’s 99-cent-per-song model unfair – September 23, 2005
Analyst: Apple has upper hand in iTunes Music Store licensing negotiations with music labels – September 23, 2005
Steve Jobs plays high-stakes poker with greedy record labels – September 22, 2005
Record labels accuse Apple CEO Jobs of ‘double standard’ as they seek to force iTunes price increase – September 21, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs to repel ‘greedy’ record companies’ demands for higher iTunes prices – September 21, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs vows to stand firm in face of ‘greedy’ record companies – September 20, 2005
NYT’s Pogue to record companies: it’d be idiotic to mess with Apple iTunes Music Store prices – August 31, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs prepares for pivotal fight on digital music prices – August 28, 2005
BusinessWeek: Apple unlikely to launch music subscription service – August 15, 2005
Record labels to push Apple for higher iTunes Music Store prices in 2006? – August 05, 2005
Study shows Apple iTunes Music Store pay-per-download model preferred over subscription service – April 11, 2005
Record labels look to raise iTunes wholesale prices, music industry fears Apple’s market domination – March 05, 2005
Report: Apple CEO Steve Jobs ‘angered’ as music labels try to raise prices for downloads – February 28, 2005
Report: Music labels delay Euro iTunes Music Store fearing Apple domination – May 05, 2004
Greedy Big Five music labels looking to jack up iTunes songs to $2.49 each? – April 22, 2004
wtfreak!
This guy needs a lobotomy.
A share of a product they dont have any part in producing? Yeah , right.
Besides, you dont have to own and iPod in order to buy their music.
oh of course! it was WARNER that made the ipod…it all makes sence now!
*smacks head* i should have known!
magic word: cost, as in: it costs Apple to make iPods, this is why THEY make profit from them.
Z
Edgar Dorkman can get stuffed!
Does Adobe get a percentage of every PC that gets sold?
Does Exxon get a share of every BMW?
Maybe GE should get a share of every lampshade.
theyre not going to be needed in the future. where does he get off thinking that hes important, its about the music, and the music comes from the artists. warner and the rest are just the middlemen, gees.
apple is already a distributer. and the fairsest most efficient of them all. just wait until the music labels are cut out of the picture, as far as i can see the music labels are finished. its just a matter of time now. when apple make their own label and give more of the profits back to the artists then just sit back and watch the artists flee in droves. only remains to be seen how long it will take.
What a fool. As if this guy is gonna get anything from Apple. Steve Jobs will laugh his ass out of the office.
it all makes sence now!
Yes it all makes cents, scents, sense now.
Although I find MDN too antagonistic… this time… his wrath at Brofman is 1000% justified…
What a jerk this Brofman is and what kind of mentality is it? Seems like he is trying to be the righteousness fighter for the industry and the consumers… GO HOME! BEAT IT!
continuing post by MCCFR:
Do music labels get a share from CD players sold?
Do movie studios get a share from DVD players sold?
OMG! This kind of greed is crazy. They get money for the music (too much compared to the artists IMHO). If they are really concerned about increasing revenue, they need to rethink their business strategy, not go after the things that play the music.
Note to Brofman: Easy way to participate in iPod revenues, buy Apple Stock!
Disney sells videos for Home TV. Do they get a percentage of TV sales or DVD sales or VCR sales?
Boronfman is bonkers!
End result of all this: iTunes Music label, or buyout of Beatles’ Apple and compete head to head with them by not being greedy
I can´t remember when there was any news about Apple computers.
We sell music but we don’t get a share of what you paid for your cd player, turntable, cassette deck. Oh the humanity. This sounds like RealPlayer all over again.
Why doesn´t apple buy the music companies????
Edgar is a bit upset – he blew the Seagrams family fortune by selling off the booze for Universal Studios then he screwed that up and got into the music business and can´t do that either.
Me-thinks Middlebronfman has gone cuckoo!
I think he needs a flood of emails.
PURE (&(^%^(*^%$%$&* GREED!!!!
Wasnt their a study recently which found that only 60 or so songs on each iPod are legitimate/legal Dl’s, the rest being p2p warez?
Okay, here you are, some bigshot musician whose band’s contract is up for renewal. It’s time to shop around. Do you (a) go to Warner, so that some breathtakingly arrogant buffoon can gamble your future in a heads-Warner-wins-tails-you-both-lose gambit, or (b) sign with somebody else?
Tough choice. Guess I’d go with Sony. Or Virgin. Or Apple.
Methinks that they are looking at the model developed for the Music CD-R where the only difference from a regular CD-R was that part of the purchase price went to a general fund to distribute royalties. They made the assumption that it would be used to re-record commercial music. I doubt that anyone that really deserved the royalties actually received them.
Does that mean that they should have been collecting revenue for every gramophone and record player ever manufactured?
The platform war is nothing new in when it comes to devices that play music…. look at the shift from 78’s to 45’s and 33 1/3’s and the different companies… Columbia/CBS, RCA and others who offered competing “platforms.”
What is new is the pushing of greed way beyond the reasonable limits of the past.
Simple question…..
What value does a music company add ?
Now with modern technology and consumers on the internet, they are no longer needed for production, promotion or distribution.
The music companies act like they create this content….they don’t. They buy it from artists for pennies on the dollar and then act as a broker to the buying public.
Their business model is to screw the artists and the consumers to the max. Apple has to figure out a way to get more money to the artists and squeeze out the record companies.
What’s everyones price threshold that will make them go p2p? $1.09, 1.19, 1.29?
don’t you just love it when rich, bloodsucking, clueless wankers speak about their shareholders? does anyone really think that middlebronfman cares one whit about his shareholders? His Steveness will soon administer a nice spanking to this dork, then send him on his way.
Edgar has an RDF just like SJ … only problem is that it only impacts him.
If I own a Grocery store, and you produce vegetables, Do I have to share my profits with you? I don’t think so!!!
These music industry executives are the greediest ba$tards, almost like Billy Gates. Expenses of producing/selling a CD vs selling music through iTunes are not even cloes to being the same. They are getting most of the money that Apple makes per song, while doing absolutly nothing and still they want more.
Is not like they really share what they make with the artists.
We users/buyers should get organize somehow and let them know what we think of them and their ways.
Boys and girls – Edgar ain´t asking for a share of iPod sales. He´s just making an analogy. Read it again slowly and closely.
Only ones that are concerned about themselves here are the Music producers and Apple. There is no one speaking for the artists or the consumers.
Wouldn´t it be nice to buy directly from the artists and then load it on our iPods? The artists get all the revenue for their creative work.
Settle down guys. Let’s be fair. He never said he wanted a share of the iPod revenue. All he’s saying is that the music he sells is increasing the sales and value of the iPod and other products. And although the music is vital for the growth of these other products, the music has little value in itself. So he’s saying he needs to find a model that monetizes the importance of the music itself.
As interesting as this drama is, I’m not worried one bit. If they force Apple to raise prices, I’ll get my music from more “alternative” sources. I’ll continue to support the artists by going to concerts.
Attention all music artists!
Are you tired of the middleman. Be gone with him now. Sign exclusively with Apple. The future is now.
who wrote ‘middlebronfman’?
thats catchy
“it all makes sence now!”
You mean “SENSE”
No offense, but you must be a Windows user (perhaps at the office, which is likely beyond your control. Otherwise, get a Mac… They have built-in system-wide spell checking.
Me, I am lucky… My employer converted the entire company (175 employees) to Mac earlier this year, and after a couple weeks of minor growing pains, everyone’s productivity at least doubled! Profits are up, expenses are down… Joe, the Windows IT guy, was let go (he was stupid as a rock, and fought the Mac conversion… Now he’s poor and unemployed! Ha ha! F’ you Joe… you prick!). We’re all getting fat bonuses in December (first time EVER in the eight years of this company, and pay rises in January. It doesn’t take much to convince me… The family Dell is getting trashed for a brand new iMac! F’ you Bill Gates!
Do Movie companies get a cut of DVD players?
Do record companies get a cut of CD players?
Do record companies get a cut of cassette players?
Do record companies get a cut of record players?
STF up freakin whiners, everybody wants a slice of the pie, if they want a cut, buy Apple stocks.
This guy is on meth.
“Wasnt their a study recently which found that only 60 or so songs on each iPod are legitimate/legal Dl’s, the rest being p2p warez?”
I have over 2,700 songs on my IPod, I own every song, some many times over. I don’t think this study you refer to includes people like me.
“Why doesn´t apple buy the music companies????”
It ALMOST bought Universal
No, John, you’re wrong. The majority of songs on iPods are ripped from CDs, that have already been paid for to fill the record companies’ pockets.
Bronfman is preaching to the world’s smallest choir.
As for what it would take for me to go Peer to peer, I never stopped downloading illegally, because, as we all know, whether the price of a BJ is 5 bucks or a million, its still prostitution.
“We’re selling our songs through iPods,”
Our songs? it’s my f***ing song Bronfman. I wrote it, and produced it. I own the rights to it. Yeah I sold my soul to your stinking company cause Sony BMG was worse but your days are numbered. Pro Tools, Garage Band G5’s and the Internet are making that a reality. You must be seeing the future, that’s why you’re whining so much.
I really need this guys email address and phone number.
WHAT A COMPLETE TOOL.
king_alvarez – I agree about the nuance, but the perception that has clearly become reality from the responses above is that Bronfman has made an incredible blunder of language – it’s very difficult to put a value on something that cannot be held in your hands without benefit of some physical object, like an iPod.
When the labels were actually creating LABELS to go on the physical albums they were paying to have produced, that was one thing. Now, they’re only getting paid for the digital songs that are sold, rather than a physical product, and Bronfman was (not very successfully) trying to say that they need to figure out how to squeeze “value” out of the digital turnip they’ve created and very happily sold to various music services thus far.
What a jerk. If Bronfman and these other music industry “geniuses” just sold the audio CD’s at $10 like they should be and actually went out to look for real performers instead of the dreck that they keep trying to foist on consumers, they would make more money than the stockholders could count.
Out there in America, in a bar or on a streetcorner, or maybe rocking the hell out of garage somewhere are groups and artists that are making music that could sell the hell out of the stuff they put out right now. Course that would mean focusing on the content of what they sell, and maximizing the value of what they sell instead of just moving procing models and trying to shake down apple and ipod users for another buck or two per song.
It’s supposed to be the music business Bronfman. Focus on the music!
He just made himself transparent and waaaaay beyond clueless. What an ass.
An iPod can be used for more than just music. Plus, why are they not asking for a cut from Sony, Creative, Samsung and others?
Their statements are vindictive because they are pointing at only one company. Even though Apple has the other share, there are other companies out there making money peddling online music and/or MP3 players.
I am still trying to figure out how these “entertainment” idiots assume that technology revolves around them. The fact that they are dictating DRM schemes and trying to force OSes to allow them to spy on users infuriates me to no end.
BuriedCaesar,
You’re not paying for a three dimensional object, your paying for a license. It’s like buying a software product and paying either $100 for a single user license or $1000 for a multiple user license. You get the same CD with the same software program, but the $900 difference is due to licensing. Some vendors will let you download the software for the same price. So even without the physical CD, you still have to pay for the license to use the compiled code.
Bronfman is merely making a very understandable business statement, that the shareholders want their product (music licensing) to be more profitable. It’s the exact same logic that drives Apple’s pricing. The iPod could be a lot cheaper and still be profitable, but it’s not. This is because the company is trying to find the balance between maximum gross margins and maximum amount of unit sales. That is exactly what Bronfman is trying to do. He’s trying to get the maximum value out of the music without a substantial decrease in music sales. Is he doing a good job? Probably not, but that’s a different question.
NYCGuy hit this one, what does the record company actually add to the product now that there are other avenues for distribution. Their model for making money is on its way out. There are winners and losers with every advance of technology.
Loser!
JadisOne,
They are not asking for a cut, and they have not singled out Apple, they merely used Apple as an example to show that there is obviously a huge demand for music. He’s trying to use it to show that music has a high value, which he does not feel his company is receiving.
I’m not trying to defend Bronfman, just trying to be fair.
king_alvarez said: “Settle down guys. Let’s be fair. He never said he wanted a share of the iPod revenue.”
Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman said: “We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don’t have a share of iPod’s revenue. We want to share in those revenue streams.”
king_alvarez, all you needed to do was Google this to know that he was reported by several news sources as saying this. He really couldn’t say it any more clearly: he *does* want a share of iPod revenue. Get your facts straight.
He sells “his” songs through Walmart without sharing the revenue from everything else Walmart selss. Imbecile
This guy–the son of a real businessman–seems to be the “W” of the corporate world. Except without the media training!
He knows a few phrases–“monetize,” “device space”–was born into a nice pile of capital, and certainly has a lot of (poorly justified?) self-confidence. But he plainly doesn’t know squat about (1) negotiating (making these kinds of statements in public will increase pressure on Warner, to be less loony, and not on Apple, to go along with Warner’s looniness, so it’s only self-indulgence on his part); (2) how to maximize sales (hint: it’s not raising prices beyond well-known pricing-psychology breaking points, however much he wishes it were, and 99 cents is the biggest breaking point there is); (3) how to imagine a viable long-term future for his label that doesn’t depend on simply trying to squeeze the most immediate cash out of his assets, short-term.
In a way Bronfman reminds me of Creative’s CEO, just talking a blue streak last year about the superiority of his products–and clearly without understanding at all what was going on in his own market (that Apple was winning not by building little feature-laden computers, but consumer-electronics products).
Anyway, Bronfman is a straightforward pump-and-dumper, and I would simply hate him if my fortunes depended on Warner’s in any way. I’m sure Steve Jobs knows how best to handle him, though.
It’s interesting to imagine the personal psychology of negotiations between Jobs and these music executives, who are successful people by any reasonable standard *except* Jobs’s, compared to whom they look like marginally competent creatures (witness their business performance)–there must be a certain amount of jealousy or resentment on their side.
When are the artists going to get together and start telling Warner, Sony, BMG and others to shove it? It wont be easy, but bog name artists have a lot of clout with their fans who buy their music.. if they say buy from iTunes and not CDs dont think that most of those fans will…
Solution:
Apple and Apple merge.
Result:
‘Apple Music Group’ signs distribution deals with artists directly. Artist get the lions share of royalties (no “music label” middlefskers).
Also, as a side effect, The Beatles songs are finally available on iTunes Music Store.
Rock on Steve!
I also think, given how bad the major labels are proving at performing a useful gatekeeper function–finding and promoting good music–that if would-be money men like Bronfman keep running the show, there’s a better chance now than there ever has been before that the labels truly have no future. And I think it’s probably right to say that they sense this and are frightened, on some level.
Because, assuming no nasty surprises emerge from the Apple-Apple music lawsuit, what’s to stop the iTMS (and other sites like it, but especially the iTMS) from effectively becoming a “label” itself? There aren’t many institutions with greater street cred among musicians and consumers than Apple.
This is a situation, comparable to what one could imagine happening if e-books ever took off, where the “publishers” genuinely don’t have such a useful role to fulfill anymore, because the up-front costs of actually producing and distributing the content are becoming so negligible. Essentially, Warner faces a future as a copyright farm whose assets are getting older and older. And as Bronfman knows, those older tracks that he says he wants so much to discount are a trivial part of the business.
Mac Yak,
Yes, I remember the MDN article that stating that quote. Maybe it’s just a result of his poor choice of symbolism, but I think you’re mistakenly suggesting your interpretation is fact.
Ask yourself this? If he wanted a part of the iPod revenue, why didn’t he just say iPod revenue instead of adding “stream”? Just maybe “stream” actually means something, and that meaning is something other than want you want it to be.
As I said before, I believe Bronfman was merely stating that music is creating many revenue streams, most notably the iPod. iPod sales are largely generated because of the music that is put onto them. Thus, the value of the iPod is not it’s buttons or shiny back, it’s the music that’s on it. Yes, people might still purchase the iPod even without music available for it, but most people would not. So the value is in the music. So the revenue stream that the iPod is a part of consists is largely due to music, which Bronfman does not feel is being valued highly enough.
It just occured to me that the angst felt by the music labels is indirectly coming from the artists. Think about it. Artists get 8.5% of the gross. Because the Labels specialize in selling whole CDs, artist royalty amounts (after deducting costs of distribution) to about $1.00.
BUT, that CD is comprised of mostly filler songs. There are maybe 3 songs (at most) worth listening to on the average CD. Apple pays 70¢ a song sold, which translates to 18¢ (70¢ X 3 X 8.5%) to the artists.
This isn’t about the Labels wanting more for themselves, its about artists that have just seen their gross revenue drop 82%.
The Labels are indeed afraid of losing the artists, and the logical place for artists to go is Apple Computer. They don’t have to produce filler any more, and they can get 60% of the gross (60¢ per song). Of course they will have to pay for production costs, but how much can that be even if you are stamping out CDs?
The key for them (artists) is how many more songs can you sell at 99¢, than you can CDs at $15 – $20? I’ll wager its a lot more.
So you’re “interpreting” what he said, and we’re supposed to accept that?! Get over yourself. The man said what he said; he wants a cut of iPod revenue. If you want to use your own eyes to see the Bronfputz forming the words, don’t interpret! Go to the video!
http://investors.wmg.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=182480&p=irol-presentations
So you’re “not defending him,” huh? Next!….
Steve R: “Are you tired of the middleman. Be gone with him now. Sign exclusively with Apple. The future is now.”
Uh…Steve…wouldn´t that make Apple the middleman? You think Apple just gives all the revenue to the artist?
And…uh…Steve the music companies do a bit more than burn a copy of a CD and send it to music stores….
Bronfman is a neighbor of mine. I think I’ll stand outside of his gated community with an iPod playing.
Ah, he’s Canadian, and he’s probably more focused on the start-up of the NHL season. Go Kings.
mac yak,
I’ll try to make this as simple as possible. I’m not asking you to accept anything other than this: An interpretation is not a fact like you seem to assume. Is my interpretation any more legitimate that your interpreation? No. But since he did not specifically say, “I want a percentage of the iPod sales” his meaning is up for interpretation. Thus, my point is that it is completely pointless to get so upset and angry over something he may or may not have meant, especially since even if you are correct, it’s not something that he can get anyway. However, simple common sense would tell us that he probably did not mean to say something that is essentially impossible anyway.
So instead of making a big deal about this, why not get excited over something that he does have control over, which is song pricing.
Sorry not sure if this has been said yet, but I have yet to buy a sont through my iPod. I have bought them through iTMS, and in record stores, but never through my iPod.
MW: End – Record Labels are coming to their End
I too will not be surprised to see more commercial artists getting out of their major label deals… like Pearl Jam & Collective Soul (although I think Collective Soul was dropped, they are doing quite well as an indie. Pearl Jam on the other hand has brilliant marketing and probably consider leaving their label the best choice they ever made).
We are totally independent and finally got our 2nd album on iTunes (still waiting for our first album to show up). We have a digital distribution deal through an independent distributor and receive 90% of profits made from sales. That works out to roughly $0.62 per song and $6.20 per album. I can’t imagine it will take long for commercial artists to look and see how much they’re losing and how much captial they’d have to run their own show if they cut out the label.
Another MAJOR issue is the fact that we are on every available iTunes store across the globe. We do not have to worry about regional licencing crap which open us up to the entire global market… the way it should be. I hate not being able to buy certain artists that are on iTunes because of the particular country I live in.
It will be a slow process, but more commercial artists with rabid fan bases will see the advantage of handling their own business. Of course, the record labels are going to fight tooth and nail to keep them.
<shameless plug> Incidentally, our band name is exit 303. I’d love if you checked us out.</Shameless plug>
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> ‘We sell our songs through iPods, but we don’t have share of iPod revenue’>
Shell– “We sell our gas through gas stations to car owners, we don’t have a share of Ford, GM or Mitsubishi.”
I made this same argument a while back about this guy – will he extend his take on the hardware revenue to all PCs (since that is where the interface between buyer and seller resides), hard drive manufacturers, CD player and stereo equipment makers, too?
Apple should request more revenue from the labels because iPods create demand for their product, too….
i think we all know what middlebronfman meant but as a public figure for his company he better watch what he says, because he just looks like a big idiot for the statement he made. Either way record companies are here for reason whether we like to admit it or not, but I definitely the model has to be restructured @ least with the iTMS store where the artist actually make more than 7-cents for each song, @ least almost 40% because the music companies basically do nothing to control how popular the songs become online, only on the radio and TV! and half the damn songs on TV & radio don’t influence what I buy @ iTMS
Cam,
Good luck to you guys. BTW. what equipment are you using?
And, do you know about these guys?
Mr. Middlebronfman did the record labels help with Apple’s R&D of the iPod,no. Did the record labels help with the production of the iPod,no. Did the record labels help with distribution of the iPod,no. Did the record labels put up and serve the iTunes music store,no. Did they help with the R&D of the music store,no. So where is your contribution Mr. Middlebronfman that makes you think you deserve some of the profit from the iPod? I don’t think so. ITMS only gets 30 cents which goes toward providing the network services to serve all the music and that’s it.
He’s the one wanting Variable pricing, and now he’s complaining about not getting a cut of iPod sales?! Middlebronfman, you have sunk to new, greedy lows.
The Music industry, if they get their way, is in for a HUGE shock. I think a lot of people will be so mad if prices increase so quickly, that sales will drop hard and fast, and P2P sharing will explode. And here’s the kicker, I don’t think it’s going to be all about the money. I think it’s the principle of the thing. People will stop paying for music and switch to illegal downloads because they’ll be angry about the MI’s greed, not the actual prices themselves.
Consumers by and large will see this as a slap in the face. Some will be so offended, they wills top purchasing music altogether. Others who were thinking about buying music online may change their minds. Why bother downloading music if it costs as much or more than buying a factory made CD? 99¢ a song/$9.99 an album (avg) is a nice, comfortable, sweet spot for most people buying music today. I like it a lot, and I get only the tracks I want. This reveals another truth the Industry doesn’t want to admit, that in recent years, they’ve been churning out increasingly larger amounts of mediocre music. By giving people a choice a’la carte, the Industry can’t shove their choices for Number One hits down our throats.
This isn’t about Apple, as much as Middlebronfman tries to make it look that way. It’s about the MI trying to kill the Goose that laid the Golden Egg. (And they will kill it if they get their way.) This is about the MI being scared. to. death. about not having complete control over the industry. I think they don’t like being told what is or isn’t popular, either.
A friend of mine brings up another point….
The irony is that the industry doesn’t have a user-friendly solution…. that’s the main reason that the ITMS went over like wildfire in California. It’s easy and elegant…. while the industry is wanting to shove legislation, DRM (which can and will be defeated quickly), higher prices and intimidation upon the VERY CONSUMERS they are trying to convince to spend their money on an increasingly poor product.
Personally, I think one of the undercurrent that has the industry fuming is the fact that the ITMS has revealed that the threshold to make money off of popular music is MUCH MUCH lower than the industry wants us to believe.
People have the one thing that scares the ones that want to take advantage of others: Knowledge.
Just checked out Cam’s group, Exit 303…..
nice, they came right up on the music store. They’ve got a millenial/seattle kinda sound. Good group. “You’re A Star” is a great track.
MDN word is “Might” as in I might buy their tracks this afternoon.
jim
Investment in ipod development by music industry $0.
Why would they get any of the profits?
They get their product in the front of millions (they make some money with the current plan) and it costs them nothing.
They need to shut up and live with what they have gotten already.
Thanks Jonny & Jim!
Jonny… if you’re asking what equipment was used in the recording, it was recorded at my studio on a ProTools Mix+ system. If you want more details, let me know.
Yes we know about the “other” Exit 303. Not much we can do about it. Not unusual for there to be many bands with the same name. We’ve been around much longer… not that it would matter if it came down to a trade name dispute. Too costly and not worth it for us (at this point) to protect the name across North America. We’ve had clubs accidentally link the wrong website in their promo. Annoying sometimes, but what can you do…
An interesting aside… I mentioned that we’re still waiting for our first album to be added even though they were both submitted at roughly the same time. I’m wondering if indie priority goes to those artists that are getting more exposure. The only reason I say that is we’ve had significant (2000+ commercial spins) off this album (You’re A Star & All I Wanted). That radio play is tracked and I wonder if the powers that be prioritize their adds by who’s charting… just find it interesting.
Thanks again for your interest and checking it out! This is how the new music paradigm is supposed to work. 😀
Cam
Bronfman = Greed
It’s just business, friends. The music execs don’t like having to rely on Apple to distribute their music – I wouldn’t want my livelihood to depend on someone else, either. The best scenario for them would be to distribute their music from their own websites but using a common DRM owned by the RIAA, which is playable on a range of cheap players. Right now Apple has them by the ba##s and they realize it. I think they’re just waiting for the tipping point where the majority of music sales are from online sources before they make their move.
Hairsplitting. “iPod stream” or “iPod sales” doesn’t make a bit of difference as to what he actually meant. One “interpretation” is no more valid than the others.
What it comes down to is simply that he wants more money. “He’s trying to use it to show that music has a high value, which he does not feel his company is receiving.”
I’ll agree music has value. But, his company is receiving value. It’s just not what he wants.
And, I will say that it isn’t the music that necessarily adds value to the iPod, but it’s the iPod that makes the music more valuable. By making all the music I have much more readily accessible to me, when and where I want. Music doesn’t have and can’t add those values.
It would be greedy if he had a case.. but it shows just how pathetic their business model is that they’re grasping for ‘revenue owed’ out of thin air because the money they’re making off digital music is so meagre.
Is that Apple’s fault?
No. They make about 70 cents revenue off 500 million songs on iTunes…
So what are they griping about?
Jealousy.
This notion that it is the record companies content on iTMS that is driving demand for iPods is the biggest load of cr@p since the “world is flat, i tell ya”.
Down here in (under-privileged) Australia we have no iTMS yet apple has sold over 1 million iPods in a population of only 20 million people.
We have also had WMA download sites for a year or two but no one is buying WMA players.
Any journalist that can’t debunk bronfman’s theory is either on the pay roll or drugs.
Why should anybody be surprised that Bronfman wants a share of iPod revenue? There is already a precedent for such an atrocity – the labels get a share of blank cd sales revenue.
mw: “every” – how appropriate
Let me make it perfectly clear:
My job is to make money for my stockholders.
I want a cut of revenues from the sales of all devices (ipod, zen, turntable, victrola, whatever) used to play MY music.
Then, when I get that, I want a cut of the consumer’s ears too. After all, you need ears to listen to MY music. How to get revenue from ears? We don’t know yet, but we are working on it.
The only thing i have to say to you is that the prices will inevitably go up.. and I will admit to repeating this and only this.. “Apple stock will not be oil proof forever and the economy today will be far better than tomorrow.. the economy is tanking”…
If apple reprices we have to renegotiate.. we did not blindly sign a contract.. We (the labels ) could go quietly into the night and let this happen on its own.. or address issues that could keep my label, my artists and apple afloat longer..
Even Steve Jobs can deny this.. no one can deny numbers and the numbers show that no company can be oil proof. Microsoft is a cash cow for god sakes and its feel the burn of oil prices.. apple will come down and prices will go up.
Make what you want for my argument.. but this prediction will come true.
Wake up.. please wake the F@ck up!
I am going to as many posts as i can to remove the foul odor the reality distortion field is causing on the environment!
That’s bullshit, actors don’t ask for revenue from television set manufacturers and gas stations don’t ask for revenue from automobile manufacturers. Fuck you! Make better music and maybe people will buy your garbage. Also appealing to the right audience helps, rapping about being a thug isn’t going to land you paying listeners.