The music labels are taking major hits of late with the defections of several of its most talented and most successful artists. Madonna is the latest to announce her departure.
It’s about time these guys got what was coming to them. As a consumer it’s now been decades that we’ve been ripped off by these guys. Not only have they overcharged us for their product by artificially keeping the free market from determining pricing but they’ve also been successful at keeping new, better technologies out of our hands for long periods of time. Now they’re out there trying their best to make us forget all about digital music.
Digital music is here to stay and the market is showing that, done right, there is money to be made. In fact, more money per song than has ever been made before. Of course this sort of thinking seems beyond the typical bean counters at the labels. Like most other large entities, they get entrenched in the way they do business and have no capability to respond positively to creative new possibilities. They see all such efforts as an enemy that must be destroyed at all costs.
Think about it. When is the last time you read something positive about the music industry? It’s almost always bad news. How long do these guys have to get torpedoed before they release its their steering that is taking them right into the path of those explosives?
If they don’t respond to the current problem they’re going to find the problem solved for them by going under. Just how many of the most talented artists will it take to leave before these entities can no longer function? I suspect it’s not as many as people might think.
If the artists are smart they should realize that, for the first time in history, they have the labels right where they would want them. It’s time to finally fix this mess once and for all.
The only concern I have is that the labels might react by simply paying the artists more resulting in even more lunacy on the consumer front.
