Swimming upstreaming music
The day of reckoning for the music industry are fast approaching. They continue to shift and snap to maintain their position at the trough, but tougher, meaner, little piglets want to feed. A good case in point is the soon-to-be increase in royalties levied against groups playing streaming music on the Internet. The rate hike goes into effect on July 15th and has already been challenged by several prominent groups, most recently, NPR, on behalf of its sister stations.
The evolutionary aspect kicks in when you consider who benefits the most from these rate hikes, and who pays the lobbyists to get favorable legislative treatment. It's the music companies, not the artists. The middlemen. And I don't buy the argument that they take huge investment risks and are entitled to huge rewards. They do sign a lot of new acts that won't pay off, but they rarely market anything less than a sure thing and that's where most of the cost is.
There may not be a place in the New World Order for music distributors. They may have to join slide rule manufacturers, asbestos pot holder makers and members of the Senatorial Ethics Committee in obsolescence hell. Good.
Posted on June 01, 2007
