Panorama: Are the net police coming for you?

[theeldergeek]

And with that whiney moron Jeremy Vine...

I cannot STAND that bloke! I refuse to watch Panorama all the time he is involved, and re-tune my radio to anything but Radio 2 when he is on.

[theeldergeek]

If the music industry is in such dire straits financially, then how come Sony Music have managed to stump up £133million for rights to Michael Jackson's music and memorabilia?

That is an obscene amount of money.

[j17sparky]

I think that the current crisis is brought about my music industry figures such as Simon Cowell and his ilk. It seems that at the moment to become a successful artist you have to be "discovered" by one of them on some reality TV show ... If they spent more time, as used to happen, scouting out raw talent from small gigs in pubs etc. and then promoting them I feel that the music industry would once again become as relevant and essential as it used to be back in the day.

No no, thats how its always worked. Look at the beatles or led zeppelin. No wait thats not right

It seems now that you have to be "instant success", ie the record companies can milk you for a year or 2, and then get rid. Theres no loyalty to the bands, from record companies and fans. Look at the Kaiser cheifs and the Arctic monkeys. Both got 2 years of "success" and then 2 more years of Top100, now they are all but gone.

[jamesb]

If the music industry is in such dire straits financially, then how come Sony Music have managed to stump up £133million for rights to Michael Jackson's music and memorabilia?

That is an obscene amount of money.

Well, the banks are being encouraged to loan money...

[Jon]

How about ...

They make ALL music freely downloadable BUT tag a 5 second ad on to the begining and end of every track. This would allow people to download whatever they wanted, and in the process discover new talent, that they would otherwise never dream of buying or listening to, plus, it would generate income at the same time.

If you then wanted the music without the ad you could buy it as you currently do.

[webman]

How about ...

They make ALL music freely downloadable BUT tag a 5 second ad on to the begining and end of every track. This would allow people to download whatever they wanted, and in the process discover new talent, that they would otherwise never dream of buying or listening to, plus, it would generate income at the same time.

If you then wanted the music without the ad you could buy it as you currently do.

Or instead of paying, I could create a script that uses freely-available tools to strip the first and last 5 seconds of every track I download.

[Jon]

Or instead of paying, I could create a script that uses freely-available tools to strip the first and last 5 seconds of every track I download.

You could do that, but, not everybody could, plus income has already been generated from the ad

[somabc]

These articles from Courtney Love & Steve Albini sum up the problem with record companies

Courtney Love does the math - Music News: Artists. Songs. Videos - Salon.com
The Problem With Music