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George Michael Promises To Release All New Songs Free Online
from the wow dept
This one kind of came out of nowhere. I'll admit I'm not a fan of George Michael's music, but am impressed by his announcement today that he won't put out another album ever again, but, instead will put any new songs he creates online for free. If anything, he may let people donate, but he doesn't seem all that interested in it. He says he's made enough money and he doesn't like the pressure of having to put together an album every few years. It will be interesting to see if he sticks by this pledge - and to see how people respond. He also doesn't say if he's done touring - because it would be a worthwhile experiment to see if giving away free music allowed him to keep a bigger following for concerts.
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What George should do
You see, the RIAA has figured out what most people haven't: that P2P isn't a threat because of pirating, but because it eliminates much of the need for a record company (from the artists' standpoint).
Record companies are simply marketing and distribution companies: They take a product, put a wrapper on it (metaphorically), and ship it to stores so people can buy it. There are relatively few record companies, so they can maintain a pricing monopoly much the same way the airlines do (not by explicit agreement, but rather by implicit agreement). And by pricing monopoly, I don't just mean for the price of the album, but also the price "charged" to the artist for this service (in the area of 80% of the gross).
Since P2P is a much, much more efficient distribution method than say, Tower Records ... that leaves only marketing as the record companies' "value add" for a recording artist.
And record companies simply charge too much for their marketing services. A good ad agency could do the work for 10% ... and there are many, many more ad agencies than there are record companies. All an artist needs beyond that is a concert promoter.
So, George better watch his back. He is threatening a monopoly with his practice, and its my belief that the RIAA and its constituent record companies simply will not allow that to happen; even if George has to become a victim to stop it.
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No Subject Given
However, this seems to me a desperate step by a has-been who's hoping to raise some contraversy to get back in the limelight.
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Re: No Subject Given
Ahem. "HELLO!?!!"
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