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stories filed under: "kid rock"
Culture

Culture

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
albums, itunes, kid rock, music, record labels, singles



Bands Avoiding iTunes For The Wrong Reasons

from the it's-not-going-to-make-people-buy-the-album dept

This is hardly a new phenomenon, but the Wall Street Journal is noting that some bands and some record labels are avoiding putting music on iTunes (or in some cases, pulling music off iTunes) in an effort to force people to buy the full album, rather than just a few tracks. There are plenty of reasons to dislike iTunes, but it seems hard to believe that this does anything positive for the bands in question. The article quotes Kid Rock's manager, who compares apples to oranges, by pointing out that people who are on iTunes sell more single songs than albums, but that's rather meaningless in comparing to an artist (like Kid Rock) who's not on iTunes at all. Not putting your music where people want it is only going to piss them off.

Hell, even record industry execs are getting frustrated by bands not having their singles anywhere that can be downloaded legally. And, yet, the sister record label to the one that employs the annoyed exec above is experimenting with an even more annoying proposition: pulling popular songs from iTunes after they've become popular, to see if it gets more people to buy the CD.

Honestly, is it really that hard to understand the concept of providing the customer what they want in a convenient manner?

33 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Say That Again

Say That Again

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
copyright, file sharing, kid rock

Companies:
warner music group



Warner Tells Kid Rock To Denounce File Sharing; He Denounces Warner Instead

from the file-share-away dept

While Warner Music had claimed that it was getting away from attacking fans who wanted to download, it appears that it still has a long way to go. Atlantic Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, asked one of its stars, Kid Rock, to publicly denounce file sharing. Instead, Kid Rock publicly denounced Warner Music, while telling fans to download away. Atlantic came to him saying he needed to say something publicly because "people are stealing from us and stealing from you." Rock's response? "Wait a second, you've been stealing from the artists for years. Now you want me to stand up for you?" So, instead, he started spreading the opposite message: "I was telling kids - download it illegally, I don't care. I want you to hear my music so I can play live."

It's for this reason that he's also avoiding having his music go up on iTunes, because it's based on the old model: "an old system, where iTunes takes the money, the record company takes the money, and they don't give it to the artists." He's disappointed that the recording industry has really squandered an opportunity: "So the internet was an opportunity for everyone to be treated fairly, for the consumer to get a fair price, for the artist to be paid fairly, for the record companies to make some money."

Of course, he then does go a little overboard: "I don't mind people stealing my music, that's fine. But I think they should steal everything. You know how much money the oil companies have? If you need some gas, just go fill your tank off and drive off, they're not going to miss it." That, of course, is a bit of an exaggeration, though I'm sure it will be used by supporters of the old system to discredit the rest of what he has to say. But the key points remain: he recognizes that the real way to make money these days is to have more people listening to your stuff, and make the money on other business models, such as live performances -- and that the record labels rely on an obsolete system that tends to make them wealthy at the expense of artists, rather than with them.

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
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