Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Unsound: How Digital Delivery Changed Music

Here's an extended trailer for Unsound, a movie about how the Internet changed music. It's pretty interesting, and I agree with the facts of the movie, but not the general tone. If you know the history of music, you know that at every point along the way there's been something that's unfair, that's against artists, and that favors those who exploit the business, so what we're going through today is really no different than it ever was.

You can't just complain about how things have changed, because they're always changing. As soon as you get the hang of how everything is working, something new changes the paradigm. The difference is that it's happening faster than ever today so you can never get comfortable with what you know.

So watch this trailer because it's well done and interesting, but don't despair, because believe it or not, things are not as bad as the movie makes it out to be.


Unsound: extended trailer rough cut from Count Eldridge on Vimeo.

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6 comments:

iAN said...

Brett Gurewitz, founder of Epitaph Records just made my shit list.

The customer is always right!

This reddit has 2,393 up's in 6 days: http://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/1npzpu/i_realized_the_other_day_taht_music_streaming/

Spotify is Napster, 10 years later. It works because they understand the new model: FREEmium

I am excited about buying your book "Music 3.0" and you blog for free...

Rand Bliss said...

If I receive a service from a lawyer, a doctor, a mechanic, a plumber, etc. and don't pay for it that's called theft.

If I take a product from any store in the world without paying for it, that's also called theft.

Recording artists, like any other professional who either provides a service or a product are entitled to, and deserve to be paid for their services/products. They've earned that right and copyright laws are in place to protect and guarantee this.

Anyone who doesn't pay for a recording artists services/products which are sold is simply stealing it. It can't be more simple to understand.

This is regardless if an artist is already rich and famous, they've still earned it through their own hard work. They're still selling a product.

Put yourself in the artists shoes for once. If you've ever created anything you were proud of, whether attempting to sell it or not, what if some clown steals it from you, saying they're entitled to it because 'it should be free'?

So don't jump on the 'freetard' bandwagon just because the rest of these ignorant sheeple abuse artist's rights. Look up the word 'ethics' if you're still confused or too lazy to care.

Grow up people. The best things in life aren't always free.

Rand Bliss said...

Forgot to mention during my sermon; if you really love the artist and their music, show some respect by buying it.

It's not only the right and decent thing to do, but it's good karma - what goes around comes around.

iAN said...

@Rand Bliss - If I get an endorsement from Bobby Owsinski, ill share how I propose you make money as a studio musician.

John Mayer "Waiting on the world to change"

Unknown said...

Yes, everything is changing rapidly. Time has all alternatives and variations. I am keen to deliver best possible results just like movie tailor. I am developing music for On Hold Messages Services for international clients.

Eric said...

Whining, whining, whining...

The music industry is blaming illegal downloading, but they should blame themselves first for not coping with the problem in the first place : "The business industry should have made a deal (1:53)". He surely got that right! They didn't and saw the whole thing has a threat while others, like Apple for instance, saw it as an opportunity.

So the old business model is dead : so what?

Consumers now don't get robbed anymore by paying 20$ for albums by a handful of artists the music labels considered "worthy of listening to". The music is now much more diverse and consumers can now choose by themselves what they want to listen to. They can buy the whole album or on a song per song basis, they can subscribe to music channels like Spotify, etc. On the other hand, the industry doesn't have to invest as much money as they used to on pressing and CD distribution and they have new forms of incomes coming from web advertising and the likes.

The results : CD sales are going down, but payed downloading is exploding. And despite the weeknest of the global economy. worldwide music industry revenues are now 7G$ higher than in 2006.
http://www.grabstats.com/statmain.aspx?StatID=67
(Have you dryed your tears, yet?)

Sure there is and will always be illegal downloading. As a creator, this used to piss me off big time. But I understand now that illegal downloading is part of the game and serves as some sort of weird advertising process as it is making music available to people who otherwise wouldn't be expose to it, whether for monetary reason or unawareness of its existence. I'm not saying that illegal downloading is not bad, it's just not as bad as it seems to be.

And if labels are so concerned about the artists revenues, why don't they just pay them better? For all I know, the sharing model hasn't change. Expenses miraculously always has to come off the shares at the bottom of the food chain (artists, producer, engineers,...) while revenues seem to always be considered as "returns on the label's developping investments". The whole music industry would be better off if they showed their artists half of the consideration that they seem to show to illegal downloading and start filing them under "assets" instead of throwing them in the "production cost" file.

But illegal downloading is such a nice card to have when it comes time to negociate. So keep spreading the word : illegal downloading is killing the industry!

... 7G$ up in 6 years : yeah, right, that's some killing!

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