Comments on: can you slay the riaa by killing the cd? http://rojisan.com/blog/2003/11/can-you-slay-the-riaa-by-killing-the-cd/ This site is currently broken Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:35:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: mrG http://rojisan.com/blog/2003/11/can-you-slay-the-riaa-by-killing-the-cd/#comment-185 mrG Tue, 04 Nov 2003 04:54:33 +0000 http://rojisan.com/blog/2003/11/can-you-slay-the-riaa-by-killing-the-cd/#comment-185 You misunderstand a fundamental point about commoditizing: I'm not commoditizing the _music_ just the cash-cow of the monopoly distribution channel that is CD-centric. We are commoditizing "the recording" by creating a glut of recordings freely flowing through a free access network. Bands will still own their songs, still own their style and their allure, they will only be giving up that plastic disc as the holy grail of their career. You won't buy your way into top-40 radio with a CD, you will do it by being amazing. We don't want to make money off the CD. The CD is dead, a poor excuse for broadband. We make the money by driving up the scarcity of venue seats, by repackaging the free music (think CheapBytes) by reviewing content and creating playlists, and, for the musicians, by making the _promotion_ channel respect all musicians in a level playing field the way blogdex or feedster cares not if you are famous or if you have permission to perform, they only care that people think you are good. And so to your third point, the CD is the commodity that must vanish because the RIAA members control all distribution and playback channels. The _song_ remains. I might beam you a song from my iPad to let you experience the sound, but because of the rapid release model, that track I just sent you is yesterday's news, the band has already released twenty new and better tracks, tracks that evolve with the band rather than weight them down by the inertia of the overproduction costs. In short, if you like the band, like a blogger you like, I can give you a sample of David Weinberger, but if you want more Weinberger, you'll go to his site, you might even buy his book, and if he's in town, you will definately go see him. And all those are things David can take to the bank. I propose we scrap being scuptors of perfect moments and get back to the living of music, back to when music was concurrent with life rather than something from last year's recording session. Music will be now. I don't doubt there will continue to be Glenn Gould mindsets who strive for that perfect recorded moment, and they will take their investment in art rather than ROI in money because that CD is going to be bootlegged, they have to live with that. What I propose doesn't just live with the new reality of digital copying, it embraces it, and it profits by it. The musician retains the choice, but face it, right now, the musician only has one choice: sell 100,000 units of "product" or perish in a dive bar somewhere out on highway 51. You misunderstand a fundamental point about commoditizing: I’m not commoditizing the _music_ just the cash-cow of the monopoly distribution channel that is CD-centric. We are commoditizing “the recording” by creating a glut of recordings freely flowing through a free access network. Bands will still own their songs, still own their style and their allure, they will only be giving up that plastic disc as the holy grail of their career. You won’t buy your way into top-40 radio with a CD, you will do it by being amazing.

We don’t want to make money off the CD. The CD is dead, a poor excuse for broadband. We make the money by driving up the scarcity of venue seats, by repackaging the free music (think CheapBytes) by reviewing content and creating playlists, and, for the musicians, by making the _promotion_ channel respect all musicians in a level playing field the way blogdex or feedster cares not if you are famous or if you have permission to perform, they only care that people think you are good.

And so to your third point, the CD is the commodity that must vanish because the RIAA members control all distribution and playback channels. The _song_ remains. I might beam you a song from my iPad to let you experience the sound, but because of the rapid release model, that track I just sent you is yesterday’s news, the band has already released twenty new and better tracks, tracks that evolve with the band rather than weight them down by the inertia of the overproduction costs. In short, if you like the band, like a blogger you like, I can give you a sample of David Weinberger, but if you want more Weinberger, you’ll go to his site, you might even buy his book, and if he’s in town, you will definately go see him.

And all those are things David can take to the bank. I propose we scrap being scuptors of perfect moments and get back to the living of music, back to when music was concurrent with life rather than something from last year’s recording session. Music will be now.

I don’t doubt there will continue to be Glenn Gould mindsets who strive for that perfect recorded moment, and they will take their investment in art rather than ROI in money because that CD is going to be bootlegged, they have to live with that. What I propose doesn’t just live with the new reality of digital copying, it embraces it, and it profits by it. The musician retains the choice, but face it, right now, the musician only has one choice: sell 100,000 units of “product” or perish in a dive bar somewhere out on highway 51.

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