<story><title>Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok</title><url>https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/record-labels-dig-their-own-grave</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kromem</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not committing suicide - it&amp;#x27;s just fighting over the rights to the tide pool where the water receded entirely unaware of the tsunami barreling towards them.&lt;p&gt;When the software world can convincingly create new songs that sound like the hit songs people like, but sufficiently different to dodge copyright law, then it&amp;#x27;s game over.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t blink an eye at efforts to do things like complete one of Beethoven&amp;#x27;s symphonies. But that is going to be increased treading a thin line when it&amp;#x27;s something like create a new album by pseudo-David Bowie. And arguably over that line when it&amp;#x27;s extending the hit debut album of a living artist who just isn&amp;#x27;t recapturing that magic.&lt;p&gt;A wall of disruptive change is barreling towards the creative industry (as well as many other industries), and yet most are blissfully unaware, fighting over marginal changes to their status quo - maybe looking at demonstrations of what can be done today saying &amp;quot;that&amp;#x27;s neat, but it doesn&amp;#x27;t replace me&amp;quot; without properly looking at how quickly the other is improving.&lt;p&gt;Copyrights are about to become worthless, and so the fight over their management is going to be a short lived victory no matter who wins.</text></item><item><author>majormajor</author><text>Interestingly, labels playing games about releasing albums is an old trick for various old reasons too. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;music&amp;#x2F;musicblog&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;artists-held-hostage-labels&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;music&amp;#x2F;musicblog&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;arti...&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&amp;#x2F;azafar&amp;#x2F;what-happens-when-your-favorite-artist-is-legally-unable-to&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&amp;#x2F;azafar&amp;#x2F;what-happens-when-your-favor...&lt;/a&gt; for a couple old references&lt;p&gt;A change in negotiation power seems like a good evolution of the industry for anyone but record industry execs.&lt;p&gt;But this &amp;quot;record industry is committing suicide&amp;quot; story that the software world likes to read about is even older than the &amp;quot;hollywood is committing suicide&amp;quot; story, since Napster was just music to start with. And yet here we are. Other than the shift in the cut (which is great!), what&amp;#x27;s going to change? There&amp;#x27;s still going to be centralization around platforms (TikTok, Spotify, radio) and a need for a partner for things like touring and marketing etc. So will the new boss look &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; different than the old boss?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vlunkr</author><text>Maybe it&amp;#x27;s wishful thinking, but I don&amp;#x27;t believe this will happen, and unless I&amp;#x27;m mistaken, there&amp;#x27;s absolutely 0 evidence for it. People are usually attached to the artist when it comes to music. You buy a Bowie album because it has his name on it. You learn about them, look forward to their future work, maybe go see them live, etc.&lt;p&gt;Will computers replace EDM and elevator music? I don&amp;#x27;t know, maybe, who cares?</text></comment>
<story><title>Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok</title><url>https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/record-labels-dig-their-own-grave</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kromem</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not committing suicide - it&amp;#x27;s just fighting over the rights to the tide pool where the water receded entirely unaware of the tsunami barreling towards them.&lt;p&gt;When the software world can convincingly create new songs that sound like the hit songs people like, but sufficiently different to dodge copyright law, then it&amp;#x27;s game over.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t blink an eye at efforts to do things like complete one of Beethoven&amp;#x27;s symphonies. But that is going to be increased treading a thin line when it&amp;#x27;s something like create a new album by pseudo-David Bowie. And arguably over that line when it&amp;#x27;s extending the hit debut album of a living artist who just isn&amp;#x27;t recapturing that magic.&lt;p&gt;A wall of disruptive change is barreling towards the creative industry (as well as many other industries), and yet most are blissfully unaware, fighting over marginal changes to their status quo - maybe looking at demonstrations of what can be done today saying &amp;quot;that&amp;#x27;s neat, but it doesn&amp;#x27;t replace me&amp;quot; without properly looking at how quickly the other is improving.&lt;p&gt;Copyrights are about to become worthless, and so the fight over their management is going to be a short lived victory no matter who wins.</text></item><item><author>majormajor</author><text>Interestingly, labels playing games about releasing albums is an old trick for various old reasons too. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;music&amp;#x2F;musicblog&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;artists-held-hostage-labels&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;music&amp;#x2F;musicblog&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;arti...&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&amp;#x2F;azafar&amp;#x2F;what-happens-when-your-favorite-artist-is-legally-unable-to&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&amp;#x2F;azafar&amp;#x2F;what-happens-when-your-favor...&lt;/a&gt; for a couple old references&lt;p&gt;A change in negotiation power seems like a good evolution of the industry for anyone but record industry execs.&lt;p&gt;But this &amp;quot;record industry is committing suicide&amp;quot; story that the software world likes to read about is even older than the &amp;quot;hollywood is committing suicide&amp;quot; story, since Napster was just music to start with. And yet here we are. Other than the shift in the cut (which is great!), what&amp;#x27;s going to change? There&amp;#x27;s still going to be centralization around platforms (TikTok, Spotify, radio) and a need for a partner for things like touring and marketing etc. So will the new boss look &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; different than the old boss?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>winternett</author><text>The recording industry is notorious for pay for play schemes.&lt;p&gt;The Internet leveled the playing field for many years.&lt;p&gt;The industry has found that social media&amp;#x27;s dominance allows them the opportunity to distract independent artists from releasing their own quality music and also distract the public from hearing indie music through the illusion that social media helps them to be seen more.&lt;p&gt;The real question that anyone who works on these platforms needs to ask themself is &amp;quot;Is the platform really helping me?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The only way they help people now is if you choose promoted ads, and it takes a ton of money for an unaffiliated indie label to break into their main feed on each single post, and that&amp;#x27;s true for any of the platforms that facilitate sponsored ads.</text></comment>