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RE: The ideal music industry
it's very significant that the copyright on a book is almost always owned by the author, but the copyright on a song is almost always owned by the publisher.
I think 'very significant' is a vast understatement; it's borderline criminal. The labels 'coerce' the artists (effectively) into signing away those rights.
You're right that the industry adds very little intrinsic value to the process; all they do is tell us, the fans, who to like.
For me, I typically don't hear music unless someone else is playing it on their radio. I rarely listen to music radio, unless it's a Christian station. I do make a habit of collecting music from the two music forms I don't mind paying for--Blues or Jazz.
I think the artists would do well to run far away from the big labels, and give more business to the smaller independent labels. Or, promote and publish themselves.
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RE: The ideal music industry
Some muscians have enough clout so that the Record Label doesn't own their songs, but they are few and far between.
Well, like Courtney Love pointed out in the article I linked, it's very significant that the copyright on a book is almost always owned by the author, but the copyright on a song is almost always owned by the publisher.
I think that really indicates where the root of the problem lies.
Back in the early "rock and roll" days somebody got really clever and set up a "standard" for the industry where the artists signed over their rights to the publishers. You could even argue that the pattern Love describes actually made some kind of sense, once upon a time. But today, the real costs of producing a CD is almost nothing. For a few thousand dollars, anyone can set up a high quality recording studio. Production costs for CDs is likewise minimal.
But when the recording industry gives a recording contract, they get to specify which studio the artist use - and of course, it's one the publisher owns. And of course, they do the CDs. So is it any wonder the artists are billed rather a lot more than actual costs for these things?
The reality is that the recording industry doesn't add much "true" value to the process anymore. They control - albeit indirectly - what gets played on the radio. That's something valuable they offer the artists - an audience - but they control that illegally. Every other aspect of the process can be done for a tiny fraction of what it used to cost.
The net of it, in my opinion, is that the recording industry actually takes value out of the process. Rather than artists becoming popular because people like their music, the industry "decides" who they think will become popular and that's who gets the play time. They "manufacture" popularity. The result is that we get mediocre acts that appear popular because they get a lot of air time.
The recording industry needs seriously overhauled. What Radiohead is doing here and the similar giveaway Prince did in July are great news. They're finally taking back control of the industry.
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