[Sevitzky]

This is an interesting thread/topic. But I don't think it can or should go much longer without a good long discussion about the distribution model.

Music used to be distributed on physical media at great overhead expense. And the technology used to create the product used to be purchased at great expense.

The importance of those two things can't be understated.

It had huge implications in the business and the artistic realms. It created gatekeepers and well-established channels for music to go from horsehair on metal into people's ears.

These were one-way channels, however. And music, as a human endeavor, is not just a one-way street at the heart of it all. So in my opinion, there WAS something very wrong with this "way" of doing things. Not all of it, of course, but a large fundamental issue was incongruent with human nature. And music is about human nature, to the core. So anyway, the transmission of music to wide audiences far outweighed the problems. At the time.

Now, one other important point to consider is that, in the 20th century, for music to make money, it had to be COMODIFIED. It had to be a product, preferably with a shelf-life (vinyl>8track>cassette>cd>remasterwhateverthef*ck).

Consumer buy products, products are always created for money.
Audiences listen to music, music is RARELY created for money.
Consumers and audiences are very different things, EVEN THOUGH THEY MIGHT BE THE SAME PEOPLE.
The tense intersection between these concepts is crucial to an understanding of the problems in our industry.

Now enters the internet. Now communications can occur WITHOUT THE MEDIATORS (record companies, TV networks, hollywood, NEWSPAPERS {if you want to see the future, look at the journalism field}). That's just a fact. It's not right or wrong. It's just a fact. In business, we deal with facts. In the arts, we ignore facts, and just live poor. Anyway, this is creating a shitstorm of re-alignment, and we are in the middle of it all. It will be a while before things 'settle out' and stabilize.

So let's keep one thing in mind. The record companies have always been for-profit entities. If you work under their paradigm, you are in a free market, period. The fact that we could work with and around art is awesome, but that was never a God-given right.

I see a lot of talk on this board and others, which mixes in the ideas of recording as part of the art. There's no time for that debate, here. But I will say, wanting to have it both ways is asking for trouble. You can't have the money of the market and the art of the artworld. Well, actually, we did, for a few golden decades. But the fact that it's unraveling, I think says more that it was a long-lasting illusion, rather than it is the norm to which our world should aspire.

If you're a business man, you gotta be a f*ckin business man. Don't get soft with all that art-talk, unless you have a fat margin to get artsy (self-subsidized w/in your BUSINESS), OR unless you have a channel to subsidize your art (just like the arts are subsidized, with rich people and grants. any grant-writers, here?)

If you're an artist, then be a f*ckin' artist and realize that the world is going to shit on you and toss your phone number as soon as you're sick for a day. But own your art, and make it real art, and never look back. And would you like fries with that.

If you're a service provider to artists - you gotta ask yourself, what service are you *actually* providing? What is the premium that you charge over what they can do on the cheap? And how does that premium relate to the jump in quality, THEIR EYES, not yours. They're the customers. 20 years ago, no consumer could make a CD. Now anybody can make one. The product choice we used to offer was "something" (us) or "NOTHING." (them) Now the product is "Better" (us) or "good-enough" (them).

It may just be that for many (not all) of us, owning, or wanting to own, a pair of Schoeps (take this as a symbol of your whole operation) is just good art and but bad business. Very few will ever appreciate what the Schoeps do over Shures (like ART), and you'll be forced to charge ART-prices when people are looking for POSTER-prices. You can lose on both fronts if you're not careful.

Choose your battles. The one-way broadcast/distribution paradigm is over.

Sorry if my words are gruff. I hope the spirit of them is taken in good faith.