Posts by Simon Grigg
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you're going to have to explain that one to me cos you were the label with the major distro. I was the one that avoided it, to my detriment I'll agree. I've never got into bed with them so how am I corporate evil now?.
Nope...having gone over this very topic countless times and explained it over and over again, I won't. Sorry. Rob, I like you a lot and respect what you do and have done but like others I seem to be on an endless loop here and I want off.
And, no, I'm not even vaguely offended. I've seen hotter arguments in band rooms over set orders, as you have. All cool.
And Mark, I'm just gonna reiterate what Grant said. It needs to cool down a bit from your end. Rob may be very and annoyingly argumentative but insults are not a part of his weaponry, at least in this thread, unless I've missed something.
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what comic book world do you live in. most of our laws have progressively been put in place to protect the members of society fairly, or at least that's the idea.
Really Rob that's incredibly naive.
So all that outrage over the power of lobby groups in the US, the various politicians, Obama included, who've raged against them and the undue influence they assert over policy and law, the way corporations have influenced the FDA; the no-bid contracts without oversight that have slipped past the lawmakers; the environmental legislation or lack of it; the laws restricting non-US suppliers from supplying the US military even if the product is cheaper and better and a thousand other examples I can think of don't exist.
Much of that deals with corporations taking things or using things they probably should not, or being allowed to act in a way that is not beneficial to society. They benefit the corporations at a cost to society.
the legislation you're objecting to is the one dealing with 'don't take things from other people that is not yours. kind of a foundation law for the society we live in. shall we get rid if it?
I'm not objecting to anything I just want the recording industry and the copyright industry to evolve into the future instead of kowtowing to self interested corporations who are stuck in a past disappearing world, most of whom probably don't deserve the lifeline, at the expense of the people who make the music, that you seem keen to throw them.
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True the last 5 or so years have seen a decline in Neils output, although a lot of Rusties (Neil list fans) would say otherwise, but to say that he's floundered since Zuma is to dismiss some pretty good albums.
Trust me Tony, I know that it's likely just me, but I went from liking what I heard a lot to disinterest (maybe because punk arrived, but there were others I didn't lose interest in) after Zuma, to actively disliking what I heard after about 83. Dylan was another, although in his case I actually bought an album (Modern Times) and merely confirmed my prejudices.
Throughout the 80s I was given most Neil Young albums (I was lucky enough to get many WEA records gratis) so I did actually hear them before trotting off to Real Groovy. But I tried.
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Kent State wasn't about conscription, it was a protest in reaction to the USA's invasion of Cambodia.
Yeas, but there is little doubt that the level confrontation across the USA (and Australia) was dramatically heightened by the thought that either your or your brother or boyfriend might shortly be forced into uniform and shipped across the Pacific for a year or two into harms way and do do harm to others for no good reason.
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Society changes. Change with it or die. Don't expect society to legislate to support the dying model
If only that last sentence were true. Sadly society often legislates to support those with the biggest voice and the most money to push their case.
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how do you explain the downturn in the local indie market over the last 7-10 years. this is information directly from indie distributors and labels. You probably know a lot of em. They're quoting figures that directly contradict an 11% increase. is nz just a bubble in an otherwise buoyant industry?
As I said above, unit sales are up..that is all units, be they singles are albums or digital tracks bought as tracks, not albums. Album sales and dollar value continues to fall with the realignment to the digital market:
Music purchases are "astronomically high," says Rob Sisco, Nielsen's president of music, "but it's a marketplace in transition from physical to digital."
and, from the BBC:
UK singles sales grew by 33% in 2008 thanks to a growth in download sales, the BPI has said.
Figures from the body, which represents record labels, showed more than 115 million singles were sold across digital and physical formats.
Releases from groups like The Killers, Girls Aloud and Take That also helped the album market finish the year with stronger than expected sales.
However UK albums sales generally fell by 3.2% in 2008.
The digital albums market grew during strongly over the year with 10 million sold - a 65% increase compared to 2007.
The format now holds 7.7% of the albums market as a whole.
'Remarkable result'
But Mark Sutherland, global editor of Billboard magazine, told the BBC News website that overall decline in album sales was not wholly bad news.
"In the context of the world, declining just 3.2% is a pretty remarkable result - in the US, album sales for the whole year are down 14%," he said.
It's about looking forward, not back. The trad industry is fucked, but there is a healthy future out there for anyone that wants to grab it.
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so the expanding marketplace isn't relevant to it but the increase in the us and uk market place as would be expected from population increase is.
Surely you are not being serious Rob. In the midst of a financial downturn where a population grew in the US by about 1%, unit sales in the US grew by 11%.
It's a fact and even the RIAA are not arguing it. Their point is that dollar numbers and full album sales fell. Which is, I would argue, grossly, missing the point on their part either wilfully or because they are out of touch.
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does that figure take into account things like expanding markets and population increase.
No it's plain unit sales as sold in the USA and the UK in 2008, from Soundscan and the BPI. Not a global figure. In those markets, unit sales rose. Part of the rise is due to the heavy ongoing rise in MP3 singles sales versus a decline in album sales, both physical and digital.
Simply put, people tend to pick and chose the tracks they like rather than buying whole albums. I know I do.
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That said, the industry's shills have done their cause no assistance by pulling numbers out of their collective posterior to "prove" that "downloading is destroying the industry," to justify ever-more-draconian statutory enforcement of their business model.
You need to be fairly careful defining 'industry' as it's not as monlithicly or as collectively one voiced as you suggest.
If you peruse this list with a bit of industry knowledge, 80% of it consists of the 4 major labels under various aliases or their partially owned subsidiaries. RIAA is only really is the mouth piece for these companies and a few others, including, I note a few fairly strong critics like Nettwerk Records.
They do have the lobby groups, market share and bucks to pull strings though but I'm thinking that their influence is stronger because those listening don't quite understand which way the wind is blowing.
Very large parts of the international recording industry, by it's very nature, exist outside this 'collective posterior' which is why it's been able to reinvent itself from the edge so many times over the years. It's an industry with a history of business model rebellion which is one of it's joys.
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Simon, we agree! Good god, I need a drink. ;-)
I kinda think we always did, you were just (unintentionally) misreading what I was saying. That said I'm a firm believer that downloading has hurt the recording industry (although nowhere near the levels the IFPI would have you believe), but I'm also a subscriber to the idea that it's not an altogether bad thing.