Creativity is universal. Just because you're making something "mediocre", or the same thing as everyone else, doesn't mean that it's not worth making.
Maybe I would agree that mediocre stuff is getting too much coverage. If we could limit the stuff we make to just friends and family, instead of making it public to everyone, then we could all make mediocre stuff without flooding strangers with mediocre crap :)
ETA:
I think the tradeoffs are worth it though. It's much easier to identify talent now that the barriers to entry are so low. You don't have to judge them by some proxy like whether they have decent equipment, or if they're friends with someone famous.
I really wish people who did this would put donate buttons on their sites. I would rather all (or most when taking the processing fees into account) of the money would go to them and not Apple or Amazon.
Yes, I also spent a minute on the site looking for the donate button. Very happy to give them the same amount as I'd pay in iTunes but directly. I'm going to watch the film this weekend and if I enjoy I'll contact them directly, maybe they don't realise how many of us are happy to 'donate'. I find this a lot with indie movies where it's impossible to find a paid copy but a torrent exists.
On the other side of things (and where I hope more producers look to) I've been enjoying this (sci-fi) TV series and paying as I go: http://vodo.net/pioneerone
Saw this film in singapore recently. I don't think it'll tell you anything you don't already know. If it had come out like even 10 years ago, then you might've called it prescient or atleast credit it with identifying a trend. Not today though. Waste neither bandwidth nor money on it. (just my opinion)
Creativity has increased because of the Internet. There's nothing to prove that "creativity will be destroyed". If anything we'll get more original and innovative ideas, instead of the boxed ones that are made from a template to make $300 million.
As she notes the RIAA wasn't the only bad guy in bringing Napster down. Napster's VCs wanted too much money from an industry at the time that couldn't match CD sales. It's a business and thus the RIAA focused on the best money channel!
A lot of readers here probably hated and or still hate the RIAA because they are viewed as laggards(even though those same ppl can't get enough of their content). This interview shows some in the music industry were laggards, some were not, while showing it wasn't just the industry who killed Napster, but the greed of Napster's VCs too.
Changing a 100 year old business model won't happen overnight and even after 12 years it is still taking shape.
My guess is the industry will see crazy Netflix like growth once Spotify, Pandora and other subscription services are built into cars; users use voice recognition to start playlists or songs. How many subscribed to satellite radio or still do?
Spotify on every IP device, even in my car is worth paying $10 a month for!
Well if you feel that way do not consume any of their content. Let them die!
Though say, you enjoy this new artist who is an awesome talent and who wants to make a living making music; have their music heard all over the world by millions. The best way to do this now is still the music industry.
The industry acts a filter, a promoter and investor of talent (their the YCombinator for musicians). It's been 12 years since Napster and the industry is still successfully doing this, yet making less money as of now.
Subjectively these music subscription services are the key to growing their revenue beyond present day. I mean why would the guy behind Napster and Facebook (Sean Parker) be an investor and promoter of Spotify if he didn't feel this way?
Further, I think just like Netflix once Spotify is built in to every IP device including cars, the industry will be financially stronger then ever.
> The industry acts a filter, a promoter and investor of talent (their the YCombinator for musicians).
The music 'industry' is huge and complex. They're like Righthaven, Microsoft, Linux, the startup scene, and all other players on every side of helping/exploiting artists.
The RIAA has nothing to do with small record labels like the one I manage, struggling to promote great but fame-less musicians. I suppose they do effect us in that they pose an omnipresent threat of arbitrary litigation at any moment.
What's the difference between Sony, some small tour booking company, and a music venue? I guess from the outside it all looks the same.
The industry is just like Napster's VCs who most of us entrepreneurs strive to get our work funded and backed by.
For me Rosen's interview highlights this fact.
Every budding musician and entrepreneur needs a backer with financial muscle, connections and past experience to be a success.
As for small labels like your own... once you hit the big time with an artist you are bound to make deals with the big guys to increase sales/profit. I mean are you not in it to make as much money as possible?
As for your artists' if they are great then their talent will spread online (Youtube and Facebook). Once you have that artist I hope you would be doing everything for them to maximize profits and exposure.
Well i agree with you there but if you look at the most successful people from Edison to the current crop of luminaries you will see they all were/are ruthless!
Funny that the music industry gets such a bad wrap, yet we never saw VH1 behind the music like programs about the TV and film industries.
Sure and I'm thinking in time where you live Spotify or other music services will be available to you.
Overall content licensing takes time - too long I think and there is where the content industries are failing now. But that's because of laws and legal systems move at a sloth's pace.
Sites like Hacker News comb the net and bring interesting web sites and articles to my attention, in a world where everyone can be a writer. And in a world where everyone can be an artist, musician or movie maker, there will be ways to filter out the good stuff from the bad. "Getting lost in a sea of mediocrity" is entirely avoidable.
That's true in theory but the number of people like PG who can setup such a valuable resource and not care about whether it costs them money are few. Most people who create outlets for art online or elsewhere have bills to pay and money becomes a factor. It is a very risky and low-profit business bringing obscure art to the masses. What is more likely is what happened with Myspace - it was a new, innovative way for any musician to create a presence for themselves online, where millions of people were also spending time exploring. But they chose not to limit it to only high quality artists and eventually the people who spent more time "friending" others than they did actually making a quality product achieved more through the platform. Creating something that works differently when this is the natural flow of such platforms is very challenging.
Maybe I see things in simple terms. But I think of artists as people who use their creative talent to entertain others (by exciting/relaxing/engaging/uplifting/etc them) in exchange for payment. And I see all these non-artists 'excited' about the 'potential' to 'express' and 'communicate ideas to the whole world' without the 'shackles' of commercial enterprise as basically being people, who care more about the spare change in their pocket than they do about artists, masquerading as new millennium hippies.
No, but let's just say that it's like anything else, eg. being a programmer. Doing art for a living isn't some transcendent activity compared to making your living doing any other sort of job. If you're good, people will pay you; if you do it for free, people will take it. If you're bad, people wont pay you any attention (or money).
Maybe I would agree that mediocre stuff is getting too much coverage. If we could limit the stuff we make to just friends and family, instead of making it public to everyone, then we could all make mediocre stuff without flooding strangers with mediocre crap :)
ETA:
I think the tradeoffs are worth it though. It's much easier to identify talent now that the barriers to entry are so low. You don't have to judge them by some proxy like whether they have decent equipment, or if they're friends with someone famous.
Example: Hannah Hart made a stupid drunk video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq7G-Q9ZwC0 but people realized that she was pretty funny and had good editing skills. So they encouraged her to make more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLYxeJjxc8s and she got the attention of internet celebrities http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oLsTc_kETY and she got to do a music video with a musician she likes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIvOqHfia2s and that wouldn't have happened if that first stupid drunk video wasn't available to the entire internet.