Music industry - you suck

When are the corporate fools in the music industry going to realize that it's not the listeners fault that their huge companies are tanking? ITS THE BUSINESS MODEL, STUPID! To paraphrase the best president of my lifetime. Haven't they noticed that there are tons of companies out there making great money giving away content? And that the cost of producing really high quality music is low enough that records are being made on laptops in the garage? I did some production work in the late 90's, and we thought it was cheap back then. Only $1,000 for a digital 8 track recorder? Wow! Anyone under 21 who just read that sentence is laughing hysterically. Can they continue to spend millions on CD releases? No. Do they even need to? No. Start thinking, boys.

1) What are the promoters doing? These guys work, but they make a ton of money for the work that they do. Why are the labels not locking up the touring contracts of their artists? Sorry, promoterman, but until you guys start advancing the artists and paying for production, you get the short straw.

2) Clothes, posters, stickers.... the list goes on. Labels are farming this stuff out for royalties. Spend some money, buy the businesses that make this stuff. Anybody seen the traffic in Hot Topic on a Saturday afternoon?

3) Encourage Torrent. Imagine the ad revenue potential of a legal Torrent tracker site. Right now thepiratebay.org and isohunt.com have ads from shady operators and porn sites. The labels have the money to make the best, fastest, and most comprehensive site. So, do it and start selling space to the big time advertisers. What else attracts almost exclusively 12-35 year old consumer traffic? 90% of the companies in America consider that the prime demo.