Record Companies: Who Needs Them?
At the recent SXSW conference, former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne gave a presentation called “Record Companies: Who Needs Them?”.
Besides the predicting that digital downloads will be the norm, and labels will either be reduced to marketing firms or will focus only on megastars, he also confesed that he gets all his music through eMusic or obtains it illegaly because of the DRM file constraints of iTunes.
While conceding the marketing costs in the digital era won’t be cheap, Byrne noted that sites like YouTube offer more possibilities to artists than MTV. He called up a YouTube video of a man standing in a cavern. “Nobody is telling you have to make a million dollar video,” Byrne said. “You can make it like this guy — stand in a dangerous place and everyone will watch.”
But first, he said, labels will have to remove their digital rights management (DRM) copyright-control technology. He said he buys most of his music online via eMusic, or obtains it illegally, due to the file constraints on files sold on iTunes. Byrne predicated that once DRM is removed, iTunes will no longer “have a monopoly,” and labels will be better prepared to deal with Web sales.
This guy really gets it and its encouraging that he has alot of respect. The times are a changing. Read the whole article here.
