WHAT A D_CK!!!

[I'MAPUNKROCKERDAMNIT]

This shithead suffers the same thing my dad sometimes suffers from. When you deal with millions of dollars on the regs, you have a hard time wrapping your head around the idea that the peanuts the plebes complain about not having enough of are actually money. So, sure, to him? 5k of equipment is pretty much zero. Kinda like the Earth is a little blue dot. It's a matter of scale.

That said, fuck this guy for not having the brain-power to filter out shit that will literally piss off every single person he's stepping on to make his millions.

Emily Post once said, "I can't understand how wealthy people believe themselves to be experts in every subject".
So true... Elon Musk proves it every time he makes a statement or gives an interview.

[Guitarbilly]

yeah this guy is a total dick. But he's correct that you can create "content" for close to zero. A guy like Joe Rogan for example, has 2 mic's set up, talks about whatever he wants on any given day and generates 200 million in revenue for himself, let alone the platform. Or a kardashian films her ass with a cell phone and that's 10M streams or something. That's cheap content.

The issue is that music is not content, music is art.

The biggest problem with these fucking companies is lumping music with podcasts, short tik tok videos etc and calling it all "content", when it's clearly not the same thing. The music community needs to create a platform that specializes in music and pays accordingly, then all musicians starting from the big names need to move their catalogs to that platform and remove them from all general content platforms, along with lobbying for legislation that protects it effectively. I agree BMI and ASCAP should be doing that. It should be their job to do that.

Because it's not going to come from the tech industry. It's not in their best interest to treat music differently. Their job is to generate streams/views to display ads on and if someone can generate 10M views with a cell phone in a few seconds worth of work, while a musician needs considerably more time and money to create something, that's not their problem to solve. It's OUR problem to solve.

Raging against Spotify is fun and well-deserved but it won't solve the real problem, which is there is no appropriate platform for music- because the music industry hasn't created one. From day one (Napster,) the music industry response to 21st Century technology was to try to squash it and deny it's existence instead of getting ahead of the curve and trying to be competitive.

And to this day, they're like "oh vinyl is back" "buy a CD to support your band", which is a pitch that exists since before I was born and it no longer works.. look how well the Motion Pictures/TV industry adapted to new tech (Netflix, Roku etc) vs the music industry. It's ridiculous.

So there's a lot of rage about the problem but zero talk about actual solutions. And these solutions will have to come from within (the music community) because the tech industry doesn't give a fuck and while I don't like it, I can't blame them for it.

[greatmutah]

You're 100% right about where it needs to come from and the same excuses. Look, I love physical media but I don't buy as much anymore - especially since I lost about 300 CDs - not burns, actual albums that I bought - in a basement flood. Thankfully most, if not all, of those were ripped to my computer years ago. I don't do the subscription model because I still like having some version of the MP3/MP4 on my home computer that is mine and isn't paywall gated since I've already bought the album and while it's not much, I'm sure the artist gets more money from me buying the album digitally vs paying apple music or spotify to give me unlimited access. I do buy vinyl here and there for things I specifically want but it's not going to be every artist. Do I have most of Black Sabbath's reissued catalog on vinyl? Yes because it's fucking Black Sabbath and I still need to get the Tony Martin box set that came out recently. Same thing with Thin Lizzy, Rush and Metallica. I can't do that for every band I've ever liked though. Vinyl is awesome but it ain't cheap. Add to the fact that not all of them have complimentary download cards for the songs and I'm probably double dipping for those. Or I'm spending a bunch of time on my computer ripping the album from vinyl to WAV and splitting the tracks manually (my turntable has a USB out). Which, not a big deal for me, as I know how to do that. All of us here do. But the average listener? You show them something as simple as Audacity and they're lost.

Why ASCAP and BMI haven't gone out of their way to do something for this is beyond me. It's in their interests to demand a better platform and pay for artists across the board as the revenues benefit them too. Or maybe they're happy with the cut they get because it's all traffic to them anyway so why do they need to worry further? I don't have an answer to that. It's harder in this day and age to grow a grassroots type company that can support the kind of pay that's needed for musicians and artists fairly.

[Guitarbilly]

I like physical media too but you and I are a different generation than the core of new music consumers today, which is 18-34 and that ship has sailed for them before they were born.

They might buy a few vinyls here and there as novelty but that's not how their daily music consumption is done. The music industry needs to find a solution for this. It doesn't have to be grassroots. Industry giants like BMI, ASCAP and the major labels can figure this out, like the major Hollywood movie studios figured out their streaming. Music is way behind the curve now.

[ElDirtySanchez]

The National Music Publisher Assn just filed a complaint with the FTC against Spotify for unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices

[Guitarbilly]

yeah they've been suing these platforms since Napster. It doesn't help. What they need to do is create a system that works for musicians and is viable for modern listening habits. These lawsuits are for the lawyers to make money only.