Are labels to blame for their own demise? WHAT YOU THINK
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The most intelligent and balanced overview of the past 10 years that 
I have read to date. Good on 'ya.

Regards,
Gary Cable
Entertainment attorney

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Usually agree with a lot of what you say.....But think you missed most of the boat on this one. "Siding" with Napster (or whomever) would not have resulted in Anti-trust suits had it just been in the course of doing business with a retailer, I. e , had they treated it no differently than selling their wares to/thru Best Buy. It was all a matter of HOW to do it. Bottom line, that was not really an option they considered at the time anyway, as you had already stated in your article. So the whole ant-trust thing is a red herring.

Scott D. Harrington, Esq.

Harrington Music Law Group, P.C.

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Dear  Moses,
   Since I've called you out when I think you're wrong  then I have to salute
you when I think you're right...this commentary is  right on the
money....there is so much nonsense written about the digital  world so this
is a refreshing corrective...digital sales are not at this  time the panacea
for what ails the music biz

Best,

Randall  Grass
SHANACHIE

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Moses, Would you like to grab lunch?

Max Gousse | EVP A&R and New Business Development

Music World Entertainment

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Here's what I know I know... I was in the middle of the big time when mp3's and downloads started. We were the number 4 act for all of BMG that years - behind perhaps Kenny G. (G. for goofy?), Ace of Bass, and I think Abba or something... I looked straight into the eyes of the ARISTA Nashville president at breakfast one morning and saw terror. He said something like... "What are we going to do if people just want to download one song and not buy the album???"  "Try to write a song they want, I guess." says I.

That terror passed, at least in its extreme sense, but I can tell you they didn't have a clue about what to do about it, or how to do it. It sure wasn't a case of the "artist" saying "no." The music industry mistook the new music delivery system for a means to getting music for free instead of simply the new music delivery system. And, of course, it's not the last new music delivery system. Someday, you'll just say "Like A Rolling Stone" into the air and Bob Dylan will be playing in your head - just for you. Or... I'll think, "Get me Moses..." And there you'll be in my ears - if you take my "call."

Whatever the heck it is you're doing, keep it up.

Ripley

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Moses:  Thanks for setting things straight.  I am "artist side" but tired of
everybody blaming the record companies.  The "free internet" people simply
use every excuse, justification and blame to self-justify ripping everyone
else off.  I'm really tired of it. 

Professional music has never been free:  it was originally supported by the
church, kings and queens who commissioned music and supported musicians.  A
hundred years ago popular music went to the night clubs and booze paid for
the music.  Opera and the symphony had paid entrances.  The church kept
going with the collection plate.  Record companies later sold records.
Radio was paid for by advertising.  So was TV - advertising and now cable
fees.  And so it is until someone (Napster) figured out how to take and
distribute music without paying anybody.  10 years later the bloggers think
it is a god given right!  10 years out of hundreds of years and they now
scream like babies if you suggest that artists, writers, managers, yes,
record labels, publishers etc. should get paid for their work.

Greg Stephens

The Law Office of Greg Stephens
Toronto, Ontario  

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The thing that irks me is that tech blogs and magazines including Wired continue to rip in the industry and state that everything should be free and is inevitably progressing toward that end. Those people should sit in on record production from start to finish in order to understand that studios cost money, producers and engineers cost money, mastering costs money, and duplication & artwork cost money. In other words, they want the artist to put up a lot of time and dollars creating and be then the consumer deserves to consume the finished product (the art) for free. This doesn't happen in the art world but for some reason nobody equates music with "true art".

I believe the is a ton of waste at major labels but I also believe that if they go away the art will suffer irreparably.

Darian Rundall

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Thank you for your insightful email.  What you said showed the situation of
the big labels.  You can only imagine the abuses that were heaped upon the
small independent labels, by the big labels and all the other parties you
discussed plus the lying distributors. I started Outstanding Records in 1968. 

It has been quite a ride.

Best wishes,
Earl Beecher

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nicely put.   People forget that it takes millions of dollars in production and promotion to break a new artist.   itunes may help out with distribution of "product" (if you can call it that),  but it does little with the promoters, advertisers, and tour supporting companies, let alone the musicians, studios, and everyone else.

peace to you

Joe Hand
www.myspace.com/joehand

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