29 de junio de 2007

La Música ha muerto. ¡Viva la Música!

La revista Rolling Stone ha declarado muerta a la industria musical:
The Record Industry's Decline
Record sales are tanking, and there's no hope in sight: How it all went wrong
Brian Hiatt and Evan Serpick

"The record business is over," says music attorney Peter Paterno, who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. "The labels have wonderful assets -- they just can't make any money off them." One senior music-industry source who requested anonymity went further: "Here we have a business that's dying. There won't be any major labels pretty soon."
k-punk declara muerta a la música:
MUSIC IS DEAD! LONG LIVE HAUNTOLOGY!
Some musicologists are announcing the end of music. Not because music has disappeared but, on the contrary, because it has become so ubiquitous that it cannot lay claim to a specific place any more. If music is no longer central to either the culture or to listeners’ attention, if it is increasingly being consumed as ring tones, as part of advertising, or as background noise (using music as a bulwark against silence), must this be treated as only a melancholy prospect? Or is there a way of embracing the idea of music as something to be used as part of a larger assemblage?
Pero ambos ofrecen esperanza para la música como negocio:
Despite the industry's woes, people are listening to at least as much music as ever. Consumers have bought more than 100 million iPods since their November 2001 introduction, and the touring business is thriving, earning a record $437 million last year. And according to research organization NPD Group, listenership to recorded music -- whether from CDs, downloads, video games, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, online streams or other sources -- has increased since 2002. The problem the business faces is how to turn that interest into money. "How is it that the people that make the product of music are going bankrupt, while the use of the product is skyrocketing?" asks the Firm's Kwatinetz. "The model is wrong."

Kwatinetz sees other, leaner kinds of companies -- from management firms like his own, which now doubles as a record label, to outsiders such as Starbucks -- stepping in. Paul McCartney recently abandoned his longtime relationship with EMI Records to sign with Starbucks' fledgling Hear Music. Video-game giant Electronic Arts also started a label, exploiting the promotional value of its games, and the newly revived CBS Records will sell music featured in CBS TV shows.

Licensing music to video games, movies, TV shows and online subscription services is becoming an increasing source of revenue."We expect to be a brand licensing organization," says Cohen of Warner, which in May started a new division, Den of Thieves, devoted to producing TV shows and other video content from its music properties. And the record companies are looking to increase their takes in the booming music publishing business, which collects songwriting royalties from radio play and other sources. The performance-rights organization ASCAP reported a record $785 million in revenue in 2006, a five percent increase from 2005. Revenues are up "across the board," according to Martin Bandier, CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which controls the Beatles' publishing. "Music publishing will become a more important part of the business," he says. "If I worked for a record company, I'd be pulling my hair out. The recorded-music business is in total confusion, looking for a way out."
Y como forma de arte:
Can we imagine new vehicles for fiction, new combinations of words, image and music that go beyond the dreary montages of advertising? Mordant and Ghost Box are already doing so.