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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 5892773" data-attributes="member: 19675">The assumption in the article I posted was not that it was easy and cheap, but rather that the record companies spread that cost around and got the benefit of economies of scale.With the new business model being forced on the industry, that risk and cost have been shifted to the artists.  It's less efficient and more costly, leading to decreased profits.  Worse, since the job once done by trained pros is now being done by amateurs who have better things to do (like, say, practicing their instruments and composing music), the time devoted to this can have a direct negative impact on music's quality.About 9 years ago, a guitarist of note was giving a keynote address at the Dallas Guitar Show, and asked the audience how many people in attendance had taken up the instrument to play like him.  Many hands went up."Forget it!" he said, shocking the audience to silence.  He then detailed his daily practice routine- both solo and with other musicians- which at this point just maintained his skills.  Now, taking away sleep, eating and a couple other things, and that man would not have had time for promotion of the kind that helped him sell albums.Nobody's saying they expect to get rich without working for it.The theory hasn't exactly held up- technology made it easy for a musician to put their music online, yes, but the equipment that lets them make professional level recordings hasn't gotten any cheaper, and they have to spend more of their own money now than ever in acquiring it since the labels arent doing that as much anymore.  Economies of scale have been lost.And the costs of creating merch haven't fallen either...and again, that is a cost that is increasingly being shifted to artists.True.And while it is also true that you can make money on local tours and selling your CDs & merch out of your band van, that money usually amounts to an annual income below the poverty level.  The big money is on the big tours...but you need sales- sales outside of your region- to land on those big tours.And those sales?  Even with an album (not singles) going Gold, a newish 5 piece band with a typical royalty structure will (again) have a net income per player below the poverty level.  You get better royalty rates with iTunes and similar services, but since most transactions are per song and not per album, you still have to move a lot of songs to ach that kind of income.In a music forum, my sig quotes Sturgeon's 2nd Law: "90% of everything is crap.". Well, in the music biz, even stuff that isn't objectively crap fails to make a profit in pure sales (some woul argue that only crap sells), but those sales open the door to the merch income stream. Actually, as was pointed out before, a lot of the really expensive risky stuff- including the big promotions/distribution stuff- was what the labels offered as their contribution to the industry.  It spread the risk, and everyone shared the wealth...including artists who were just getting started.  That was because the labels used profits from their few big sellers to subsidize the rise of new artists.Extreme example-  Vanilla Ice's debut album sold so many copies that Suge Knight essentially robbed him of some of his money to finance the rise of SK's label, launching dozens of careers, including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg.Now, with the digital age eating away at that, the artists have to assume the costs that the labels once did.  Economies of scale evaporate as multiple artists make duplicate investments in recording gear, establishing home studios, forming their own distribution networks (mainly for merch, these days), and so forth.I can't really agree with this- there are LOTS of complaints from established artists who have seen their profits dwindle as piracy of their IP rises...and their costs of capital investments go up as well.  Ani Di Franco is the example I cite most often, since she is essentially a one woman company, but she's not alone.Here's a recent interview:[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZtgtVfESck&feature=youtube_gdata_player]Ani DiFranco on Illegal File-Sharing - YouTube[/ame]Even though she talks about shows being her main income throughout her career, she also talks about how hard her label is struggling to put out the music of others on her label- piracy keeps eating away at her label's profits.  IOW, here is an artist with a label who is trying to reinvest her money into bringing out the music of others...and the sales of even her own stuff has eroded enough that she's fonding this difficult to do.  (This is something she's been saying for nearly a decade.)See also here:<a href="http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2405864/How_do_you_make_your_money_hon#Post2405864" target="_blank">How do you make your money, honey?! - MusicPlayer Forums</a></blockquote>

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