Richard BF

I’ve talked before about the copyright revolution and how the big record companies are in their death throws. Most file sharers would say “oh der, obviously!”, but there’s more to it than just them vanishing from the earth and the rest of us just carrying on regardless. (For starters, who get’s the Ferraris?)

The wonderful Gizmodo points to an AP story New Device Allows Recording at Concerts. Apart from looking like another cool fad or an attempt to cash in on the MP3 revolution (there’s that word again), this is actually an important indicator that things are changing.

The record companies do in fact provide a valuable service for artists: publicity. The millions of marketing and publicity dollars traditionally spent on artists gets them in the faces of the people who’d most likely buy them, and this tends to convert into filthy lucre. As an artist, you need to make the call, independance and high percentage of small profits, or sell out and miniscule percentage of a huge profit. Of course in the case of the big corporates, you then need throw in the millions of dollars that you owe back to them, as the costs are passed on to the artist. But if you do it right, there’s money in them there hills.

So when the majors have gone, what will be left? Well, for starters we’ll have more artists, because more of them will be getting airtime. But more importantly, artists will derive their income from a whole range of sources, including concert tickets, merchandise, and of course CD sales. But we’ll also see new and innovative ways for artists to produce income, and technology like eMusic’s eMusicLive vending machine is one of these. After the show, you can purchase a copy of the gig in MP3, copied to your own flash drive, or if you don’t own one, you can buy one from the same machine

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

* Ever wondered why every credit I give to another site is fabulous, fantastic, or wonderful? Me neither.