Music Business - Perspectives from People in the 'Biz

"Adam writes 'I finally had some time to really read the Janis Ian essay. F*cking brilliant. Isn't it amazing, how much money is being spent, legislation written and passed, technology forced to fruition in failed attempt after another to destroy the internet's capability to be exactly what the music industry needs: The Biggest Friggin' Free Radio Station ever...'

Okay, I'm going to read it again.  I just hate getting frustrated.  The music business is like Mr. MaGoo." [Ernie the Attorney]

I just couldn't resist posting Ernie's Mr. Magoo allusion! Actually, while reading Adam's original post, I had a flashback to a time (probably in 1996) when I was sitting in a dentist's office with a friend. She was having her wisdom teeth removed, and I was trying to distract her by describing the coolest idea I'd come across yet on the web - AudioNet and its cousin RealAudio. Even on a 28.8 modem I was hooked. I was able to listen to whole albums through their service, as well as find radio stations across the country, tune into basketball games, and listen to some audiobooks. It stoked my passion for music even further than my father, working at a radio station, and working at a record store had previously done. I searched for two years for an album by a group I heard on AN, and I never did find it. I would have plunked down money for it if I ever had.

Then the record labels threatened to sue AudioNet for making songs available online without paying them. I remember one particularly vindicitive letter from someone at one of the labels to Mark Cuban (AudioNet's creator) spewing forth threats that they would shut him down forever, bankrupt him, and he'd "never work in this town again" (so-to-speak). That was my first inclination that music on the net was going to be an uphill battle against an industry that couldn't see past its cut-off nose.

Of course, Cuban had to back down, even though he tried to work with them. AudioNet became Broadcast.com and Yahoo bought it and ran it into the ground. I haven't been back to the site in several years now. Hopefully the record labels will wake up soon and get a new pair of glasses, before they run into yet another brick wall.