Want to argue about file sharing with Stefan Herwig? Here’s your chance
Dependent Records announced it would be shutting down operations back in August 2007 after owner Stefan Herwig said MP3 file sharing was eating away his business. Now he is acting as the tour manager for Seabound’s upcoming U.S. tour and has posted an open invitation for anyone across the country to sit down with him and have a debate about file sharing during the off-hours of the tour. If you are interested in voicing your opinion in person to Stefan and perhaps having a bit of an argument, send him an email at stefan@dependent.de and let him know.
Personally, I think this is just the wrong discussion to be having. Arguing for or against file sharing is pointless. Illegal music downloading is not going to go away, so you have to adapt to it. You can’t fight it. It’s like a new rule in the game called the music industry. You can’t play a new game by the old rules, so record labels and bands have to change how they play the game in order to remain successful. Stefan really should be asking people what changes should be made so that downloading is no longer considered a problem. That would be worth talking about.
News via the Side-Line blog
March 6th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Hmm, pretty interesting. It’s always good when an industry figure actually has the balls to step down and talk with the people about things, but as you said, it’s for the wrong reason.
I really don’t like downloading music, but sometimes I have to. I don’t have that much money to spend, so I must often be pretty careful of what I buy and what I don’t. I usually do so that when I find about a new band that’s interesting, I listen to samples on their sites, and if there’s not enough for me to decide, I’ll have to download an album or two in full so I can see what it’s really like. If it’s good enough, I’ll buy the CD eventually. This is a problem with bands that have been active for a long time, because they usually have way so many releases. I’m still missing something like ten records from KMFDM, for example, even though I’m trying as hard as I can to get them all. It doesn’t help the remastered new versions are priced normally as new releases, so they’re 17 - 20 €. If they were mid-priced, I’d have them all already. In fact, I think mid-price would be the way to go for the whole industry. The normal price tag of ~ 20 € isn’t very encouraging.
I don’t know what could be the solution for this problem. Maybe it’s a thing that’ll solve itself over time, when all the small record labels die and people notice they don’t have anything else to listen to than Rihanna or something. Legal downloading is something that’s also worth supporting. For people who still want to own real-life records like me, it’s a different thing, because we can’t just download a physical CD from the internet. Somehow actually buying music has to be made attractive and something that makes sense again.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Oh, and I seriously don’t know anyone who would RATHER have the music on his computer as silly little pieces of data than actually own them in some form. The prices, the prices…
March 6th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Well there are lots of people with lots of different opinions about music, what’s the best way to buy it, etc. The key is that you have to treat these different people in different ways, and in ways that make sense, if you want to be successful.
Trent Reznor, for example, did a wonderful thing with his new album Ghosts I-IV by realizing these differences and making special versions of the album for all the different kinds of people. There’s a version for the casual listener, a version for the fan, and a version for the dedicated collector. The prices are in an extreme range from $0/free to $300 for the different versions, and this is much smarter than the $15 or $20 normal CD and $25 limited edition CD combos we see all the time.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Yeah, Ghosts is a very interesting experimentation on Trent’s part both musically as well as business-wise. I still have to try it out, the servers have just been so flooded that I haven’t been able to download it… The way it was released was splendid as well. “Two weeks… …BAM”. Almost the complete opposite of how Year Zero was marketed.
Radiohead’s decision with In Rainbows was also very good, people were able to pay whatever they thought was approppriate. It showed that many people still are ready and willing to pay for their favourite music even if they could get it for free, which I think was a very nice thing.
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