Anybody hear about the Google block on Indie labels/artists?

[nightflameauto]

Apparently it's been kept pretty hush-hush in the states, but Google's planning on pulling vids from any indie label and/or band that hasn't agreed to sign up for and utilize it's new streaming agreement.

What sort of impact do you see that having? I know a lot of times when I go hunting new music Youtube is a big place to start. You start with a band you're aware of and branch off to other related bands and before you know it you have a list of similar artists you wanna check out. They start dropping non big label bands and that's gonna dry up really quick.

Anybody else have any thoughts on this one?

[Dickarms]

"grave error of commercial judgement" is right

[itchyfingers]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

[Dickarms]

nice! didnt know that

[nightflameauto]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

That's actually part of how Apple gets the record companies to climb abord the iTunes train. The record companies want to figure out a way to make that shit pay per play. They just haven't found the leverage point yet where they won't lose their customers altogether if they try to pull the trigger. But, that little sticking point is sitting out there for when thier arrogance supersedes their caution.

[ovid9]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Not sure if serious....since that was kinda the whole point of iTunes from the get go and one of many reasons I refused to have any part of it.

Its why I still like physical media. Technically, its a license as well, but I hold it in my hands and it can't just be deleted remotely. Yet.

That and I'm old and crotchety at 34.

[Schweezly]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Yea, that came to light in the public eye recently when I think John Travolta or someone like that tried to right it into his will. He was told he couldn't pass purchases from iTunes down to his children because of that structure.

Which is totally fucked. When I lost my dad we inherited his record player and about 200 records. I cherish that and it bums me out that stuff like this is happening

[Dickarms]

no one wants john travolta's enya collection


but thats still screwed up

[ovid9]

no one wants john travolta's enya collection


but thats still screwed up

Travolta doesn't have anything the quality of enya in his collection.

[Ostinato Rubato]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Not sure if serious....since that was kinda the whole point of iTunes from the get go and one of many reasons I refused to have any part of it.

Its why I still like physical media. Technically, its a license as well, but I hold it in my hands and it can't just be deleted remotely. Yet.

That and I'm old and crotchety at 34.

I'm old an crotchety at 30. Right there with you. This is why hate cloud anything, and the Amazon Kindle. They don't gotta burn the books they just delete'em.

We're heading to the Matrix. Cue Keanu.

[ovid9]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Not sure if serious....since that was kinda the whole point of iTunes from the get go and one of many reasons I refused to have any part of it.

Its why I still like physical media. Technically, its a license as well, but I hold it in my hands and it can't just be deleted remotely. Yet.

That and I'm old and crotchety at 34.

I'm old an crotchety at 30. Right there with you. This is why hate cloud anything, and the Amazon Kindle. They don't gotta burn the books they just delete'em.

We're heading to the Matrix. Cue Keanu.

Oh, I've given my soul to google and amazon, but i still mostly buy music on CD and i probably purchase 1:1 books/ebooks. I download a TON of free ebooks though. I mean, they're free, legally, why wouldn't I?

But I just like the feel of a book in my hands most of the time, or the ability to listen to my music if my internet is down and I didn't have that song on my mp3 player.

[bce5150]

I really want to agree with you guys.... but I can't.

People who are passionate about music will avoid the newly introduced pitfalls... but the intended effect will eventually manifest. The powers that be will stranglehold the market and we will see more and more people absorbed into what is being spoon fed through mass media. The effects have been rapid and deadly in the last decade. Subgenres have be relegated and diluted. MacBook musicians have been exalted.

Musician oriented stuff (jazz, indie, metal, what-have-you) will always be available - but it will become increasingly more obscure, less cool, and less listened to. Even if it's readily available - if Google is putting the shutter vision upon available media - a massive amount of people will just engage in what is provided to them. Crushing the economic viability of small musicians is beneficial to those manipulating the market. I know it sounds cynical and cold... but I've worked with web developers and marketing and I assure you - Limiting the spectrum of products based on profitability is the main point, especially through the means of shrouding/demoting other products (regardless of their marketability or quality - a limited spectrum of high profit margin items is ideal).

I know a thousand people with the whole world of knowledge and art and culture made readily available to them through their finger tips since the smart phone revolution. Yet, they'll order a dish while berating the Indian waitress about what's in it (but they won't bother to goggle the name of the dish even though they're on the damn internet the whole time they talk to her). I hate to be the perennial pessimist.... but I guarantee for every engaged bedroom musician who bothers to seek out these bands that have been shunned from accessibility, there will be another 9 or 10 or 20 kids who are successfully herded away from interesting and provocative music and settle in to whatever this media institution deems suitable for them to be hearing.

[neilrocks25]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Make a back up audio CD.

[The Hiryuu]

From my understanding, it's not an outright block. It's just preventing them from monetizing videos unless the music is also submitted to their Spotify knockoff. Which supposedly pays jack shit for royalties (Even worse than basically every other service out there) and is a total asshole move, but it's not the death-of-music level thing it's being made out to be.

[Bob Savage]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Its why I still like physical media. Technically, its a license as well, but I hold it in my hands and it can't just be deleted remotely. Yet.

That and I'm old and crotchety at 34.

Yep, with only a few exceptions, everything in my iTunes library came from CDs and in most cases I found the CD for less money than buying the album on iTunes.

[clipless bumper]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Make a back up audio CD.

I don't participate in iTunes (my wife does) - but I thought you COULDN'T make a physical copy of something you bought through iTumes?

[GuitarBilly]

I really want to agree with you guys.... but I can't.

People who are passionate about music will avoid the newly introduced pitfalls... but the intended effect will eventually manifest. The powers that be will stranglehold the market and we will see more and more people absorbed into what is being spoon fed through mass media. The effects have been rapid and deadly in the last decade. Subgenres have be relegated and diluted. MacBook musicians have been exalted.

Musician oriented stuff (jazz, indie, metal, what-have-you) will always be available - but it will become increasingly more obscure, less cool, and less listened to. Even if it's readily available - if Google is putting the shutter vision upon available media - a massive amount of people will just engage in what is provided to them. Crushing the economic viability of small musicians is beneficial to those manipulating the market. I know it sounds cynical and cold... but I've worked with web developers and marketing and I assure you - Limiting the spectrum of products based on profitability is the main point, especially through the means of shrouding/demoting other products (regardless of their marketability or quality - a limited spectrum of high profit margin items is ideal).

I know a thousand people with the whole world of knowledge and art and culture made readily available to them through their finger tips since the smart phone revolution. Yet, they'll order a dish while berating the Indian waitress about what's in it (but they won't bother to goggle the name of the dish even though they're on the damn internet the whole time they talk to her). I hate to be the perennial pessimist.... but I guarantee for every engaged bedroom musician who bothers to seek out these bands that have been shunned from accessibility, there will be another 9 or 10 or 20 kids who are successfully herded away from interesting and provocative music and settle in to whatever this media institution deems suitable for them to be hearing.

I agree with everything you said. Except that this is how it's always been. The role YT has now was played by MTV in the 80's-90's and by corporate FM radio before that and they NEVER gave space to indie/instrumental music. Even on the "metal days" of MTV, it was only the bigger and poppier metal artists that got any airplay.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's and for me searching for independent music has been my motto since, well....since ever. I always had to keep an eye in the local scene, small fanzines etc to find new stuff, while still enjoying some select major acts.


So I don't know. It doesn't look like a big change to me. The 1 engaged fan to 20 herd kids ratio you mentioned has always been there to and it's probably more like 1-100 or higher.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is YT is owned by google and no artist is "entitled" to YT airplay, it's up to google to set whatever terms they want to.


Now with that aside, these things don't represent the end of music, as music exists for 1000s of years and always will. But the recording industry is a different story. That's a whole industry that was made possible by technology (the early-to-mid 20th century tech that allowed sound to be captured and played back). It would be silly to think that the technology the made that industry possible in the first place would stop evolving to the point of rendering it obsolete. So technology created it and technology killed it and that's how technology progresses in all areas, not only music.

We're in 2014 and we are only starting to see the beginning of this whole revolution. Think about how things were in 1914 compared to what happened later on the 20th century. And things change even faster now. So it's really up to the next generation of artists to come up with new ways to stay viable in this new technology climate because it won't stop evolving.

The upside of all this is that today you can get a full recording set up for under a grand and put out a full record from your bedroom. Growing up that was absolutely impossible, you would need to pay a studio to have any type of decent recording done or have a shit ton of expensive gear and space at home.
Now obviously, as things become cheaper to make, their value on the market also decreases. So how do you get past that issue? I don't know, it's a challenge the new generation of artists/entrepreneurs will have to figure out. The old model is pretty much dead now, that's for sure.

[nightflameauto]

The upside of all this is that today you can get a full recording set up for under a grand and put out a full record from your bedroom. Growing up that was absolutely impossible, you would need to pay a studio to have any type of decent recording done or have a shit ton of expensive gear and space at home.
Now obviously, as things become cheaper to make, their value on the market also decreases. So how do you get past that issue? I don't know, it's a challenge the new generation of artists/entrepreneurs will have to figure out. The old model is pretty much dead now, that's for sure.

I think a big part of the issue when it comes to this is the industry that built up around recording is fighting with everything they've got to avoid changing with the times. The big labels LOVE the control they used to be able to exert over all artists that wanted anything beyond shitty tape-deck single-take recordings. That was a long time ago in technological terms now, but the execs in charge of those labels aren't necessarily embracing the changes, instead trying to hold on to the model they've always used.

I don't really think the recording industry as it exists and has existed will go away. We'll just see it branch out more. There's still gonna be the huge cash-cow dreck that's pumped out via whatever the current conduit to teens is, and there will still be the indie artists. The thing is we went through a brief time where finding indie artists was a whole lot easier due to them being plastered in all the same places as the big boys, youtube playing no small part in that. Now we'll have to go back to digging deeper and trying harder to find them. Not the end of the world, but it's going to be different. I've gotten really used to just jumping into youtube and following the side-links to find new music.

All of this, and visiting my eleven year old neice shows me that industry is still pumping out utter dreck that hits the target market perfectly. She's totally in love with any steaming pile of crap they pump out and tell her to like. And she really doesn't understand why I don't want to hear "What's the Fox Say" for the millionth time.

At least the Justin Beiber shit is over and dead. She even took down her posters of him.

[neilrocks25]

That's nothing. I just learned that all the music I thought I bought on iTunes over the last decade doesn't actually belong to me. Turns out you only buy a license to LISTEN to the music on iTunes, and Apple could revoke that shit at any time and remove about half of my music collection. WTF?!

Make a back up audio CD.

I don't participate in iTunes (my wife does) - but I thought you COULDN'T make a physical copy of something you bought through iTumes?

Yep you can, make a smart playlist, burn to cd

[The Hiryuu]

Yep, with only a few exceptions, everything in my iTunes library came from CDs and in most cases I found the CD for less money than buying the album on iTunes.

I haven't managed to actually set up an iTunes account to purchase things. I've TRIED numerous times, but for some reason it never works. So all my stuff is acquired through CD or free legal online avenues.

[Dave Lister]

I really want to agree with you guys.... but I can't.

People who are passionate about music will avoid the newly introduced pitfalls... but the intended effect will eventually manifest. The powers that be will stranglehold the market and we will see more and more people absorbed into what is being spoon fed through mass media. The effects have been rapid and deadly in the last decade. Subgenres have be relegated and diluted. MacBook musicians have been exalted.

Musician oriented stuff (jazz, indie, metal, what-have-you) will always be available - but it will become increasingly more obscure, less cool, and less listened to. Even if it's readily available - if Google is putting the shutter vision upon available media - a massive amount of people will just engage in what is provided to them. Crushing the economic viability of small musicians is beneficial to those manipulating the market. I know it sounds cynical and cold... but I've worked with web developers and marketing and I assure you - Limiting the spectrum of products based on profitability is the main point, especially through the means of shrouding/demoting other products (regardless of their marketability or quality - a limited spectrum of high profit margin items is ideal).

I know a thousand people with the whole world of knowledge and art and culture made readily available to them through their finger tips since the smart phone revolution. Yet, they'll order a dish while berating the Indian waitress about what's in it (but they won't bother to goggle the name of the dish even though they're on the damn internet the whole time they talk to her). I hate to be the perennial pessimist.... but I guarantee for every engaged bedroom musician who bothers to seek out these bands that have been shunned from accessibility, there will be another 9 or 10 or 20 kids who are successfully herded away from interesting and provocative music and settle in to whatever this media institution deems suitable for them to be hearing.

Good points you've made there. Though it does make the near future seem a bit bleak. Considering the FCC net neutrality issue as well and the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger, and AT&T in negotiations to buy direcTV. Makes me some times feel as if the buyers are more or less attempting to control the sources of all information and entertainment.

I agree with everything you said. Except that this is how it's always been. The role YT has now was played by MTV in the 80's-90's and by corporate FM radio before that and they NEVER gave space to indie/instrumental music. Even on the "metal days" of MTV, it was only the bigger and poppier metal artists that got any airplay.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's and for me searching for independent music has been my motto since, well....since ever. I always had to keep an eye in the local scene, small fanzines etc to find new stuff, while still enjoying some select major acts.


So I don't know. It doesn't look like a big change to me. The 1 engaged fan to 20 herd kids ratio you mentioned has always been there to and it's probably more like 1-100 or higher.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is YT is owned by google and no artist is "entitled" to YT airplay, it's up to google to set whatever terms they want to.


Now with that aside, these things don't represent the end of music, as music exists for 1000s of years and always will. But the recording industry is a different story. That's a whole industry that was made possible by technology (the early-to-mid 20th century tech that allowed sound to be captured and played back). It would be silly to think that the technology the made that industry possible in the first place would stop evolving to the point of rendering it obsolete. So technology created it and technology killed it and that's how technology progresses in all areas, not only music.

We're in 2014 and we are only starting to see the beginning of this whole revolution. Think about how things were in 1914 compared to what happened later on the 20th century. And things change even faster now. So it's really up to the next generation of artists to come up with new ways to stay viable in this new technology climate because it won't stop evolving.

The upside of all this is that today you can get a full recording set up for under a grand and put out a full record from your bedroom. Growing up that was absolutely impossible, you would need to pay a studio to have any type of decent recording done or have a shit ton of expensive gear and space at home.
Now obviously, as things become cheaper to make, their value on the market also decreases. So how do you get past that issue? I don't know, it's a challenge the new generation of artists/entrepreneurs will have to figure out. The old model is pretty much dead now, that's for sure.

Billy your statement does bring me a shed of optimism. Considering how it's possible nowadays to record a quality album at home for what a few hours worth of studio time would've once set you back.

With the continued influx of technology and innovation, I'm fairly certain that someone will develop a newer, faster, and better streaming service than what's currently available. One can only hope.

[ovid9]

I think it was NPR I heard them discussing some new streaming options for live shows. Its mostly singer-songwriter types at the moment, but it seemed pretty cool.

Basically the sites act only as a conduit, so they aren't recording the concert or anything, they're just providing access. Then for a few dollars you get your "ticket" log in and watch the show.

It'll be interesting to see how this develops because if bands can get quality live audio to stream a live show, that would be awesome. I know this has been done by some big acts, and a bunch of festivals do this (stream live music), but it'd be awesome if smaller bands could do it as well to make some extra cash for themselves.

Is it as good as being there? No, but living where I live not many bands I want to see come closer than a couple hours away and I'd happily pay $5-10 to chill and watch them live on my TV if I knew the bulk of the money was going to the band.

[Bardagh]

You know, I have a degree in Computer Science and Information Systems. I have worked a lot in web application development and e-commerce - I am pretty far from being a luddite. But for many reasons I prefer having CD's of any music I actually care about. I don't like listening to things on shuffle, and I find it far more distracting and annoying to flick around a touch screen while driving than just switching a CD. I reserve my phone for podcasts and shit like that for the most part.

From observation there is one thing I have come to understand - for a large part, people who rely solely on digital music (i.e. buying all their shit from itunes and listening to it through their phone) are the same kinds of people who would previously have just listened to the radio and maybe bought a single once in a while. They don't buy albums unless they're big pop culture milestones, and even then they will probably rarely listen to an entire album. They usually listen to everything on shuffle and probably use Pandora half the time despite it sounding like crap and playing the same shit over and over again. They will often times listen to their music on a tinny mono cellphone speaker and they're fine with that because music is kind of just background noise for them. In short, they are the casual music listeners that have always made up a majority of the public. They may be even more of the majority now than before, who knows, and musicians today are able to realize less and less money from these people, which sucks, but I don't think a whole lot of musicians other than the big guys ever saw any money from these people anyway.

That's not to say this situation today isn't bad for new musicians. In some ways its better than ever and in some ways its worse than ever. We're kind of in limbo between the old way of doing things and whatever the new ways will end up being. What is obvious is that if you care about music, you should buy it, and in whatever form you buy it, consider buying it from the source that best benefits the musicians. Sites like CDBbaby and Bandcamp I believe give the greatest percentage of money to the artists. I think artists themselves have to do more to educate their fans/consumers about the choices that are out there and how they affect the situation.

[TurboPablo]

You know, I have a degree in Computer Science and Information Systems. I have worked a lot in web application development and e-commerce - I am pretty far from being a luddite. But for many reasons I prefer having CD's of any music I actually care about. I don't like listening to things on shuffle, and I find it far more distracting and annoying to flick around a touch screen while driving than just switching a CD. I reserve my phone for podcasts and shit like that for the most part.

From observation there is one thing I have come to understand - for a large part, people who rely solely on digital music (i.e. buying all their shit from itunes and listening to it through their phone) are the same kinds of people who would previously have just listened to the radio and maybe bought a single once in a while. They don't buy albums unless they're big pop culture milestones, and even then they will probably rarely listen to an entire album. They usually listen to everything on shuffle and probably use Pandora half the time despite it sounding like crap and playing the same shit over and over again. They will often times listen to their music on a tinny mono cellphone speaker and they're fine with that because music is kind of just background noise for them. In short, they are the casual music listeners that have always made up a majority of the public. They may be even more of the majority now than before, who knows, and musicians today are able to realize less and less money from these people, which sucks, but I don't think a whole lot of musicians other than the big guys ever saw any money from these people anyway.

That's not to say this situation today isn't bad for new musicians. In some ways its better than ever and in some ways its worse than ever. We're kind of in limbo between the old way of doing things and whatever the new ways will end up being. What is obvious is that if you care about music, you should buy it, and in whatever form you buy it, consider buying it from the source that best benefits the musicians. Sites like CDBbaby and Bandcamp I believe give the greatest percentage of money to the artists. I think artists themselves have to do more to educate their fans/consumers about the choices that are out there and how they affect the situation.

Very well put.


Also, I have spent a damn good chunk at CDBaby.

[GuitarBilly]

You know, I have a degree in Computer Science and Information Systems. I have worked a lot in web application development and e-commerce - I am pretty far from being a luddite. But for many reasons I prefer having CD's of any music I actually care about. I don't like listening to things on shuffle, and I find it far more distracting and annoying to flick around a touch screen while driving than just switching a CD. I reserve my phone for podcasts and shit like that for the most part.

From observation there is one thing I have come to understand - for a large part, people who rely solely on digital music (i.e. buying all their shit from itunes and listening to it through their phone) are the same kinds of people who would previously have just listened to the radio and maybe bought a single once in a while. They don't buy albums unless they're big pop culture milestones, and even then they will probably rarely listen to an entire album. They usually listen to everything on shuffle and probably use Pandora half the time despite it sounding like crap and playing the same shit over and over again. They will often times listen to their music on a tinny mono cellphone speaker and they're fine with that because music is kind of just background noise for them. In short, they are the casual music listeners that have always made up a majority of the public. They may be even more of the majority now than before, who knows, and musicians today are able to realize less and less money from these people, which sucks, but I don't think a whole lot of musicians other than the big guys ever saw any money from these people anyway.

That's only true for our generation. The younger generations (teens etc..) are ALL digital. My kid never asked me for money to buy a CD even though I tried to teach him about it. It's all downloads for him (iTunes etc...) .