In The Costs of a Terrible Mistake, Doug Richard expresses all the same concerns as in my previous post. Only rather better-articulated. And he doesn’t mince his words in the conclusion.
There was no need to rush this legislation through except that someone, somewhere wanted to get passed under the wire. Someone wanted a bad law in place, and in the wrapping up of parliament it happened.
That is devastating.
And people think I’m overreacting when I call for a boycott of the “Big four” record companies (Sony, EMI, Warners and Universal). While I’m sure there are other vested interests in play, especially the cynically calculated evil of Rupert Murdoch, there does seem to be smoking gun incriminating the major labels, who may have given us some great music in the past, but are now dinosaurs willing to trash the future in order to postpone the extinction they so richly deserve.
There are many lifetimes’ worth of great music released by smaller labels and independent artists - we don’t need the majors any more, and a boycott is far less than they deserve. Not as dismissal of ‘mainstream’ music as an act of musical snobbery, but a refusal to give any of my money to businesses who act in such a disgraceful way.
I am not so much into the music scene as you are, but I see many parallels in the publishing industry. The recent battle between Amazon and MacMillan, the furor over the Google Books settlement, the interest/anticipation/dread over what the iPad will mean for ebook publishing… these same issues are affecting writers and publishers as well.
It’s always been the dream of artists to cut out the middleman and be able to market themselves directly to an audience that will pay for their work. The technology now exists to make this easy. I think the major obstacle is that we still need some form of “gatekeeper,” and that’s the purpose the major labels (and publishing houses) have served, for better or for worse. Most people don’t want to trawl through a million mediocre-to-awful indie bands or self-published authors to find that one gem; they want a source they trust to more or less filter out the really bad so that what’s left is at least worth checking out.
Right now, it’s like winning the lottery to get a record/publishing contract. But it’s also like winning the lottery to gain a large enough following on the internet that you can make a living off of the small fraction of fans who will pay money for your work. I think the business models will change, but we’re always going to have some entrenched interests that wind up playing the role of gatekeeper.
Motion seconded re: publishing.
I feel this especially acutely, since I self-publish, and find myself often rubbing shoulders with a great many other people who do the same thing. A few of them are genuinely great writers, and deserve to be widely read. Most of them are sheer garbage. The only thing the good ones have going for them is positive word of mouth, and I’m finding that is deadly slow as a method of building a fanbase. Just because you can put your book on Amazon.com doesn’t mean people are going to ever know it’s there.
So, while some of the logistical barriers to getting in print have been removed, the problem of being known remains as difficult as ever. Maybe even more so, because now you have to fight not only Big Publishing (my fingers cramp spontaneously typing that stupid phrase, but it fits here), but every other self-promoting schlub who thinks Pulitzer but writes potboiler. About the only way to be heard at all is either to get a major contract, or settle for a small but devoted circle of fans — and keep your day job. So far I’m sticking with route #2, but I can see why it’s not universally accepted.
The problem with the majors is they’ve failed as gatekeepers - they’ve focussed exclusively on the bestsellers and abandoned the entire midlist, to the point where it’s the equivalent of a book industry publishing nothing but established bestsellers and celebrity memoirs.
The problem is, they are still the gatekeepers, failed or not. There are publishers out there who nibble away on the edges of that and provide interesting work that sneaks into the public consciousness from the side, but they aren’t able to command as much attention from the top down - they have to settle for the blog circuit, etc.
The current system, and the one that threatens to replace it, are both flawed in that they reward mediocrity on all levels - which is fine for them, since that typically means far more predictable revenue.
The book publisher Baen has set up a free library where their authors can place any books they wish to offer for free (www.baen.com/library). There is an interesting diatribe from one of the participants on the home page that shows the argument from his point of view. Yes, I know it’s not music but the principles are the same.