AUSTIN, Texas -- Somewhere between the live music showcases on Sixth Street and the endless schmoozing that ran well past midnight, the deep-fried drunkfest known as South by Southwest also squeezed in some discussion of technology and how it's changing the music industry.


In the tradition of the annual Austin music festival, which ended Saturday, panels covered both the industry and artistic side of the music game. Labels and managers, after all, are just as interested as the artists themselves in how the internet, digital downloading and other technologies are turning the music business on its head...
--------
(another long article, here is the link)
from Wired.com

The artists will be fine. If they're any good, they can make tons of money just from concert tours alone. If they're not good (Ashley Simpson, cough cough,) then who cares if they don't make money.

As for their managers, agents and those guys: who cares if they lose money. They're talentless. They can go get a real job like the rest of us.

many artist already take advantage of p2p anyway

I would tihnk that psp would help with the music industry anywyas

A lot of bands actually get a lot larger because of their widespread popularity on the internet. By embracing Peer to Peer, the band Disturbed got populairty for defying the industry, and popularity online.


Saying that MP3 downloads hinder the music industry is like saying digging a hole hinders the construction industry.

exactly

The funny thing about P2P is that it ultimatly the record lables themselves are the ones causing the problem. If the record labels would take the time to find interesting acts instead of pushing a bunch of fluff bands people wouldn't really have a problem dropping $20 for an album. The problem mainly arises from the fact that fans have become alienated by spending $20 on an album that has on or two good songs and than a bunch of filler, it's a ripoff and fans are just more content to download the one or two goods songs for free.

The other thing I find interesting about all of this is that most bands worth their salt should be more than capable of making a decent living playing live concerts. Of course that is also becoming harder for the bands since greedy promoters are charging outlandish ticket fee's and once again alienated fans are tired of dropping $70 dollars for a two hour long sub-par performance.

I really think the whole thing could be fixed if you took the greedy record labels and concert promoters out of the equation and musicians just operated on an independent level. If musicians could keep the production costs to a minimal level and didn't have to compensate for suits needing big paychecks the price's of both CD's and concert tickets would drop considerably I think more people would be willing to spend the money on hard working and talented musicians if the prices could be kept to a minimum. Instead they are content downloading stuff for free and I can't say that I blame them.

However it's important to keep in mind that a lot of up and coming musicians really do depend on selling albums to make a living (remember I'm not talking about blaoted multi million dollar artists here) so if you do download something for free from an up and coming artist try to atleast attend a show or buy a t-shirt or something, it will help those on the independent level thrive and perhaps the untalented major label hacks will slowly disappear (I know wishful thinking).

thats why i only buy 4 dif bands cd's

gorillaz, system of a down, billy talen, and queens of the stone age.

all others i download.

The only four whole albums that I've enjoyed:

Linkin Park: Meteora
Metallica: Master of Puppets
Disturbed: Believe
Disturbed: The Sickness

That's exactly my point! You feel that those are the only musicians talented enough to actually justify spending that kind of money on. I would imagine that most feel exactly the same way and while their tastes may differ their isn't a lot of musicians out there worth spending the money on. It's too bad, but that's the industry I guess.

All in all I usually just by used cds, it's cheap, they sound good and I don't really have a problem dropping $5-6 on a bad cd! It's the way to go if you want to actually have the cd and the artwork.

Cool avatar by the way I love futurama!