A Short Thought on Music Artists
I’m on my way back from the mall today replaying the “OK GO” video in my head. It’s not particularly great for any reason, just slightly entrancing to see 4 odd looking men dance like that. I was nearly ready to purchase their album on itunes/amazon whatever, until I noticed they used “Capitol” records. Unfortunately that an organization ruled under the iron fist of the RIAA; who, just happens to be one of my least favorite organizations (Right below United States Government (no offence guys, but damn there’s some silly policy going on there (yes I know Canada has silly policies as well)) and above MPAA). Back on topic…
I used to just not like the RIAA… holding the little man down and all that. Today it just came to me (may of been obvious to others…) that the reason I shouldn’t support the RIAA it’s because it has taken the power from the artists. Every starting band seems to have problems with money. They don’t get paid much apparently, which is understandable. Here’s my problem: I’ve never heard of a record company exec being broke. Or that the people who run the RIAA are underpaid, or anyone else involved in that process. It seems that the priority for distributing the money leaves the artist last in this whole scheme they have. What I think some artists don’t realize (or are scared to test) is that without them, “the artist”, these people would have no jobs. The artist is effectively employing all these people, but not so willingly paying themselves poorly.
The solution is cut the the middle man organizations out. Back to basics for production, marketing and distribution. All these things cost money, and possibly in some cases more than what an established organization would cost. The difference is it would promote competition in that industry to provide the services artists need to be successful. No longer would the artist be paying for some RIAA chump (aka Cary Sherman) to make money off suing children, dead people or old people for downloading music. Not that I support that practice, but I feel the market has been driven to that by the business model the RIAA forces on us.
Anyways, all I want to do is buy an album and know that the artist is getting fairly compensated before everyone else does, because without the artists there is not music. With no music there would be no RIAA… just think about that Chad…
