i blame it on bush. yep.

this is the same analogy ive made all along on this situation. if the music industry could just lay off the crippling of digital music and just made it ridiculously convenient and simple, and most of all inexpensive, they could really have a shot against piracy.

yup.

Looks like I have something new to ramble on about on my podcast.....wait, did I say "new?"

While I completely agree with this one, this point appeared in a book--can't remember which one, but a business marketing book--at least four years ago.

the problem with the analogy is that bottled water revenue is not being divided among millions of artists.

neither is music revenue

well you do have to take into account artist royalties - although the music companies in question will still be profiting, the trickle-down isn't that great for artists.

This is not new, it makes sense but only if there was less of a stigma on artists selling rights(read selling out to the cooler than you contingent)to shit like the OC or isuzu commercials. that is where the money could be made

I have heard something similar to this once before..

http://www.downhillbattle.org/interviews/ian_mackaye.php

well not the same..

krist

Gerd Leonhard had a pretty good roundup of the "music like water" theory:

http://www.gerdleonhard.net/2006/01/flat_fee_music_.html

I think the book Matt is referring to is The Future of Music: http://www.futureofmusicbook.com

Glenn Gamboa has been reading old copies of Billboard.

Geoff Mayfield used the same analogy and pretty much wrote the same article and gave a speech about it in Boston around 6 or 7 years ago.

Strong work Glenn.

this reminds me of a great great interview Ian McKye did a number of years ago which explored the same analogy b/w music and water.

I'm not sure if this is the first article he mentions it in, there might be a better one out there but this one is good nonetheless. Nothing like an articulate musician.

http://www.downhillbattle.org/interviews/ian_mackaye.php

"I'm serious about that. I really believe that. Music is like air, you can't sell it. I know that people have, not to fall back to my oft-used metaphors and analogies, but this is the way I process things, but I see music as a river, and the water in a river is there for everyone and anyone that wants to have a sip can have a sip and have some water. Now somewhere along the line someone came up with the idea of putting the river water in bottles and selling the bottles of water. That's the record industry. Music is a river, music is water, and the bottling company is the industry, and it's not inherently evil, because it's frankly, convenient to have water in a bottle, so if you're driving in your car and you're thirsty you don't have to drive to the nearest river and take a sip, you can just reach down and take a sip out of your bottle. The same way if I'm driving in my car and I want to hear a song, I don't have to drive over to the people's house and ask them to play it for me, I can put the CD in and listen to it, or turn on the radio. Where it gets ugly is that when the bottling company, since their aim is to make money-- at some point they may have thought like, "Let's bottle this water and that way we can share the healthful qualities of water with all the people." At some point it becomes, "This is our industry, we need to make money, and how can we increase profits?" Well, the way to increase profits is to try to discourage people from going to the river, and having to buy the bottled water. And they'll start with that but eventually what they're going to get into is they're going to start blocking the river or they're going to poison the river. But water is always moving, and it's very difficult to poison a river, very hard indeed. And that's the good news about music, it can't be stopped, it will always happen, people will always make music, and regardless of whether or not there's money to be made form it or not, it's still going to happen, it can't be stopped. So in my mind with the sales of records, the industry has done their best to claim ownership of music but they don't-- they only own the things that they sell, so when people who are songwriters say, "That's my property and if you give it away for free then I lose my incentive," then, well, good riddance. "

Oh Snap! Great Comeback Inability.

Thanks for the Ian MaKaye piece Steven