Apple MusicStore 'opinion article'

[Charles Martin]

> From: Fran Dollinger <fran at dollingers.com>
>
>   Please forgive the length of this post....I tried to send just a link
> but when I clicked on the link to returned "Item Not Found".

No lecture, but I wanted you to know that it's not legal to reprint a 
copyrighted article verbatim like this.

The proper way to quote things like this is to reprint the first 
paragraph/sentence or two, then supply a URL where interested parties 
can read the full thing. Makes more sense too (less bandwidth used, 
people who aren't interested don't have to scroll, writer gets more 
hits/$$ from his employer, rights preserved).

> Mark is a columnist for the SF Chronicle (Morning Fix)
> A little OT but thought maybe some might like to see it....

It's was of interest, certainly, but what I really can't understand is 
why a seemingly smart guy like Mark can't just *call up Apple and ask 
them* if the artist gets paid.

For the record: of course the artists get paid! They get EXACTLY the 
SAME MONEY they would get if you went into a store and bought the 
album. The cut that the record companies keep (approx. 65 cents of each 
99 cent song) is the same as the cut they get from retail (a little 
more actually, since they don't have to spend money manufacturing 
physical CDs/jackets/paying distributors).

The only people that are not getting paid are the corporate 
whore-stores, who routinely keep everything above $10 of what YOU pay 
for store-bought CDs.

ONE phone call to Apple's marketing people was all it took me to find 
that out. Wow, I must be a super-journalist!

What Mark completely fails to understand is that NOBODY is stopping 
artists from selling direct (through Apple or any other channel) and 
getting a bigger slice of the pie. Artists like Todd Rundgren, Elvis 
Costello, Christopher Cross (!), David Bowie, Roger McGuinn and Joe 
Jackson have been doing this for YEARS. Apple's structure allows for 
this, and it's only a matter of time before it happens. Apple was 
*absolutely right* to score the "big five" first (the popular music 
that accounts for 80 percent of all music sales) and *then* add indies, 
artists-direct, big-five back catalogue and so on LATER. Who knew the 
other 20 percent (and I count myself among them!) could whine SO LOUDLY?

Apple's success (which will happen in spite of short-sighted, 
mean-spirited "hindsight experts" like Mark Morford) is the death 
sentence of the modern record company as we know it today. Record 
companies will continue to thrive and exist, but they will be 
promotional entities designed to push hot NEW mainstream acts and their 
healthy back catalogues only; the rest of the new and interesting old 
music will come from artists or artists' confederations directly. Pity 
he doesn't have the vision to see it.

_Chas_

"With the introduction of the new iTunes Music Store, we've now built 
the  first real complete ecosystem for the digital music age. We've got 
a way to buy music online legally that's fantastic — it's better than 
any other way to acquire music. We've got a way manage music with the 
iTunes  Jukebox, which is the best in the world. And we've got a way to 
listen to music on the go with the iPod, which is the most popular MP3 
player in the world and one of the coolest things in the world. So 
we've really got, from one end to another, a complete solution for 
digital music. We're the only people in the world to do this, so we 
feel great about it." — Steve Jobs, Time Magazine, 30-April-03