Thorough book on the changes in the music industry


I just finished reading a very appropriate book to lead up to the Grammy Awards this past Sunday, Ripped, a non-fiction piece by Greg Kot following the changes in the music industry over the past decade or so, primarily dealing with digital distribution. It follows the rise of peer to peer file sharing beginning with Napster, and also how specific artists like Prince, Radiohead and NIN tried to change how music could be distributed from the artist directly to the music consumer. I was hoping he would get into more of the other P2P networks and software that have come and gone over the years (Kazaa, eMule, LimeWire, BitTorrent), but he left that stuff out. I remember during some little speech during the Grammy broadcast someone was indirectly hinting about how piracy and file sharing were a bad thing, especially hurting the artists. They did not mention how most artists only receive a very small fraction of the proceeds of any CD sale. Since I tend to purchase primarily Christian music these days, I am mostly familiar with the practices within that subsection of the industry. I know I have purchased all three of Aaron Shusts's CD's directly from his own store website on brickhousedirect.com. His site offers always have the best pricing and special links for early listening or to receive special content. Plus all his CD's ship in cardboard sleeves (no jewel boxes) and include really thick liner note booklets. I sure hope that since he is selling his music through a smaller online site that he is receiving more than 15-20% of the sales of each item. I noticed that most of the Christian artists who record for Provident (Sony) such as Third Day, Casting Crowns, Brandon Heath or Leeland have online stores via their Essential Artist Services. I wonder how they breakdown who gets how much money from those sales since they do not need a third party retailer like Wal-Mart, Amazon or Best Buy in the middle. One special bargain they seem to have right now is to receive Third Day's recent Grammy winning Live Revelations CD/DVD, the Revelation CD and the Glory Revealed II CD, all together for $30.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trying out the L'Ecole Culinaire Presentation Room restaurant

Image
We had been seeing the ads for the restaurant at L'Ecole Culinaire and since we live so close by we thought we would try it out. We had always enjoyed dining out at cooking or hotel schools like the CHIC in Chicago and the Statler at Cornell where we went to college. Since we still love to go out and eat here in St. Louis , we ventured over to their restaurant on the first day they were open for lunch. The first thing we noticed is that they do not have much parking! They really need to let patrons know where they are supposed to park. The restaurant itself is small but very well attended. There was one fellow who kept straightening all the centerpieces and place settings on the tables, and we always saw one or two student workers milling about. The lunch menu was small and the choices did not appear overly "gourmet". The special of the day was a bison burger stuffed with cheese, and other choices picked by my group included a club sandwich, a "margherita" pi...
Read more

BMI & BMR Calculator (Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate)

Image
My wife has been researching type 2 diabetes and recently checked a book out of the library which included a body mass index (BMI) chart much like the one pictured here. Whereas it is fairly easy to follow, I, of course, think it must be converted to an online calculator! However, when I checked the Internet, there were already a billion of them so I had to make one that was different. So my lovely BMI BMR calculator accepts either inches or centimeters for your height and pounds or kilograms for your weight and calculates not only your BMI, but also your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which determines how many calories you should consume! So I made a spiffy "all in one" healthy body indicator calculator which not only determines how underweight or overweight you are, but also tells you how many calories you should consume to maintain or improve your ideal weight. 
Read more

Not all Frosted Window Films are the same!

Image
We live in an older home with a lot of issues and one of them concerns our back door to our patio from our sunroom. The door has double paned glass on it, but unfortunately the seal has broken so you can see moisture collect inside of it. We decided the easiest way to "remedy" the problem was to cover the window with some "frosted" film so we did not have to see the moisture condensing between the panes. But the question was, what film? There are a bunch of them available so we had to select something to try on the door. The first place we tried was our nearby Lowe's store which had a bunch of Gila brand film. We selected what seemed like the typical adhesive based door sized  film that cost about $25 after tax. We thought it could not be that hard to put up and look nice on our door. So one day my wife ran out and purchased it at Lowe's and we commenced to install it on our door window. We made our own soapy water solution and followed the directions...
Read more