Posts by ed

ah well...

at least we've still got Butt Hill Road in Salford...

luxury?

as a 'business' user (i'm a musician / producer) i wouldn't say Macs are a luxury - I switched from PC's a year or so ago and wouldn't go back, price difference or no. The usability, reliability etc etc genuinely has saved me so much time that it's more than covered the extra price i paid.

one thing that concerns me though, is that i think Apple dropped the ball a bit by dumping the White Macbook range. For all its faults, that was the range that brought Mac laptops within range of the average user (it's what I bought) and by getting rid of almost all of them (and putting the price up on the remaining one) I think they may have lost a fair few sales.

the GENUINES vs the PARASITES

all this talk of genuine artists not being affected is ridiculous and reminds me somewhat of the rabid fools who desire a recession in order to see the hedge fund managers etc get taken down a peg or two.

in the case of a recession, the hedge fund managers won't care - they can take a couple of years off work until the market shores up, and then go back to their old line of work. the people who will really be affected are the average joes, who get made redundant from the factory and lose their house. then maybe it'll spread to the middle classes. it's not right, perhaps, but that's the way it is.

likewise with the music industry. anyone who thinks they're sticking it to the man, to robbie williams, to the PARASITES by advocating downloading without paying is simply deluded. robbie williams doesn't care. he won't be affected. likewise the millionaires in suits. they can all wait until the business has sorted itself out and then carry on as before. but that cool band you just heard on radio 6? the GENUINE artists who just released their 2nd album to critical acclaim and everyone says they could go on to great things? they're going to struggle to earn £10K this year, and will probably earn less than last year - and will soon decide that they can't really afford to carry on like this any longer.

i understand that it's tempting to assume that because some people in the industry earn vast salaries, then the majority must be at least comfortably off, but it's not necessarily true, and the fall in revenues is affecting everyone, from the bottom to the top. but it's the people at the bottom who feel it most keenly.

@andrew smith

people are getting confused here about what a royalty payment is.

royalties are collected by the PRS (in the UK) and are distributed directly to the composers and performers (or their publishers: either way it cannot be used to recoup against costs). the record labels, whether major or indie, don't get a look in, as Andrew Orlowski mentions in his column above. last fm has reached a deal with the PRS so that it pays royalties to them (in the form of a licence), and so all artists will be compensated accordingly by the PRS.

myspace is different: it does not pay royalties to anyone. currently, the royalty system works well and most artists strongly support it. what myspace and the majors appear to want to do is cut out the royalties, not pay the licence to the PRS and just hand the cash straight over to the majors.

which is worrying.