Yochai Benkler Video: Conflicts in Cultural Production (music industry woes explained very succinctly)

Watch this and smile. Yochai rocks, indeed. His new book is here.

Comments

[Steve Pasek]

A very succinct and detailed descriptive discussion of how the digital paradigm shifts the revenue streams. However, I have to ask if Mr. Benkler has every tried to get paid for a live music performance? I mean, enough to actually survive. 99% of all musicians LOSE money on touring, and it's primarily done to build audience and market CDs -- and maybe to bag a few groupies. With the exception of certain niche markets (wedding bands, the traditional folk / public festival circuit), almost no one has found a way to make money from live performances.

Back in the old days, before television, my mom and dad used to go out dancing to live bands at ballrooms like the Aragon and Trianon in Chicago, and they paid cover charges and drink minimums to do so. As I said, that was before television -- and XBox/Wii/Playstation as well. These days in Chicago, you are ten times as likely to find people willing to pay a cover charge to listen to some DJ spin recorded music than you are to get someone to pay to hear live music. Most bars that have live music use it as a draw to sell drinks, and they don't pay enough to make a real living.

So, I think if there is little or no revenue stream from control of the copy, especially with the costs of traveling (which requires gasoline) going up, I don't see how anything but amateur bands will continue to exist. The "rights" payments for use in soundtracks are of course significant, but the percentage of musicians whose music is appropriate for such use is low. Prior to phonograph recordings, most musicians who made a decent living were accompanists for live theater shows -- not much of that vaudeville circuit left is there? I am skeptical that there is a professional career for anything but "jam bands" under a model as described.