[NewMusic] Death of the record industry (cont'd.)

[Matthew Goodheart]

Does Rubin remind anyone else of a bastard child of Karl Marx and  
Rasputin? Perhaps in more than just looks. . .

One of the interesting things that is revealed through the article is  
the documentation of some of the outright deceptive practices of the  
industry:

> "The CD debuted at No. 4," Rubin told me at Hugo's, still sounding  
> upset. "It was the highest debut of Neil's career, off to a great  
> start. But Columbia — it was some kind of corporate thing — had put  
> spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also  
> somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record. The  
> spyware became public knowledge, and people freaked out.

and perhaps more importantly:

> . . .he has also set up a "word of mouth" department, which will  
> probably employ some members of the Big Red focus group along with  
> dozens of other 20-somethings. The "word of mouth" department will  
> function as a publicity-promotional arm of the company, spreading  
> commissioned buzz through chat rooms across the planet and through  
> old-fashioned human interaction.

What Rubin is setting up here is an actively deceptive campaign,  
where industry representative pose as "peers" on discussion groups  
to, chat rooms, etc. This is hardly new, and is commonly used by all  
sorts of industries: it's nicely documented in the 2001 Frontline  
documentary "Merchants of Cool" <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ 
frontline/shows/cool/view/> (particularly Chapter 2 "Under-the-Radar  
marketing"). With the great increase of Guerilla and Stealth  
marketing, you literally cannot trust who you are talking to- even in  
person, sometimes. (for that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if some  
folks occasionally monitored this list. . . fortunately we're a lousy  
market. . .)

  I'm sure none of this is really new to anyone here. It's just  
interesting how 1) here it comes straight from the industry's mouth,  
and 2) how it is glossed over in the article. It's mentioned, but  
really as a kind of wry, ironic aside.

As Gino points out, starting one's own label is pretty feasible these  
days, and I wouldn't be surprised if, barring the ability to assert  
overt control over the "product" and its distribution,  the industry  
tries to mask itself as a whole consortium of "indie" labels,  
download sites, etc. As noted in the article, the industry has  
already tried to horn in on the artist's profits through taking  
percentage of t-shirt sales on tours, etc. It's something I've  
wondered about: when being "Columbia" turns from a benefit into a  
negative, "Columbia" ceases to exits, the two-tier internet system  
arrives, and "Rick's Grass-Roots Indie Music" site pops up. . .  
eventually buying up things like CDBaby and emusic. . . trying to  
find ways of trying to sell us back to ourselves, keeping who they  
really are completely under the radar.

mg