When the IFPI shut down OiNK last week, former major label designer Rob Sheridan decided he'd had it with the major label system and decided to rip it a new one in a lengthy 6189-word diatribe.
Sheridan covers a wide range of issues: the costly spending sprees he witnessed while working at a major labels, how the copyright authorities were wrong about OiNK, and why they'll never figure out how to operate online. He concludes that people need to boycott major labels, support artists directly, spread the word, and contact representatives in government to try to get intellectual property laws updated for the digital age.
(As an aside, Sheridan is currently Nine Inch Nails' art director... dollars to donuts he's the one who gave Trent Reznor his OiNK invite.)
This is a long one, so I pulled a few highlights together in case you don't have time to read the whole thing:
"It was 1999 when I got my first taste of the inner-workings of a majorrecord label - I was a young college student, and the inside of a NewYork label office seemed so vast and exciting. Dozens of worker beeshummed away at their desks on phones and computers. Music posters andstacks of CDs littered every surface. Everyone seemed to have anassistant, and the assistants had assistants, and you couldn't help butwonder 'what the hell do all these people do?' I taggedalong on $1500 artist dinners paid for by the labels. Massive bar tabswere regularly signed away by record label employees with companycards. You got used to people billing as many expenses back to therecord company as they could. I met the type of jive, middle-aged,
blazer-wearing, coke-snorting, cartoon character label bigwigs whoyou'd think were too cliche to exist outside the confines of Spinal Tap.
It was all strange and exciting, but one thing that always resonatedwith me was the sheer volume of money that seemed to be spent withoutany great deal of concern. Whether it was excessive production budgets or 'business lunches' thathad nothing to do with business, one of my first reactions to it allwas, 'so this is why CDs cost $18...'"
"There seem to be a lot of reasons why the record companies blew it. Oneis that they're really not very smart. They know how to do one thing,
which is sell records in a traditional retail environment. Frompersonal experience I can tell you that the big labels are beyondclueless in the digital world - their ideas are out-dated, theirmethods make no sense, and every decision is hampered by miles andmiles of legal tape, copyright restrictions, and corporate interests.
Trying to innovate with a major label is like trying to teach yourGrandmother how to play Halo 3: frustrating and ultimately futile.
"In this sense, Oink was not only an absolute paradise for music fans, but it was unquestionably the most complete and most efficient music distribution model the world has ever known.
I say that safely without exaggeration. It was like the world's largestmusic store, whose vastly superior selection and distribution wasentirely stocked, supplied, organized, and expanded upon by its ownconsumers. If the music industry had found a way to capitalize on thepower, devotion, and innovation of its own fans the way Oink did, itwould be thriving right now instead of withering."
"Here's an interesting aside: The RIAA loves to complain about musicpirates leaking albums onto the internet before they're released instores - painting the leakers as vicious pirates dead set on attackingtheir enemy, the music industry. But you know where music leaks from?
From the fucking source, of course - the labels! At this point,
most bands know that once their finished album is sent off to thelabel, the risk of it turning up online begins, because the labels arefull of low-level workers who happen to be music fans who can't wait toshare the band's new album with their friends. If the album manages tonot leak directly from the label, it is guaranteed to leak onceit heads off to manufacturing. Someone at the manufacturing plant isalways happy to sneak off with a copy, and before long, it turns uponline. Why? Because people love music, and they can't wait tohear their favorite band's new album! It's not about profit, and it'snot about maliciousness. So record industry, maybe if you could protectyour own assets a little better, shit wouldn't leak - don't blame thefans who flock to the leaked material online, blame the people who leakit out of your manufacturing plants in the first place! Butassuming that's a hole too difficult to plug, it begs the question,
"why don't labels adapt to the changing nature of distribution byselling new albums online as soon as they're finished, before they havea chance to leak, and release the physical CDs a couple months later?"
Well, for one, labels are still obsessed with Billboard chart numbers -
they're obsessed with determining the market value of their product byhow well it fares in its opening week. Selling it online before the bigretail debut, before they've had months to properly market the productto ensure success, would mess up those numbers (nevermind that thosenumbers mean absolutely nothing anymore)."
"...file-sharing is the greatest marketing tool ever to come along for the music industry. One of Oink's best features was how it allowed users to connect similarartists, and to see what people who liked a certain band also liked.
Similar to Amazon's recommendation system, it was possible to spendhours discovering new bands on Oink, and that's what many of its usersdid. Through sites like Oink, the amount and variety of music I listento has skyrocketed, opening me up to hundreds of artists I never wouldhave experienced otherwise. I'm now fans of their music, and I may nothave bought their CDs, but I would have never bought their CD anyway, because I would have never heard of them!
Regarding the IFPI's takedown of OiNK:
"They describe it as a highly-organized piracy ring. Like Oink userswere distributing kiddie porn or some shit. The press release says:
"This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure." Wh - what??
That's EXACTLY what it was! No one made any money on that site - therewere no ads, no registration fees. The only currency was ratio - theamount you shared with other users - a brilliant way of turning "free"
into a sort of booming mini-economy.
"For the major labels, it's over. It's fucking over. You're going to burn to the fucking ground, and we're all going to dance around the fire. And it's your own fault.
Surely, somewhere deep inside, you had to know this day was coming,
right? Your very industry is founded on an unfair business model of owning
art you didn't create in exchange for the services you provide. It'srigged so that you win every time - even if the artist does well, youdo ten times better. It was able to exist because you controlled thedistribution, but now that's back in the hands of the people, and youlet the ball drop when you could have evolved."
