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> I believe the entertainment industry as a whole...is no longer viable" How do you rationalize the movie industries increasing year to year profits with the i

> I believe the entertainment industry as a whole...is no longer viable" How do you rationalize the movie industries increasing year to year profits with the idea that the entertainment industry is no longer viable? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140328/11442826721/piracy-continues-killing-movie-business-to-new-record-highs.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140328/11442826721/pirac... Although I don't have numbers, it is my impression that many more musicians / songwriters are making a full time living at their music than in the past. In today's world it is a lot easier to 'go at it alone'.

thristian 12y ago
> How do you rationalize the movie industries increasing year to year profits...? OK, so "no longer viable" is perhaps a bit of hyperbole. Perhaps a better word would be "doomed", which is to say that the economic axioms it was built on are no longer as firmly true as once they were, so the industry cannot continue in its current form indefinitely. It may continue for a little while from sheer momentum, and until the future becomes more evenly distributed, and it may eventually reinvent itself (and I hope it does) in a way that is sustainable under these new conditions, but something's got to change. > Although I don't have numbers, it is my impression that many more musicians / songwriters are making a full time living at their music than in the past. My impression is that a lot of these musicians and songwriters are finding fans over the Internet, playing small venues and touring small areas, with maybe the help of a manager or two. When most people think of a phrase like 'rock star', they probably imagine someone who finds fans by paying for lots of radio play, who fills stadiums and tours the world with the help of a giant record label who might have hundreds or thousands of artists signed to it. When I say 'the entertainment industry is doomed', I'm heavy on the 'industry' - the giant record labels, the world tours and saturating advertising are doomed because digital reproduction puts a cap on how much money can be extracted from a particular recording. These musicians and songwriters you talk about have already figured out how to earn a living in the post-Internet era, and I hope they can serve as an example to artists in other media who currently believe that the existing industry must be propped up indefinitely so they can earn a living.
anigbrowl 12y ago
It's far, far easier to record a song or even an album than it is to make a movie. The former is something you can literally do alone in your bedroom with a fairly modest outlay on equipment, if you're willing to work on the craft of sound engineering or team up with someone skilled in that area if your main skill is as a musician/songwriter. Of course it's not the same as going to a studio with outstanding acoustics and great session musicians etc. etc., but it's very feasible nonetheless. Making a movie is simply not something you can do on your own - it's orders of magnitusde more complex and expensive, in both time and dollar terms. Also, you can't make money on live performances or merchandising swag in the same fashion that musicians do; it's not impossible to build other streams of revenue besides ticket/rental channels, but it's a lot more difficult and the ancillary revenue potential varies enormously with the subject matter.

thristian 12y ago

> How do you rationalize the movie industries increasing year to year profits...? OK, so "no longer viable" is perhaps a bit of hyperbole. Perhaps a better word would be "doomed", which is to say that the economic axioms it was built on are no longer as firmly true as once they were, so the industry cannot continue in its current form indefinitely. It may continue for a little while from sheer momentum, and until the future becomes more evenly distributed, and it may eventually reinvent itself (and I hope it does) in a way that is sustainable under these new conditions, but something's got to change. > Although I don't have numbers, it is my impression that many more musicians / songwriters are making a full time living at their music than in the past. My impression is that a lot of these musicians and songwriters are finding fans over the Internet, playing small venues and touring small areas, with maybe the help of a manager or two. When most people think of a phrase like 'rock star', they probably imagine someone who finds fans by paying for lots of radio play, who fills stadiums and tours the world with the help of a giant record label who might have hundreds or thousands of artists signed to it. When I say 'the entertainment industry is doomed', I'm heavy on the 'industry' - the giant record labels, the world tours and saturating advertising are doomed because digital reproduction puts a cap on how much money can be extracted from a particular recording. These musicians and songwriters you talk about have already figured out how to earn a living in the post-Internet era, and I hope they can serve as an example to artists in other media who currently believe that the existing industry must be propped up indefinitely so they can earn a living.

anigbrowl 12y ago

It's far, far easier to record a song or even an album than it is to make a movie. The former is something you can literally do alone in your bedroom with a fairly modest outlay on equipment, if you're willing to work on the craft of sound engineering or team up with someone skilled in that area if your main skill is as a musician/songwriter. Of course it's not the same as going to a studio with outstanding acoustics and great session musicians etc. etc., but it's very feasible nonetheless. Making a movie is simply not something you can do on your own - it's orders of magnitusde more complex and expensive, in both time and dollar terms. Also, you can't make money on live performances or merchandising swag in the same fashion that musicians do; it's not impossible to build other streams of revenue besides ticket/rental channels, but it's a lot more difficult and the ancillary revenue potential varies enormously with the subject matter.