Understanding The Decline And Fall Of The Major Record Labels

[saint]

There's a fascinating, and well sourced, editorial over at Hypebot by Kyle Bylin, suggesting why the major record labels have had so much trouble adapting to these changing times. Bylin argues, convincingly, that a big part of the problem was that as the record labels got bigger and bigger, they focused solely on the "music as commerce" side of things, ignoring the role of "music as culture." Obviously, music as commerce is an important part of the music business, but if you ignore the cultural importance of music (except, of course, when lobbying the government for more protections) you miss what's actually happening in the marketplace: how people are connecting with the music, and what they're doing (and want to do) with the music.

 

http://techdirt.com/articles/20091210/0529417288.shtml