From: Jeff Bone (jbone@jump.net)
Date: Tue May 16 2000 - 00:45:49 PDT
> The problem is this: (follwoing the marxist/lenninist argument given): bands
> dont sell their labour like most of us do, or at least they dont only sell
> their labour. They are capitalists in the absolute truest sense of the
> word - discounting actuall performances, they gain revenue by the control a
> means of production with extremely low cost overheads.
Fan-fucking-tastic. But let me make the following arguments, before you
completely subvert an economic philosophy which can be argued on its own merits
to your own devices...
The problem with your view is that you assume Lars. Inc. is getting the bulk of
the value benefit from the sales of the physical goods that result from their
creative process. This couldn't be further from the truth. It's the
mega-bloated A&R/distribution chains that get the revenue from the total control
--- and price fixing --- of a distribution channel. Throughout the recent
history of the music industry, the following facts have held true:
cost-of-goods have decreased, A&R and contract fees have remained approx.
constant, and profit margins --- both to the publisher and to the intermediaries
--- have increased.
Lars is no fucking rocket scientist. The reason he's out there making braindead
comments is that the record label has convinced him that costs have risen, and
the only way to maintain *his* subsidiary profit margin is by maintaining CD
costs in the face of *fucking obvious* dropping production costs. "Oh, Lars,
baby --- you're golden. We just have to keep the cost this high so that we can
make the CDs, they've gotten more expensive." Well, yeah, but only because the
"fat" in the middle has increased dramatically over time. And Lars --- bless
his soul, I LOVE old Metallica, they ROCK --- just ain't smart enough to see the
world that's being pulled over his eyes. So he becomes an evangelist for Thuh
Cauze, cuz he can't see anything else.
Too fucking bad, the site shouldn't be paylars.org or whatever, it should be
screwlarsintheassholetilhewakesup.com.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
By the way, you can find me pirating music on Napster as
Imlarsulrichandilovetosuck...
;-)
My $0.02,
jb
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 16 2000 - 00:52:53 PDT