while i was at work today i was reading this article over at NME. starting next month, all acts who release music through universal or sony will have singles available for purchase on the same day that they are released for radio. major artists that are on universal and sony inclued the likes of foo fighters, arcade fire, kasabian, green day, glasvegas, and snow patrol. universal's UK CEO david joseph had this to say:
"For a lot of our younger fans and consumers the word 'wait' is no longer in the vocabulary. You hear something and want it and then you search it. And if you search for it then you’ve got to make sure there is a legal site for that appetite."
sony's UK CEO ged doherty had something similar to say:
"We live in an age of immediacy – release windows are a thing of the past."
my only thought was why this hasn't happened before, especially if the only real reason the labels are doing this is to combat piracy. i know that if some single drops but is unavailable at the time, i'll search it online and usually find a pretty high-quality copy of it almost immediately (i.e. the new britney single [don't judge, it's catchy as hell.]). you would think that somebody at one of these huge corporations would have thought of that before...
As we can see by the collapse of the music "business," they don't think too quickly or smartly!
ReplyDeleteI don't know why this was enacted sooner. I know the first thing I do when I hear an awesome song on the radio or on a blog is check Mediafire. At that point, if I happen to check iTunes it probably wouldn't be up. Labels wait for an official date to release a single, a video, an album, but listeners will find ways to get music sooner if they have to wait too long. Albums leak weeks in advance, hell even music videos leak. The Internet is a powerful tool, labels have to take advantage of it or artists and listeners will find ways around them.
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