[LINK] Radiohead: Artists often screwed by digital downloads

[Adam Todd]

At 04:06 PM 6/01/2008, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>At 03:44 PM 6/01/2008, Roger Clarke wrote:
>>[Lots of us have warned for years that public payment morality was 
>>being seriously undermined, and hence that an increasing proportion 
>>of consumers would appropriate content.  Now the alienation of 
>>artists is going to extremes, at the same time as alternative 
>>channels to market are maturing.  Business historians may come to 
>>write case studies of the collapse of a vast industry 1980-2020.]
>
>Keep an eye on publishing, too. It's a mess of uninformed 'middle' 
>'men' interns screening works or having to go through layer upon 
>layer to get a decision to sign an author/work after the author has 
>found an agent willing to take on the author/work to begin with.
>
>Here in Australia, it's pretty bad in that way. There aren't enough agents.

Same with films.  Unless you are a mate of someone at the FFC and AFC 
and look like heading for the dole queue, forget any marketing 
support (not that the industry should need it really, it should stand 
on it's own, but Australia doesn't have a marketing industry like the 
USA where $80 million is spend on advertising a film.)

There are  alot of indies working to make their dreams come true and 
the big end of town does everything possible to prevent it.

You can't get an on indie screen without the indie screen looking 
that hollywood block buster screening right.  Yep, if the indie 
exhibitor wants to screen Hollywood BlockBuster 345, then they must 
screen the 2 hour film three times between 10 AM and 6 PM and twice 
between 6:30 PM and 10:30 PM.

You to the sums.

>There is an emergence of print on demand that comes in a range of 
>flavours, from bring your own cover to editorial services for a fee. 
>As far as I know, there isn't one for direct production in 
>Australia, but there are a few in the US now, such as lulu.com and 
>iuniverse. As they get more use, people are being more adventurous. 
>The downside is that there is no screening, so you pays your money 
>and you takes your chances. The author gets a much higher return, 
>but they have to handle all their own promotion and they are 
>unlikely to get any bookstores to carry. But nowadays, many 
>publishers (most) want their writers to do their own publicity. I've 
>even been told they expect their authors to use their advance for it!

Nothing different to film in most of the world, unless you are Sony, 
Paramount, Columbia or Paramount.


>It's a strange old world, isn't it?

Yep.