Marcos suggestion is already happening in the publishing business, 
wherein authors are doing their own independent "publishing". The big 
publishers are / have become only printing companies, requiring authors 
to spend their own money for promotions. Having to do that, why not just 
do it anyway and get the lion's share of the price instead of 10% or less.
Between publishers, distributors and bookstores 78% or more of the price 
of a book is shared by them, not the author...and it takes years to get 
noticed by them, if ever. Even for those who publish their own material 
they have to pay 55-78% of the price to some distributors like Baker and 
Taylor (so they can give 30% discounts to libraries.)

In addition big publishers are only making enough copies for such buyers 
as Barnes and Noble and Borders thus making the works unavailable to 
independent bookstores.

Is it no wonder then that publishers are having to merge, consolidate 
and use backlists? The same is happening to music recordings, and it's 
probably time it did. Authors and Artists should have more say about 
income as well as distribution.


  Trescott Research – Paul T. Jackson


    Information & Library Development


    26301 SE 424^th St., Enumclaw, WA 98022

http://www.trescottresearch.com <http://www.trescottresearch.com/>



Marcos Sueiro wrote:
> I'm going to get whipped for this, but I'll say it anyway: I don't see 
> what is so terrible if large large record companies simply disappear. 
> Music has been around much longer than the recording industry, so I do 
> not think that the quality of music itself would suffer. And certainly 
> there must be other business models for musicians to make a living 
> without having to feed a huge machine that often sucked their blood, 
> especially now that the means to record music are available to so 
> many. Big Music generated lots of money for over a century, but only a 
> very small proportion of all musicians saw that money. Perhaps Big 
> Music is just not good for music anymore.
>
> Marcos
>
> Tom Fine wrote:
>> So, even though I'm no fan of Big Music, they have a point in all of 
>> this. If the owners of the copyright material -- descendants of those 
>> who put up money to record the old stuff and current funders of new 
>> material -- cannot get a return on their investment, they do not have 
>> a business model. So in that case nothing can be made available 
>> because it's a money-losing proposition and companies are not in 
>> business to lose money.
>