someone will create a cooperative for musicians, like
united artists once was for actors and directors, that will handle all of the organizational requirements of modern digital recording and distribution. profits (and they will be huge) will roll back to the shareholders, in this case the artists, and for those with the foresight to have joined their professional life will be sweet indeed. eventually the co-op will succumb to personality clashes and in time resemble nothing so much as an old line media company, but until that happens it will be a great place to be. a smaller minority of musicians will go their own way; recording and distributing independently and electronically (that’s what i would do if i were a musician), but for the vast majority pod's predictions are unfortunately accurate. it will be business as usual with the label/artist relationship. if artists are going to change they should have done so by now. it's been nearly five years since the napster revolution proved conclusively that listeners will willingly distribute content, releasing artists from record company ”slavery” and
five years is longer than most label careers. that essentially nothing has changed leaves me less than optimistic about a future that’s independent of media company masters. artists will get the future they choose, and as usual they seem to be "choosing" passive acceptance of whatever the media conglomerates decide is in their interest. it's a once in a lifetime opportunity and it’s being squandered right before our eyes. it’s a real shame.
- js.