The Coup to Overthrow Distribution: Content Is King

In the past we have seen that content was never the primary focus of the media industry. A small group of networks produced a minimal level of entertainment programs for television; however, now content has been democratized in a way taking away some of the oligopolistic power and control the media industry once had. Distribution has always been in the center because producing content was expensive and more difficult for reasons such as technological limitations, labor, and limited distribution channels. This model is rapidly changing with the rise of the internet (YouTube in particular), decreasing costs for technology (software and hardware needed to produce content) and the ability to distribute to wider audiences. Therefore, I wish to focus my research on the changing dynamic between content and distribution.

            With the advent of services like youtube, what has happened to content in recent years in terms of who is producing, how much, diversity? How does technology fit into this picture taking greatly into consideration the internet? How will the major networks respond to this large increase in content available to consumers? Finally, how does the increase of content fit into issues related to viewer/consumer behavior in terms of how they watch and enjoy their entertainment?

            The first couple research questions are meant to create the context of what is happening today with content; however, the last two questions will likely be of the most importance to me because I believe that the fragmenting of audiences and the proliferation of content go hand in hand with issues related to internet streaming tv, and the effects upon the media industries are going to have interesting implications for many of the networks. I wonder about what they will do with the increasing available content? Will they syndicate it? Will they try to quell it or produce more content themselves? Will they begin to create shows that are only available online? Many of the new popular shows out there today (Workaholics, Children’s Hospital) started out with people making videos on YouTube or CollegeHumor so I believe we need a better understanding of how user created content fits into the larger media picture. It is important because it would appear as though the power is shifting from the media networks to the user/viewers in many ways that might come to define the way entertainment functions down the road.

Copyright and the Future of Music Coalition

The Future of Music Coalition is an organization that promotes the fair compensation for musical artists and accessibility of songs fans want.  An issue that has plagued the music industry since the creation of Napster is the intersection of technology and the business of music.  As we have discussed in class the music industry seems perpetually behind the curve when it comes to solutions to illegal downloading of music both in government policy and industry developed solutions to prevent the loss of revenue from free downloading.  What is interesting on their stance on copyright policy is that they are in favor of making sure that copyright laws are enforced, however, they also believe that the artist should have a say in how their intellectual property is used and distributed.  As we discussed in our class this past week it is not always the artist that owns the copyright to their intellectual property.  This becomes an interesting issue for the organization because this message could be considered contradictory as a result of the rights to music not always protecting the artist of the intellectual property.
I think it is important that FMC does support the artists decision of how their intellectual property should be handled, but I think they should approach this issue from a different perspective.  Instead of focusing on copyright being enforced while also considering what the artist wants, the FMC should instead tackle the issue of copyright that do not give the artist of the intellectual property any rights to their songs after the rights are sold, or do not have the rights to their songs to begin with. I think that if the first step in this important issue is to change the copyright laws to reflect the interests of the artist, and then be able to more effectively tackle issues of piracy because artists can dictate how their work should be distributed to have the best experience for themselves and their fans.  With this stance on such an important issue to the evolution of the music industry FMC will have a aggressive and strong platform that is reflective of their mission statement, which promotes the fair compensation for musical artists and accessibility of songs fans want.

Who Would Have Thought That the Unheard Name of Danger Mouse had a connection to Modern Names like Girl Talk and Super Smash Bro's

Articles like the one we read on the emergence of a group like Danger Mouse and their album The Grey Album have a lot of importance to what we see in the current music industry. First of all, it is important to note that the ability to create digital copies of tracks and then share them over the Internet or file sharing services, have reshaped not only the music industry but all of the Internet. It seems that Danger Mouse was a pioneer of their time.

It comes back to the idea in media that the limits can only be pushed so far. BUT once this limit is pushed someone is able to come along and take it to a new level that will not be questioned. A large part of this is that technology is creating entirely new outlets for sharing and distributing these forms of media. The important part of this is that it creates competition. When competition is created the large media conglomerates have to push the envelope themselves to keep their status.

Music groups that existed like Danger Mouse were large factors in making what we have today legal. In the case of The Grey Album the artist only mixed two popular artists' music together to create this masterpiece that was a mix between the work of Jay-Z and the Beatles. Due to modern technology and the loosening of legal stipulations groups like Girl Talk and the Super Smash Brothers are now even able to make a profit creating musical music consisting of hundreds of musicians original music on their mixes.

http://illegal-art.net/girltalk/ is a link to a website that as they say have been pushing the limits of legal music for over a decade now. This is a group that has been very successful and groups like Danger Mouse and ALSO Technology have made this possible. The Internet and file sharing has created worries but also comfort for those creating and "acquiring" music off of the Internet. I think most of the problem that is seen with toady's society is that people honestly do not know what is legal and what is not. The idea that I am creating is that the issues that have come from the music industry is a lack of information. With more transparent and clear cut laws and expectations I think that the music industry would be more stable but until then, I expect there to be a large amount of controversy.