Re: Yes but... @Andrew
"The problem you describe isn't a problem though. You can hear new music made in the 1950 by buying - it is very cheap."
Right there is the item that started the entire mess in the first place. When file-sharing first appeared, it became so popular because finally, what had been incredibly hard-to-find music suddenly became commonplace. The people that had, could share with the people that wanted. It was the start of a new paradigm in entertainment where the industry no longer possessed the ability to say "we don't think it'll be profitable enough to sell that album again, so we won't make it anymore".
But instead of attempting to work with that new technology we've had more than 12 years of fruitless lawsuits, and the music industry still doesn't show much of an interest in changing.
Yes, there is a lot more music from the 1950s, or any era, available then there used to be, but how much of it is still unavailable? How much is only available as a digital download, usually with unpleasant DRM or poor-quality bitrates? How much of it that is only available, in physical or digital format, in only a few select countries? These are all problems still faced by people who *WANT* to be cash-paying customers but who's only option to get what they want, in a format they can use, and a quality that they want to use, is to pirate it.
The big point, to me, about the past and present states of technology in all of this, and which was slightly touched on during this meeting, is that it was advances in technology that brought about the last century of the music industry and occasional artist wealth. Throughout history, few artists of any flavor have acquired great wealth or have had fame beyond their locale.
Technology changed that, briefly, and now that bubble has burst, or at least it's been changed to be smaller bubbles. Unless the industry can manage to quickly come up with some sort of miracle technology to change things, it's era is gone. More artist's WILL have to return to the pre-tech era and scrape their livings from live appearances. Those appearances might not be quite as flashy as they used to be, and the venues may be smaller, along with the paychecks, but it's still possible. One big difference will be that file-sharing will still provide an advertising of sorts, so that artists will be more able to become known outside of limited areas. What's likely really over is the time when one successful album would be income-for-life (if saved properly).
You had some good points in the talk Andrew, pity you couldn't get through it without a *tard comment.