Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2008, Síða 15

of how they’ve reacted to diminishing
revenues, reducing their staff to a level
where development is near-impossi-
ble.
The financial people have be-
come very influential and with the ma-
jor assumption that “...since we’re doing
a profit on J. Lo and Christina Aguilera,
we should only do those releases, and
then we can be quite profitable.” And
what they’re missing is that sometimes
the J. Lo records don’t sell as much as
you would expect – and they have noth-
ing to replace them with, because most
success stories start at the bottom. For
instance, I had the pleasure of working
with Travis, who sold six million copies
of their second album while their first
one only sold thirty thousand. The situ-
ation today is that bands like that prob-
ably don’t get to release their poten-
tially six million selling second album,
because the company is afraid to invest
in them.
How Americans
Killed the Singles Market
When file sharing became the norm,
the big labels were paying up for their
years of excess, and it’s well deserved.
Especially in the case of the multina-
tionals, because they carry a big share
of the blame for the various policies.
For instance, Americans killed
the singles market. It worked well for
them to make two or three singles with
an artist that they would produce very
nicely, and only make them available as
a package on an album that was filled
with inferior songs that the consumer
had no interest in purchasing. There’s
a difference between an album that’s
conceived by an artist, and one that’s
conceived by the record company be-
cause they want to charge the price of
an album for two singles. They forced
the public to purchase twelve songs
that they weren’t interested in, to get
the two that they wanted. That’s not a
consumer friendly business model, but
it was very profitable. One of the attrac-
tions of file-sharing and downloading
is that you just pick up the tracks that
you want, and you don’t have to deal
with all the stuff the record company
stuck on there to make a more valuable
product.
It was hard for major labels to
face the fact that they might have to re-
duce the prices of their product, which
they did later, although it took them a
really long time. The arrogance of the
majors is remarkable in that respect. It
also has to do with the pure human fact
that it’s really hard to let go of a thing
that works. You see this now with the
film industry, they’re having the same
problem of letting go of the nice DVD
business that’s giving them a lot of rev-
enue right now. They aren’t managing
it very smart, and it’s hard to see what’s
going to protect them from the destiny
of the record companies.
Subsidizing the High-tech Industry
How do I see the future? The music
industry needs to reinvent itself. I am
not in the business of predicting, I’ve
lived long enough to know that it’s
pretty much impossible, but there are
a couple of things that I’d like to say. I
think there’s a chance at the moment to
set things right, and one of the things
that might help us in Europe is that the
political landscape has changed. Politi-
cians have realized that what they refer
to as the creative and cultural indus-
tries – of which the music business is
an aspect of, along with film, TV, adver-
tising, books, newspapers, magazines,
etc. – are crucial to them.
Once you add all these things to-
gether, you realize that section of the
economy is much larger than had been
assumed, around 4-5% of the Gross
Domestic Product. Bigger than the
automotive industry, or the chemical
industry. For all these years, politicians
have supported those industries, while
the culture industries have been left on
their own. Now they’ve realized that
they’re going faster than the others,
and have a better chance to survive in
the next twenty years. Europe isn’t go-
ing to survive well in the shipbuilding
industry, in competition with Korea or
China who can do it at a much cheaper
price. The steel industry is in a bad
shape... but producing content – art,
television series, books, music – is a
business just like any other, and it has
more future potential than any of them.
This has become common knowledge
lately, which is very positive.
Second, people have started
to realise that the wide on-line avail-
ability of content is one of the biggest
drivers behind the explosive growth
in the high-tech industries for the past
decade. This has been established by a
lot of research; people will buy a new
phone, a faster computer or a better
broadband connection to access music
and films on-line. What happened in the
past decades was that artists and small
and medium sized businesses working
out of bedrooms all over – vulnerable
businesses – have been subsidizing the
development of the technology sector,
which has been highly profitable. It’s
obvious that an imbalance has hap-
pened, and I think that people have
realized that.
Some very promising devel-
opments have happened lately. In
France, Sarkozy has succeeded
in bringing together the Internet
Service Providers and the content
providers, who now say that they
should be working together. That
they shouldn’t have one industry
thriving while another dies. Looking
at it from the French perspective, if
they lose the creative structure there
after the years it took to market and
develop, they’ll get more of the de-
struction of independent distribution
and record companies, which will in
turn encourage the Anglo-American
dominance of global culture. They’re
saying: “We have a national interest
here to preserve, which every coun-
try might have.” So they’ve signed an
agreement, the ISPs and the content/
culture industry, to work together
and address the issue of illegal file
sharing and how it affects everybody.
And that sort of thinking might actu-
ally get us somewhere.
As told to Haukur Magnússon
“What happened is
that a) the record
industry convinced
the artists that CDs
were really compli-
cated and expen-
sive, so everybody
agreed on taking
a royalty reduc-
tion of 25% and b)
they convinced the
buying public that
CD technology was
so expensive that
they had to raise
the price. When of
course the truth was
that the format very
soon became much
cheaper.”
Industry With Mark Chung
Feature | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 05 2008 | 15
Licensing and
registration of travel-
related services
The Icelandic Tourist Board issues licences to tour operators and travel agents,
as well as issuing registration to booking services and information centres.
Tour operators and travel agents are required to use a special logo approved
by the Icelandic Tourist Board on all their advertisements and on their Internet
website.
Booking services and information centres are entitled to use a Tourist
Board logo on all their material. The logos below are recognised by the
Icelandic Tourist Board.
List of licenced Tour
Operators and Travel
Agencies on:
visiticeland.com
Viking feasts every night
- live entertainment
“You haven't been in Iceland if you haven't been to us“ ' '
For booking and
further information:
Tel.: +354 565-1213
www.vikingvillage.is
vikings@vikingvillage.is
Strandgata 55 Hafnarfjordur
Don’t miss it!
Tilveran Restaurant – tel. (+354) 565-5250 – Linnetstíg 1, Hafnarörður
Tilveran Restaurant in the heart of Hafnarörður
Fresh sh every day in a iendly atmosphere.
Borgartún 10-12
105 Reykjavík
Tel: 411 9000
www.velferdarsvid.is
The department of welfare gives information and advice about social entitlements and pro-
vides support in cases of social or personal problems for registered residents in Reykjavik.
For general information about operations in the City of Reykjavik and additional information
on e.g. specific housing benefits, pre-school applications or financial aid, you should contact
service centers in your own neighbourhood:
• Vesturgarður, service centre for the residents of Vesturbaer district, Hjardarhagi 45-47,
tel. 411-1700
• Miðborg and Hlíðar, service centre for the residents of the city centre and the district of Hlidar,
Skulagata 21, tel. 411-1600
• Laugardalur and Háaleiti, service centre for the residents of the districts of Laugardalur and
Haaleiti, Sidumuli 39, tel. 411-1500
• Breidholt, service centre for the residents of Breidholt, Alfabakki 12, tel. 411-1300
• Ábær and Grafarholt, service centre for the residents of the districts of Arbaer and Grafarholt,
Baejarhals 1, tel. 411-1200
• Miðgarður, service centre for the residents of Grafarvogur and Kjalarnes, Langarimi 21,
tel. 411-1400
Department of Welfare
is changing adress!
On May the 15th 2008, the department of welfare will
move its residence from Tryggvagata 17 to
Borgartun 10-12.
Telephone number will stay the same.
As before, service centers around town will continue
to provide information about various issues.