Webmasters Note: This space will (from May,
2009 forward) be called The BAS Message, since it may be written by someone other
than the President of the BAS. Barry
1. Media consultant Eric Garland says the record
industry ignored the internet for years. Napster was just the opening salvo. A
popular theory is that the past decade would have been very different if the record
labels had gone into business with Napster instead of suing it. Garland's contrarian
viewpoint is that it wouldn't have changed much.
"Over the last 10 years, think of how many things were
characterized as 'the ultimate response' to the problem of the internet,"
he said. "Ringtones, iTunes, paid-subscriptions services, DVD audio, MySpace
and ad-supported streaming were all supposed to save the industry. But there was
no magic bullet because it wasn't about a problem that needed fixing. It was the
evolution of the marketplace. Piracy didn't kill the record business as much as
frictionless distribution for pennies rather than tens of dollars." Chris
Anderson's "Long Tail Theory" posits that the online world's numerous
microniches add up to as much collective business as old-fashioned blockbuster
hits. But he found the the opposite is true. The internet has been a depressive
force on economic opportunity across the board. Only the entrepenurial artists
are winning [and not making much money]. Rice University Magazine V66N5
2. "Classical music is alive and well"
David Weininger writes in the Globe. The death of classical music has been confidently
predicted to be just around the corner, likewise the imminent demise of the compact
disc. Yet by the number and quality of new releases, they're puffing along just
fine. If this is what the end time looks like, maybe it's not so bad. Boston Globe
1Ja10.

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