I heard about the indies in the UK refusing to license to to iTunes. It isn't a reluctance to offer their music online, most indies are way ahead of the majors in this respect, it just that Apple have been trying to push their weight around and haven't offered the indie labels a deal that they find acceptable or fair. Its a shame that the beeb are doing a seperate download chart, why can't they just integrate it into the singles chart? It might make TOTP worth watching again! One interesting thing is that it could change the way a singles chart works. Singles are usually not pressed indefinitely, once the popularity of a single starts to wane, it is often deleted from the record company catalogue and and a second run is usually not pressed, but with online downloads, once a song has been released, the song is always available as long as its licensed. The single does not have to be re-issued to have a second run at the charts. The minimum price to be included in the chart is worrying, it puts an artificial floor at the bottom of the market. Russian site allofmp3.com offers downloads cheaper than this. I can understand needing to differentiate between free and paid downloads but this favours the pricing model of the big boys like iTunes and PressPlay.

I think Alan Giles has a point, but he may be exagerating slightly. After all if everybody downloads instead of buying CDs, what would happen to those HMV stores? (warning: this post may get really boring for anyone who has never worked in retail ) On the one hand, there are still a lot of expenses, the artist has got to get paid for a start, then there is promotion, management, A&R and webserver/bandwidth costs. On the other hand, there are a lot of costs you don't have, no more retail staff to pay, no costs associated with keeping and storing a large inventory of stock, no rental on a high street shop and no shrinkage (shoplifting to you and me). The other point I would make is when he talks about costs of bringing music to the market is, costs for whom? The major labels throwing money at people like Mariah Carey to not make records? (remember the EMI fiasco?) or the indies who manage to give us great records on a shoestring budget? I think that 40p would be very good price for a download, it's far cheaper than most download services, but I think someone with their head screwed on may think of business model that is more cost effective while still paying the artist enough. Setting an artificial floor on the market may discourage this kind of innovative thinking.

this is chaos, and I think its great. in any other industry (e.g. banking, manufacturing) there would be (and frequently are) serious concerns about the labour force, whereas I havent read anything about the record labels employees mentioned anywhere. Not a big deal I suppose. My main question is this; if money is taken from industry ( i.e. if we all use free downloads) then does mean the search for new artists is reduced also, as the suits wont see the point in pursuing a non growth industry? Just a notion I've had for a while, started with the Metallica thing a few years back. Where will the money for neew investment come from? Seriously, if you're reading this site you are probably a musician and so know the costs involved in trying to even get a good guitar. Not to mention recording costs, insurance for tours, etc etc. The list is endless. Although this is more general question than that of the chart for downloads, its one I'd love to hear some answers to.

There is the possiblity that if every release was a downloadable file it could allow smaller musicians to get the same sort of distribution opportunities that larger acts have. This could lead to more variety than the current system allows. Sure record companies wouldn't be sinking in the money they are now but in alot of cases that money is more of a burden than a blessing in the long run. If a band or musician can build up steadily by releasing their material in downloadable format some talent that would otherwise have fallen by the wayside could come to the fore. They can go at their own pace instead of being ordered by the record label to get another album out there and then being dropped when it's s**te. Lucera, I'm surprised at a fellow musician being concerned about the well being of record company employees. Fair enough, there are some good record companies but the big boys that dominate the industry do very little to introduce variety and freshness to the scene. Regardless of anything I doubt very much that the major labels will be left behind for very long. It would make sense for them to create their own exclusive, high profile sites where their artists releases can be downloaded from (at whatever price they deem to be reasonable no doubt)

Not so much concern as wonder why no one else, i.e. the labels, have not made a big deal out of this, which is why I would assume it not a big deal. And hey, there are blue collar workers there too that are'nt cynical money grubbers! I would still question where the cash is gonna come from though. But you do make sense, fair play, alot of the schlosh thats fired at us is because the companies have cash to pump into schloshsistic bands (my main grievance here is the Stereophonics, a fwe others I have chickened out of mentioning as I dont want to defend myself)

Don't some record companies outsource the actual CD production anyway? Not their employees so they're not too worried about another companys staff.

oh rightoh, hence that wasnt used as a sympathy crutch,

A number of interesting things here. 1) The new download chart points directly to the tastes of the more mature music fan or rather, the fan old enough to have a credit card (no mcfly, busted, kylie or Britney). Some pundits say this will change when mobile phone technology allows people to download to their phones using credits on a prepay card to fund the download transaction. Hmm, we'll see about that. 2) I can't see how this is not going to hurt the small record shop which supposedly rely on the older fan for album sales, the mythical €50 man, and who can now cherry pick tracks from albums at will. Will websites like Cluas take up the slack of your local record shop, which used to be a veritable fund of info on what's hot (and not). Mine still is. 3) How will record labels continue to charge for things like 'shrinkage', 'breakage' and packaging when the product is an unbreakable, non material product which is much harder to steal than a simple cd in the coat pocket ? Will we now see charges for 'encoding', 'compression', 'digital rights management' to replace those old chestnuts ? 4) The Pixies made it to number one on the download chart with a download only single. Does this spell the end of the 'album' and are we back to what I think is the much happier medium of the single song release ? It is interesting to note that pop artists like Rachel Stevens are getting less hung up about releasing from an album. Her latest 'some girls' does not appear on her album 'Funky Dory' unless it is from a forthcoming cd long play. Truly we live in interesting times. By the way, I am thinking of exploring cantonese pop. Any suggestions ? Jules