Net Success, China style
p2pnet.net News:- Performers in China are discovering what new and up-and-coming artists in the west have know for quite some time that the Big Four record label cartels are very old and very bad news.
Not that it’ll stop them from trying to throw dirt on achievements they`ve had no part in.
Dao Lang, a singer from Northwestern China’s remote Xinjiang region, went online and discovered the Net, and not Big Music, is where it`s at.
His music has been described as folksy, with massive grassroots appeal that won him fans even without a single photo of him, says MCN International.
And then along came Harry Hui, president of France’s Universal Music southeast Asia unit. He knows a good thing when he hears it. So he signed Dao Lang up.
“He was very popular on the internet before he was signed to Universal, MCN has him saying. And after he was signed to Universal Music, he became even more popular because his career is now legitimised.
Oh. So if you`re not signed by one of the cartel owners you`re like ‘illegitimate’ – a bastard?
Anyhow, One ballad has no more than four different chords, and with lyrics like `I love you as mice love rice`, the song has captured million of hearts in the Chinese-speaking world, says the story, again, without a single picture of the artiste.
It is a phenomenon that music industry insiders agree is unique to internet users.
But according to Hui, “It is very much a one-to-one relationship when they consume it over a PC unrestricted.
Translated, that means the cartel isn`t able to rip off online indie performers in the same way they steal from artists they have under contract.
But, surprise surprise, not everyone is predicting a rosy future for online musicians, says MCN, quoting Paul Lin, Music Producer/Entertainer.
“If you become famous online because of one song but no record labels are interested in you, you’d fade away pretty fast, he says.
Not. The Net is a brand new market with a brand new way of doing things and a brand new customer base that`s only just beginning to coalesce. As p2p distribution techniques and applications are developed and refined, and as sites featuring new artists offered for download at a reasonable price go online, the cartel is finding itself under increasing, and distinctly unwelcome, competitive pressure, not to mention public scrutiny that until now, it’s been able to weasel away from.
But MCN has Artist Manager Charmaine Liu as saying:
“If people use the internet to download music, they all know one person can pay one dollar to download one song, and he or she can spread to everybody. So even musicians who were propelled to fame online could well see their future success clouded by illegal activities in cyberspace.
To paraphrase the Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Net.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
CN International – Online musicians in China rock traditional recording industry, July 30, 2005
weasel away from – Spitzer on Sony BMG scandal, p2pnet, July 28, 2005
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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
July 31st, 2005 at 7:47 pm
How true, you DO NOT need or want those bastards (aka RIAA / MPAA and “sister” organizations) to make you legitimate…. what an oxymoron, bastards making normal regular people legitimate!
Anyhow, I’m an up-and-coming musician who is using the INTERNET and P2P and WEBSITES (by the people, I know a couple of friends who own popular hip sites) to promote myself.
I’m not doing it for the money. Then why, you ask? I’m doing it because the RIAA / MPAA with all of their HIJACKING (ie taking OTHER peoples work and CLAIMING it as theirs) is pissing me off! I show the people that YOU, yes you, can PRODUCE and CREATIVE good music WITHOUT those bastards…
So in the near future, you might hear me on the net or CDs that your friend passes on to you (of course I WON’T employ DRM and will allow “mixing”). And you can say, “hey, I knew a guy like that. He used to frequent p2pnet often…”
Until then, take care!
August 1st, 2005 at 12:47 am
Lay down and have an aspirin
August 1st, 2005 at 12:48 am
Yep with the arrogance they are truely known for, the cartels have once again shown their true colors. Hey, you are making money here but we aren’t getting a slice of it!
A hypothetical artist to cartel convo…
Come on over here and sign on the dotted line and we will make you a star! (Psst… not only that but you will be a legitmate one) Ah, we think it would sell better if it didn’t have that line in there, you know the one siting sex. (Psst, we can get tons of recognition if you a gal knocked up later) Oh and the line about not doing drugs… could we change that to appeal to the crackheads and say you should? (Just think of the money to be made there) Of course we don’t support drugs but it would be nice to look like we do. Officially we will of course deny this support of drugs in public. And this riff here, that sounds awfully like the other song we own, you owe us if you use that one. Oh, don’t worry the price is cheap. (Ah we gotta sucker here, maybe we can milk in for a few hundred grand) Look we also got these great folks that maintain instruments and tune them so they sound the best they ever will, you’d like that, to sound the best you possibly could eh? (ya, that ups the bill by a few grand) We’ll fly them over here, have them bring top instruments, already done up and hand them to you personally. After all, you gonna be a STAR! Just as well learn how stars live. (and how we collect off them)
Look we gotta spot to get you on tv, let you be known to the world. (Lets see, that adds the flight on the private jet, the ritzy motel expense, the limo, the makeup artists, the fancy clothes, the custom seamstress, and all the rental equipment for the lip sync) When you get done with this appearnce we will have to press a few hundred thousand cds to sell (plus the extra runs we won’t count at the pressing plant).
Ah, your future is bright, trust us….
August 1st, 2005 at 12:49 am
heh
Trolls can’t do anything original. So they troll. Anonymously, of course.
Cheers!
August 1st, 2005 at 2:34 am
Lay down take the weight off your feet and have an aspirin
August 1st, 2005 at 2:40 am
Lets ban that dirty rotten cartel instrument: MONEY . Lets all be subsistance farmers instead.
August 1st, 2005 at 2:43 am
See you in cave Osama
August 1st, 2005 at 5:47 am
You do realise you’re using a brand name without the permission of it’s owners don’t you?
Also I hope you have a license to practise medicine in whichever country Jon is physically located in. You are after all attempting to prescribe both a drug and an activity based treatment.
August 1st, 2005 at 5:57 am
This child won’t make a pimple on a real troll’s butt. Hasn’t the ability to pull it off.
August 1st, 2005 at 6:21 am
Good one Tones! nearly fell off my toadstool with laughter. Is that your best comeback, to sarcastically argue IP rights. Really now it was very funny. Viva la Trolls!
August 1st, 2005 at 7:20 am
Oh I see now that Trolls, Trolling and Trollstyle have become funky, your trying to say I’m not a real Troll. Well it’s Mr Troll to you. We Trolls do not accept your baseless worn out, narrow minded, hackneyed smear campaign. Mud to us is like water off a ducks back. Viva la Trolls.
August 1st, 2005 at 7:28 am
No we would not want any “child” in the big SErious worLD of copyright piracy/theft/crime, would we. Trolls love their children too. Now reeaally!
August 1st, 2005 at 9:42 am
It’s just not fair I tell you. Why does it always have to be about trolls. As we all know, Goblins ALSO create a lot of mischief and mayhem….. Yet it is the trolls that get the ‘credit.’
(just fooling around here)