The Record Labels and The Internets

The Huffington Post recently had a great article, The Democratization of the Music Industry, that I think warrants coverage.

In summary, the article states that the evolution of the internet has reduced the need of record labels. Record labels have 2 functions access and distribution, with the internet distribution is no longer an issue, an access is slowly becoming easier too. But not only do the record labels provide the access and the distribution they also act as a filter. Only certain artists and certain songs are signed and granted the access.

I specifically want to cover this filtering.

In the past, before the internet the only way you listened to music is if it passed the record labels filters. This is because you either had to listen to the radio or go to the store to buy music. Well in today’s world with the internet, there is unlimited shelf space, and there are an unlimited number of world wide radio stations. With all of this availability there is really no need to filter because anyone can have their own website and post their music.

The music labels are really becoming a hindrance. They are still trying to filter the music when there is no longer a need for it to be done at a corporate level. That is not to say there is no need to filter the music. There absolutely is a requirement for a filter in this world of data overload; however, as society we have already developed an excellent filter which I will go into with more detail later this week.