pask74

Andrew, I really want to see your Cooke lenses on the a7s!!

listening to music through youtube is like eating the best french cuisine from a dumpster.
 
youtube was quite fun 10 years ago,before the ads, the wait till i load crap, the killing of anonimity, blackmailing you to sign up for that google+, keeping histories of what you browsed 
plus the bad sound-image quality lag and sea of trolls trolling trolls.
 
i dont think i have uploaded any videos there, and although i lose clients, i prefer to re-direct them to vimeo. 
 
check this about google blackmail: http://digg.com/video/google-is-going-to-blackmail-you
 
p.s check this interesting chart about the % of indy music 
 
 from phonofile.com/

Not necessarily as I seriously doubt Google has contacted each and every band out there, but rather the publishers that represent them.  For example, my band goes through various distributors, including but not limited to CD Baby.  Since CD Baby acts as our publisher, they only have to work with CD Baby since we agreed to let CD Baby handle that aspect of those particular releases.  CD Baby has something like 3-4 million tracks in their catalog with the same agreements.  Tunecore has a similar number and agreement, and The Orchard has probably even more.  Between those 3 catalogs, that's well over 10 million tracks right there (disclaimer:  I'm a software dev for a digital music service and I'm directly involved with the ingestion of those catalogs).  A huge chunk of the rest of the indie bands come through labels that are under the Merlin agreement, who handles reporting and publishing for those.  

Chances are, the indie bands themselves aren't even involved in this discussion and it wouldnt' surprise me if the vast majority are even aware of what's going on.  They just want to create music and collect their non-existent royalty checks.

That's shit, though.  Part of the reason I got into filmmaking is so I can make videos for my band without having to worry about some flakey videographer/filmmaker (and I'm shooting one tonight and another in the morning).
 
I want to make music, not promote.  I want to perform, not worry about distribution.  I want to get in the van and ride to bumfuck Indiana so I can play in front of 8 people for no money, because it's what I enjoy doing, not play phone tag with the venue or two dudes putting on the show with a couple local bands that no one locally cares about.  Same thing with films, right?  Do you want to make films, or do you want to spend all your time trying to sell them?  It's like that dude with the script.  He's so busy trying to sell it, he forgets to write another one.

If your band is already well-established, like trent reznor, for example, going the full monty direct distribution route is feasible.  If you're joe blow just trying to make it, having a good label behind you can be the difference between going "somewhere" or just spinning your wheels.  There's an art to it.  

From a consumer perspective, I like labels because they curate their music collection.  I can be assured that music coming from a specific label, while I'm not guaranteed to like it, at least is in the general ballpark of the stuff I do like.  That's the value of the label to me as a consumer:  They listen to 10,000 shitty bands and pick out the couple that have potential, so I don't have to.  
 
From a band perspective, the label gives us good/reliable contacts in other towns to help set up shows.  They handle the pressing and distribution of the recorded product and I don't have to have 100 boxes of 7" records laying around my tiny apartment.   The label sends out the records to the various fanzines and college radio stations, and all we had to do was get in the van and drive.  We sold a lot of merch, but with gas at $4.50/gallon, that was a break-even proposition.  

I don't know what the actual answer is other than to try and weather the storm and see how it shakes out on the other side, but direct distribution isn't the 100% answer 100% of the time.
 
EDIT:  I will add that we also don't pay to record our music because our singer is an audio engineer in his day job (I'm a software dev).  He has a nice recording studio built in his backyard, but that wasn't free to build or maintain.  It doesn't cost the band anything to record, but it's far from free and is typically subsidized by charging other bands to record there, as well.

Andrew,
 
Thanks for headlining this issue and making people (me included) aware.

playing the devils advocate google-youtube could say that the costs of maintaining servers and giving access to millions of people worldwide to your music is a highly valued service...bs

i have quit using youtube a long time ago as a medium, one of the courses i studied was internet privacy, google is the original robocop company of a dystopian future. all engrossing monopoly
all seeing eye, panopticon.

i think we as users should kill it. log off go for the wild horse..

I make about 90% of my income making music videos, mostly with independent labels, PR and unsigned acts and I know a lot of bands... the effort these guys go to is absolutely immense and many of the tracks are much better than that chart nonsense the big labels stuff into our ears and brain until we are hypnotised or get into an almost violent, rebellious state of mind.
 
This completely sucks. I'm fed up of this bullying in the music industry. Some band members I know are geniuses, but have to make do stacking shelves 8 hours a week in a pound shop. They get bit by the money men and get nothing in return. They either waste talent or steal their worth for their own greed. 
 
My music video was up for Best Music Video at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2014 (it didn't win), and the quality of the entertainment was incredible. The energy and desire form the playing bands was unreal - bands who have toured constantly, slept in the car boot and lived on instant noodles just to play and get noticed. But the way things are going, genuine bands/artists won't get this chance and we will forever be presented with the conveyer belt of manufactured, soulless rubbish designed to make the big wigs fat and the most promising musicians with nothing but their 8 hour shift in the local pound shop. 
 
This says it all.... my brother is a singer and auditioned for X Factor 'for a laugh.' He got through 3 rounds, but was then turned down as they couldn't see how he would benefit from the competition. We received sad news that his wife (my sister in law) was diagnosed with a life threatening illness. X Factor representatives called him regarding auditions for Britains Got Talent...he said he couldn't attend as he needs to look after his wife because of her illness. At the instance he mentioned it, they said he could go back in the process because 'he would get far and have great appeal.' My brother sniffed a rotten fish...and told them where to go. 
 
This situation with my brother was quite sick, and sums the music industry in a nutshell. The power of the talent shows is immense and they dominate so much of the industry. But they are soulless sods who are only interested in exploiting vulnerable people and trying to dominate the industry with diluted brain warping rubbish. 
 
Independent music needs protection and must find a way to triumph over this diabolical situation. 

You're right about judging the BM team too early. I must admit I'm a bit irritated that their website says that the Pocket will record raw where they say in interviews that this has not been tested yet and that it may come in a future firmware update, etc.
Now, this is fresh news from Digital Bolex : http://www.digitalbolex.com/getting_ready/
Basically, they're about to ship their first batch.
I don't want to start at BMPocket vs Digital Bolex D16 thread, as I think they are different tools anyway. But it's good to see the D16 being almost ready for assembling where some people have been talking of "vapourware".

I find it unethical and a lack of respect to tell people "we'll deliver for sure at that date" and then leave customers in the void. I don't understand potential customers saying "yeah, but for what they offer, I'm OK to wait 6+ months". Is the concept of telling the truth that outdated?

I find it unethical and a lack of respect to tell people "we'll deliver for sure at that date" and then leave customers in the void. I don't understand potential customers saying "yeah, but for what they offer, I'm OK to wait 6+ months". Is the concept of telling the truth that outdated?

Yep _ I bought from Ciecio7 in the past (OCT-18 to mft adapter) and I would recommend him.

BM's CEO has done that several times over the last year in blackmagic's forums, with great details on why the delays exists and how they try to solve them.
 
Luc

http://www.digitalbolex.com/d16s-final-body/

Anything that adapts to EF mount works. I've tried M42, Contax Zeiss (CY), Nikon, OM, etc.