In a post today Andrew Keen waxes semi-eloquently about how the whole Radiohead experiment in where they allowed the users to download and pay what they felt was right for the newest Radiohead release - In Rainbows.

In Andrew’s opinion though it is things like this that are screwing the music industry:

And no. After all, Radiohead is essentially screwing the music business. What they would call “disintermediation” is actually putting music business people out of work. Jon Pareles’ “middlemen” are real people with real jobs and real families. However much Radiohead might hate the “exploitative” labels, it’s hard to see the real benefit here for the music business. If Radiohead had a real social conscience, they would start their own label, employ their own “middlemen”, and help build — rather than destroy — human infrastructure in a decimated industry.

The whole problem with that antiquarian point of view is that Andrew still considers the people actually making the music the property of those that  have made fortunes percentage by percentage off of the songs written by the musicians themselves. He bemoans the fact that suddenly the parasites that have developed very lucrative lifestyles by hanging on to the creative forces like a bunch of lamprey are going to be losing their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

What he seems to forget is that it is the creative forces within those people playing the instruments that is making the money. However everyone of those musicians and groups find themselves being percentaged to death to the point that in a lot of cases the parasites are making more money than the musicians themselves once they have paid out all those percentages.

If there is a music industry as Mr. Keen suggests made up of middlemen who; along with their families, are suddenly finding themselves out of work the simple answer why should their job security be any different than any other American out there. He goes on to suggest that “…if Radiohead had a real social conscience they would start their own label, employ their own middlemen and help build - rather than destroy - human infrastructure in  a decimated industry.”

What Mr. Keen fails to see in his defense of an industry built on parasites is that this is exactly what bands like Radiohead are doing. They are building a new infrastructure but it is one that they have control over for a change. Instead of middlemen siphoning off their percentages we are seeing web designers creating a marketplace for bands, we are seeing people who the bands can trust handling the money - all of the money rather than what the labels say is what the band’s are own.

Any band that can make the same or more money that under they would have under a dying business model is proving their are two winners - the musicians and use their fans. Maybe the so-called middlemen will have to find ways in which they can provide honest services that the new music industry can use and make themselves a marketable commodity; just like the rest of us, that the musicians can use.

Listening to: infernal - from paris to berlin (uk edition) - self control

Conversation Tags: music industry, Radiohead, Andrew Keen