by Bob Stanley

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/column...s/article2274290.ece

Couldn't agree more with the Times-article.

"Musicians signing to one leading label still had to give up profit in a breakage clause. This little cracker referred to the losses the label would incur through records snapping in transit; the breakage clause referred to 78s. The company that still used this clause in the late Eighties was formed in 1962, two years after the last 78 was manufactured in Britain."

One leading label? Late Eighties? The breakage clause is still standard in all (major) label contracts. And it applies to DOWNLOADS too

If songs were 10p, even 20p, a throw even cash-strapped, time-rich kids would be more likely to pay for the facility.
I'm glad he's running a column in a newspaper and not my label! Of course they bleeding would. But the company would also go bust - a slight dent in his shiny new business model.

If anything, labels should be looking for higher-value sales of less quantity. The only way out of a price war is a quality war.

BTW, how much does the Times cost these days?

On a slightly side issue, I had to smile about the Church of Scientology pressing up L.Ron Hubbards thoughts on vinyl in the article.
Much as I adore vinyl, this does seem to go along with the same church`s scheme of flyposting questionares on A4 sheets of paper having seemingly yet to adjust to the art of the spamming e-mail.