January 5, 2010

Who’s In Charge?

Over at Talking Points Memo, the editor is hiring a publisher (via The Awl.)

Meanwhile, services like CDBaby make it possible for musicians to record and publish their own music, rather than relying on record labels.

There’s a pattern here: the internet makes production and distribution much cheaper, and that leads to a power shift.

When physical production and distribution were the dominant costs, it was the producers who controlled the business. Now that those costs are shrinking or even disappearing, control needn’t be in the producers' hands.

The moral of the story? If you’re a writer or a musician, think carefully before putting a publisher in charge of your work. Ask yourself what it is they do for the (usually very large) cut that they take.