Mathew Good Speaking Out of Turn

This blog posting and the comments growing within it is very important to understanding further what the Canadian Recording industry is going through. The whole industry but most importantly the one that serves Canadian artists, especially any new ones seeking to break out.

From a Canadian artist point of view.

It not the whole story but it captures from an artist, and other artists (see the comments) just what is happenning today, and what has happened to their opportunities with the non-Canadian controlled companies dominating the terrestrial - pedestrian based distribution channels they own or can own through financial predisposition.

The predisposition of a chain retailer in a Canadian mall these days is sometimes as simple as receiving incentives for shelf space and positioning money.

"We are in the age of pricing and positioning. I can afford to put Faith Hill within 10 feet of the door in any store in this country. Can an indie label do that with their product?"

- STEVE KANE, SENIOR VP/MANAGING DIR., WARNER MUSIC CANADA

From Larry Leblanc's Report, Music Distribution in Canada, Prepared for the Department of Canadian Heritage, April 2003.

So the old world ways that Mathew Good and Lindsay Stewart more than bemoan is not the reality of today that Sarmite Bulte, MP claims to represent. The reality really that Ms. Bulte pushes is not just for the incumbants and their massive investments in "content" hoping against hopes that content was going to be key in the Internet Age. They forgot that "new content" has a place too at the table, and Ms. Bulte has no answers for new creation but for that within the incumbants models. She appears to ignor exactly what these non-Canadian controlled companies that are behind some of her sponsors, do in Canada with respect to new content:

in 2003, the non-Canadian controlled companies new releases were 97.3 % foreign artist, an incredible 3,553 of them vs. 100 Canadian artist releases

The reality is that Ms. Bulte pushes is against the interest of the many Canadian artists against the few. And against the new Canadian artist for those distributed by the sponsors of her political efforts.

Well I as a Canadian taxpayer resent that this MP is pushing something that appears of no or little benefit to the majority of the Canadian artists while claiming to represent these artists, and not just musical ones (see what Jack Granatstein said to his print collective that donated to Bulte).

I also resent that from the way I see it what she is pushing is to bail out is the wrongful investment choices that foreign multinationals have made in the "content" mania phase of the blossoming of the Internet.

For today, read Mathew Good's very sensible, intelligent remarks and take some perspective from it.

For me, I have to find a Mathew Good work and buy it. I have a hunch I won't find it at a store near me and that is only but one part of this whole problem. But I can find it and possibly get it, within 120 seconds or less, CD version via snail mail, or digital version, 60 seconds later, or less.

That is 2006 distribution. The buzz is on the net. The distribution is on the net. The music is on the net.

Get with it Sam.