What will happen at this rate is two record companies and hundreds of indies being distributed by two record companies. What other assumption can you make with Jive being folded into (Presley's second label) RCA.
According to Page 6 this is what happened on Tuesday, though they (and we) reported it months ago.
And who are Jive's clients? Justin Timberlake, Usher, Britney Spears, Chris brown.
The thing is, the wild card is spotify (which is why I write about it so much). The majors have distribution deals with the indies. And they are part owners of Spotify. I don't see (and I have asked) why, at least on the music business, ITunes aren't out of business.
Look at it this way.
1. The biz missed the boat on filesharing (they shoulda got into bed with napster).
2. They caught up with ITunes and now they own part of Spotify.
3. If they don't cut in the indies (not spotify THE MAJORS), the indies will die.
4. And then the biz would get run out of town.
So what you are watching is monoply from both sides at the same time. The majors need the indies to find their new acts, the indies need the majors to publicize their new acts and spotify need product endlessly… they need product like there is no tomorrow because anybody can stream anytime.
If a coupla indie acts break big, the majors pay em off and fold em in and everybody gets fired.
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