Moby: EMI is ‘compromising the careers of its electronic artists’

Moby: EMI is ‘compromising the careers of its electronic artists’

29 September, 2008 | 2.26PM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: moby

In the ubiquitous era of the digital download, some of you may have wondered why you can’t find certain artists like the Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Massive Attack, and others top dance players on sites like Beatport.

It comes down to the major labels, and their unwillingness to embrace download sites beyond iTunes.

But one such dance artist has had enough – today Moby posted an angry open letter to EMI on his website accusing the major label of compromising the careers of its dance artists by not allowing their music to be sold on sites like Beatport.

Accurately, Moby states that niche electronic music download sites are the only way that DJs source new music online and by not allowing these sites to carry the music of Mute, the imprint that Moby is signed to that is owned by EMI, the label is effectively denying thousands of DJs access to dance records being released by the artists on these labels.

That’s detrimental to my career, Moby says.

In a journal entry posted on his site, Moby says:

i’m writing this as a sort-of open letter to the people at emi.
i’m signed to mute records(for the last 15 years, actually), and as mute is owned
by emi that makes me an emi artist.
as some of you might know, the record business is falling apart.
revenues are down, cd sales are plummeting, people are losing their jobs, etc.
things at the record companies, especially the major labels, aren’t looking so good.
one bright spot in this dismal retail firmament is the sale of music on-line through
portals like i-tunes.
the dance music equivalent of i-tunes is a site called beatport.
beatport, and other similar sites, enables you to preview dance tracks and then, if you like, buy them.
the average cost for a track on beatport is twice or three times the cost of a track on i-tunes(which
makes sense, as the tracks are a lot longer).
emi happily allow their music to be sold on i-tunes, but they don’t allow their(and, by extension, my)music
to be sold on portals like beatport.
for over a year now i’ve been asking people at emi why they won’t allow their electronic
dance music to be sold on beatport and i still haven’t received a good answer.
one might think that in a time of rapidly dwindling revenues that a viable
and proven outlet like beatport might be greeted ecstatically at emi and the major labels.
but no.
very simply, i don’t know why emi won’t allow their(and my) dance tracks to be sold on beatport(for
an average cost of around $2.00 per track), but i do know that by not allowing their
electronic dance music to be sold on beatport that emi have denied themselves
very considerable revenue and have limited the audience for their electronic
dance artists(not to mention remixes done for their non-electronic dance artists, like
radiohead and coldplay).
many dj’s live in urban areas with great indie-dance shops, and many dj’s buy vinyl
and cd’s on-line from great indie-dance shops, but there are thousands and thousands
of dj’s who pretty much only buy their music from sites like beatport.
and with emi refusing to allow beatport(and similar sites)to sell their music it basically
means that tens of thousands of dj’s around the world don’t have access to any of
the dance records being released by mute and emi artists.
so this is my letter to anyone at emi who might be reading: by not allowing your music to be
sold on sites like beatport you are losing money daily and seriously compromising the careers
of your electronic artists(like, for example, the chemical brothers, me, massive attack, etc).
i can’t see why you(the people at emi)wouldn’t remedy this immediately and allow
people to buy your records on beatport and similar sites.
thanks
moby

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