Bob Lefsetz

He did: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/06/02/facebook-is… He's worth following, particularly if you're interested in Things Media, and you like his stream-of-consciousness style.

Re: LN, I agree 100% with the evidence presented in, and outcome of, that trial; Live Nation absolutely deserves the verdict they received and it's amazing it took this long to get it. I just don't fully buy the idea that they (and they alone) are the reasons that tickets are priced the way that they are. I guess I'm in the Lefsetz School of Thought [0][1] about it all (and I know, he's a polarizing personality, so I get it when people think he's full of shit), but I also think that two things can be right at the same time (Rapino and gang are criminals, ticket prices cost a lot because that's what they cost) Maybe I'm wrong! I don't have much skin in this game man, I just personally find that his takes mirror what I see happening in real life to friends and colleagues who are artists, promoters and venue operators. [0] https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2026/04/20/capping-resale/ [1] https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2026/04/15/live-nation-loses/

Here's my fave obituary so far: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/10/27/lou-reed/ Jenny said when she was just five years old There was nothin’ happenin’ at all It was the fifties. We were living in cookie cutter houses in the suburbs. Our parents will still recovering from the war, buckling down and making a better life for their children, with barbecues and trips to the beach and… Every time she puts on a radio There was nothin’ goin’ down at all Not at all The radio was primarily for baseball. They played music, but it did not change our lives and then… Then one fine mornin’ she puts on a New York station You know, she don’t believe what she heard at all It happened overnight. Sports became secondary. The music, the politics, suddenly life was full of opportunities and children were the leaders, not their parents. She started shakin’ to that fine fine music You know her life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll Imagine that. Not an iPhone. Not an iPad. The greatest exponent of technology was the transistor radio, almost no one had a color television set, never mind a flat screen. But that rock and roll music coming out of the tiny speaker or earphone…was enough.

I, for one, would love to know where those hundreds of millions to produce Avatar went, for instance. I wonder what slice of that pie was attributed to "Marketing Expense." Turns out it's free to upload a video (like, a trailer, let's say) to YouTube and link to it elsewhere. Go figure. But insofar as media conglomerates addressing this matter internally, why would they? It's not a problem for them. Their revenues have been on a steady climb since ever. They know god damn well how little overlap exists in the groups "definitely going to pay for it" and "would consider downloading it for free." But they would have you believe that every "illegal" download represents a lost conversion. Now there's blood in the water, because "Hollywood" is one of the few industries left in America which still makes any money, and as belts continue to tighten, highly compensated lobbyists (including the most highly compensated, Cary Sherman [1]) will be more and more successful in convincing conservative politicians that they need to vote to protect entrepreneurship and (not really) free market capitalism, and liberal politicians that they need to lend their support to secure the livelihoods of our poor struggling artists. The more sinister elements in all of our governing bodies will jump at any opportunity to introduce legislation which further erodes liberty but allows them to monitor/control that damn Internet thing. All the while, most artists still get fucked by the system,…

Lefsetz, Let the Clubs Close https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2024/11/04/let-the-clubs-close/

Lefsetz wrote a pretty good one when this happened: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2015/07/22/bill-simmon…

Anyone interested in this should definitely check out this essay Bob Lefsetz. Re: Apple Music - "It's toast." http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2015/06/10/apple-music…

It's weird how this April Fools article about Apple buying Beats [1] doesn't seem ridiculous right now. http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2014/04/01/apple-buys-…

Funny you mention that... http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2014/04/01/apple-buys-…

If you mean competing with TicketMaster, etc, go read http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ It turns out most of the acts scalp the tickets themselves for additional income.

The Lefsetz Letter on Mark Cuban: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/08/31/mark-cuban/ 5 Crippling Beliefs That Keep People Stuck, Unsuccessful, and Mediocre For Life: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2011/08/5-crippling-beliefs-that-keep-peo… Do It Now: http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

I think a decent case could be made for the fact that the internet tends to cause people to converge more, not less - the same anti-long-tail arguments apply (for example, see http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/11/08/the-myth-of… That being said, the general point is valid - the current business model for generating entertainment is broken, leaving it ripe for disruption, and the OP's fallacy is the assumption that the current business model is the only way for content to be created and distributed.

Robak reads like the popular music blogger and lawyer Bob Lefsetz: Robak: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1161237 Lefsetz: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ It's an impactful style but too crude and unnuanced for the predominant INT(J/P)'s of HN, with 76% of Hacker News being an NT. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946249 So, not enough intuition and thinking. Too much sensing and feeling. They come across as idiots.

Borrrr-ing. Also, this will get you NOWHERE: "You can abuse artists on touring contracts as badly as you do on recording. You graduated from Harvard, they dropped out junior year of high school in Detroit. You can do this." What an asshole! Nearly all talented musicians are WICKEDLY INTELLECTUAL. Music ain't easy, jack. Also: Lefsetz.com/wordpress particularly: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/11/11/360-deals/ and http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/11/12/getting-pai… Mike Masnick at Techdirt has been saying all this for nearly a decade. Blah blah.

There is absolutely no guarantee that you'll find your audience, and indeed the odds against doing so are increasing. For example: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/10/16/the-most-im… Services like GOG concentrate on good games. That's of course subjective (according to the distributor), but they do a lot of pre-filtering for you. Which Steam did, a role which they have since abandoned. Why do you assume GOG will be any different? The day GOG's accountant proves irrefutably that it's more profitable to offer 20,000 shitty games than 200 good ones is the day they'll start doing that. That might not be for a while; as long as GOG's sales growth depends on differentiating it from other brands like Steam by being more selective. But eventually that growth will hit a plateau, and economics change. It is, like any other art. Make something unique, make something good and you'll find your audience. You might, but there's no guarantee that you won't get lost in the shuffle. As Vogel points out, the problem is not so much for micro-producers with very low overhead, for whom even small sales are profitable, as for mid-sized ventures that have to invest $1 million+ to meet audience expectations and who will go broke if they can't recoup their production budget. I really find your advice a bit facile. What branch of the arts do you work in?

Yep. His main blog is here: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/