Pinnacle goes bust... and it's much bigger news than you think

Unless you're a sad loser like me, chances are, you will never have heard of Pinnacle. Pinnacle are a distribution company who help indie labels put out records. In fact, they help over 400 indie labels get their records to the stands.

They've gone bankrupt.

Some say that the company is the latest casualty of the credit crunch, but I'll proffer that this has more to do with illegal downloads than a pinch in the purse. The money that's been diverted away from small ops, has seen Pinnacle fire a shitload of staff and, as such, now puts the entire future of indie labels into question. I hope you're happy now, y'cheapfucks.

Independent labels trade body AIM are having an emergency meeting today to see how the indie labels affected can be helped. These aren't small-time operations either. Those affected in the number include Rough Trade, Drag City, Ace, Cherry Red, Reflex, Tommy Boy, Cooking Vinyl, One Little Indian, Light in the Attic, Greensleeves, Placid Casual, Rawkus, Fierce Panda... the list goes on and on. So if you dig any of these labels, don't expect anything new out of them for the forseeable future.

Accountancy firm BDO Stoy Hayward was appointed as the administrator to deal with the bankrupt company, reports Billboard, and its business restructuring director, Matthew Tait said the firm is looking at how best they may be able to “handle the trading assets and work with the company to achieve the most favourable outcome." [mof]

Comments

[JulesLt]

That's two in a week (Woolies distribution arm, I think it's Entertainment2 or something like that, is responsible for about 30% of all CD distribution in the UK).

It's not just the illegal downloads that are killing the CD though - it's legal ones like iTunes (just pay for the songs you like) and even people shifting to just listening to stuff through mySpace and last.fm on demand.

But yeah, what gets me is that there's a whole bunch of people out there that think the destruction of the music industry is all great - 'we need to cut out the middle man and deal direct with the artist man'.

Really - you mean you're going to put your hand in your pocket and give someone cash to rehearse and record and quit their day job because you can hear potential?? They can make money playing live I hear you say? Well screw me, that's a new concept, why didn't anyone think of that before.

If you're reading this and that's the way you think, you should really look into the economics of touring, and what size you need to be before you can actually make a living. You can make a (cheap) record pay for itself with 500 fans. You can't make a tour pay for itself with 500 fans.

[Digs]

The trouble is there's a whole generation out there that think it's uncool to pay for music. 20 or 30 or 40 years ago the music industry was giving the finger to the man. Today people think the music industry is the man. It isn't. It's comprised mostly of people who dig music. And it's dying on its arse. Well done filesharers!

[Mof Gimmers]

Indeed. There's a whole load of articles on here about the damage done by filesharers.

The whole 'we love music but can't afford it' schtick hold no fuckin' water with me. YOU do NOT have a divine right to music. Filesharers are stealing from bands, not from big business.