Music Industry Launches Four-Pronged Effort to Destroy Itself
Like a snake eating its tail, the Mega Music Industry has launched its four-pronged strategy to destroy itself:
- destroy the goodwill of music fans by entrapping the children, the poor and the technically illiterate then suing them;
- continue to release music that no one would be caught dead sharing;
- turn their back on profitable, legal sales by backing out of deals with legal music sales entities, like Apple’s iTunes music store;
- finally, gut fair-use by pursuing those true thieves–their own customers–who burn mix CDs or rip their own music for their iPods.
In the circle of life the big labels are headed back to dust.
Destroy the goodwill of music fans
The music industry has always been populated with greedy bastards. It’s a fairly common story to hear of the band signing a deal with a big record label and then being forced into using that label’s own producers, studios, and marketers, only to have their earnings from music sales eaten up by exorbitant charges: charges that were paid right back to the label itself.
Now, in the name of the artists, the RIAA, with evidence gained from its hacker team, is suing individuals under the weakest rationales. The RIAA is now celebrating its first win in the courts. This is clearly going to bring tons of goodwill to the industry and its artists. Brilliant.
Release Unsharable Music
Given that the radio industry has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the music industry, the labels can continue to release trash music with an extremely short half-life and be assured that it will get tons of airplay. This isn’t music people want to buy. It’s like a pop version of Muzak. This music will embarrass any potential file sharer. If you become the butt of jokes because you’re sharing the latest Britney Spears album, you’ll be a lot less likely to share music. Again, brilliant.
Turn its back on iTunes
While the music labels whined about Napster and pursued pathetic attempts to market digital music via repressive DRM and subscriptions, Steve Jobs and Apple single-handedly saved the retail music industry by opening the iTunes Store and giving the public a reasonable way to purchase music online. For that, many labels in the music industry are now crying foul and threatening not to renew their deals with Apple or going month-to-month on their deals.
I think they’re right. They own the music. And if they don’t want to sell any, they should back out of those deals. This will be a very effective prong of their strategy.
Start suing their own customers
In the most depraved prong of their strategy, the labels now appear poised to begin criminalizing the fair use of music. Always bitter that the software industry had a better model for selling their product than they did (licensing per device), the music industry is now hinting that they will begin pursuing their own customers for ripping music onto an iPod or burning it on a CD. By doing this, the industry reduce even further the value of its music to its customers. This is likely the final nail in the coffin for Big Music.
With this four-pronged strategy, I believe Big Music has sealed their fate.
I’m not a serial music sharer, just a long-time customer of Big Music. I purchased and own thousands of CDs. I feel like I did my part to support good music being released by the big labels. At this point, though, I will never purchase another track from the big labels. I’ll buy from Radiohead. I’ll buy from independent artists on iTunes. And I’ll continue to buy from Beatport. Those folks get it. The “Industry” doesn’t.
[photo by Erica Marshall]
19 Comments, Comment or Ping
nigfs
god hates the RIAA
Oct 11th, 2007
Nick
Don’t for get Steve Albini’s article from December 2002 and Courtney Love’s from 2000.
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html
Oct 11th, 2007
beep
Muzak isn’t the same old “elevator music”. When you go into almost ANY store and hear music—THAT’S Muzak!!
My girlfriend is a creative director there, the only place they don’t have music playing is in their elevators.
Oct 11th, 2007
Craig
god doesn’t hate the RIAA, but god does kill a kitten every time you share an mp3.
Oct 11th, 2007
MattB
There’s too many kittens anyway.
Oct 11th, 2007
Erica Marshall
You used my photo!
(Thanks)
Oct 11th, 2007
Tokio
These people just fail to realize that people don’t buy CDs because the music sucks. If people really like an artist, they’ll buy the CDs when they have money.
I listen to Japanese music, and while there is a lot of downloading, there are still tons of people who save up their money so that they can import CDs/concert DVDs. It costs a little extra to import them, but the fans really love the artists and want to support them.
Stop releasing sucky music and people will start buying CDs again. And get rid of all the restrictions, it’s hard to enjoy the music when someone is standing over your shoulder telling you how you can and cannot listen to it.
Oct 11th, 2007
JohnG
Win, just for mentioning Velvet Chain
Oct 11th, 2007
Matt Ärztefan
don’t forget about die Ärzte, a German band, who also stands against this whole attack on music sharers. they call this a petty finger-pointing hissy-fit, and refuse to participate. what happens? people respect them and buy their discs, dvds etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzCoaOdSIyI : By 8:00 they talk about why they do not endorse the Kopierschutz (Anti-Copying-Protection?) on their music. One major reason is (in paraphrase): “So what if they copy or download or steal (or whatever else) the songs? We’re counting on our music being that good of a product, that people will love it, and want to see us in concert. And as long as we still exist [as a band], we will play concerts.”
http://www.bademeister.com
Oct 11th, 2007
Steve
Only evil seem to live for ever.
Oct 11th, 2007
Wackjob
Moo like cow.
Oct 11th, 2007
Polly Z. Buster
It might be worth listing #5: destroying the music itself with over-compression. These companies have shown a perverse drive to make each CD “louder” by blasting away all the dynamics of the music, and it just makes them unlistenable instead. This is an overlooked, but important factor in the decline of CD sales.
It is also cultural vandalism. As such it lends a moral imperative to file-sharing of the original versions: p2p becomes the only way new generations can hear quality recordings of classic music.
Oct 11th, 2007
Kernal Panic
I find that buying CDs is a good way to get current music. But I have noticed most music stores only carry current music, the hot stuff they want everyone listening to.
What of those more obscure listening habits? You know, the ones people hear the music, and in ghast say something to the tune of “That’s not real music”
Where do you get that older, or obscure music which the “Big Music” refuses to give to the people in the form of CDs? Peer to Peer. Is it illegal to share copyrighted music? Yes, even if they won’t sell it. But if you can’t find it, then P2P is the only way to enjoy such music, and hopefully one day you will find that elusive CD in a 2nd hand store, or in the clearance section of a music store.
I say iTunes and such online retailers was an excellent way of trying to distribute music, where the virtual store could be as big as an Ikea…but it’s in your own home…..still these places seem to make it hard to find obscure things. Easier, but still might not contain everything.
Oct 11th, 2007
dr Howard
not only do I not buy CDs, I do not buy downloads or file share. I spent all my time listening to Pandora.com for free. I also listen to a broad range of music and not the prescribed format. I have tons of stations that play music I will never hear on the radio like Lightnin Hopkins, Bronski Beat, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Rev. Horton Heat, Chet Atkins, Keb Mo, Buddy Guy, Robin Trower. All great artists you will never hear unless……….
Oct 12th, 2007
The Music Nazi
All great artists you will never hear unless you listen to Sirius Blues - pay the 9.99 per month fee and you can hear it all.
Oct 14th, 2007
dcallen
in the car I listen to xmradio, at home I write my own music that I post on several free omd’s. music is meant to be shared…
Oct 26th, 2007
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