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Napster Not To Blame
enjo13 writes "Slate is running an article on the music industries recent troubles. It articulates exactly what Slashdot has preached all along.. that the Music industry is suffering at its own hands and has no one to blame but itself. All I have to say is... finally." There's actually been a number of pieces like this, but I think this one says it best.
It's not just new music, but it is caused by the music industry. Haven't you ever noticed how frequently good bands break up and reform into other, newer good bands? Personal conflicts with the other band members are usually cited as the reason for the breakup, but the truth is good bands break up because they get bored doing the same old shit, and they need fresh blood and fresh directions to keep making good music. Band breakups sometimes result in less good music, but I think the new (and different) bands that result are better for music quality on the whole. Think of it as sexual reproduction for music; more genes being passed around means more advantageous adaptations.
Yet at the same time, the music industry wants bands like Aerosmith to stay together for album after ass-like album, and usually, they have legal language in the contracts to enforce it for the first few albums. (After those few, if a band is still popular, they may have the clout to be able to write their own contracts. But they're usually dead by then.)
With very few exceptions, bands that have been around forever suck because they've been around forever, and their sound is tired and dead. But people keep buying their albums, as you just said yourself. The music industry, including the artists, realizes this: big name = more sales. New artists have little choice in the matter but to stay together. Big artists who get greedy try to stay together; big artists who care about the quality of their music go on to try different things. Those different things may not sell as well, but they sound better.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
- Snub the over forty crowd that makes up 44% of your business.
- Make sure you stagnate so that you don't come out with anything fresh.
- During a recession raise your prices.
- Forget any lesson you might have learned from the late 70's when the industry underwent a similar crisis.
The only thing left to do to put that final nail into your coffin is to implement some "creative accounting" practices.I could buy a DVD for that much! Full digital 5.1 audio that is over 2 hrs long! Whats a $15 Audio CD provide? 60 mins of stereo music... Joy.. Their business model has DIED, they need to start selling Audio CDs for $5 to sell them.
The customers' message to the RIAA will get louder and louder until they finally hear it or until they go under. Which one happens is ultimately the RIAA's choice.
The RIAA probably believes that because it's a monopoly (or oligopoly ... same thing from an economic perspective) like Microsoft, that it can get away with the same market tactics that Microsoft does. But what they haven't figured out is that unlike Microsoft's products, which are essentially required to keep a business running (Openoffice and friends aside), the RIAA's products are not required, they are optional. Having a monopoly doesn't help you if your customers can get away with not buying your product -- and that's exactly what's happening now.
So my message to the RIAA is simple: you'd better figure this shit out, and fast, because your number is coming up.
What sucks the most is that the RIAA is going to do a hell of a lot of damage before they either finally learn or go under.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The music industry really was, for a while, doing quite well in improving music reproduction technology.
First there were '78's made of shellac. Then they came up with vinyl, much easier to handle and able to hold more data, at 33RPM's. Still too pricey for kids, they did 45's.
Now, America was moving towards an automobile culture, and you just can't run an LP in a car (ignoring the Lexus ad).
So, they came up with 8-tracks. Great, an LP in your hand, and shock-proof to boot. But they were awfully clumsy, and apparently not all that cheap to manufacture (which ought to translate to consumer prices, but that's another rant).
So, they came up with cassette tapes. They were small, portable, and dirt cheap. I remember buying albums for $6-7 in the early eighties. But the quality of the cassettes was fairly miserable.
Tape also has a tendency to stretch and wear out, so it's tough to commit to a music collection on 8-track or cassette.
So they came up with CD's. Finally, very high quality, random access, and portable (after a few shakey years). With the advent of the CD it finally made sense again to collect music for the long haul, so the music industry saw a boom in replacement purchases, from all the people who had purchased 8-tracks and cassettes.
But the CD is close to perfect. It doesn't wear out, it has random access, it has really good quality, it's portable, and it's cheap to manufacture. People had their music now, and they didn't need to replace it. This was a new situation for the music industry. They would have to keep producing good new music to keep up the sales or come up with a better format.
What could be better than a CD? Well, what are the CD's weaknesses? You couldn't record on them (before the past few years). You also had to carry quite a stack of CD's around for just a few good songs. Sony recognized this and made a few stabs at the market with MiniDisc. They got portable, small, random-access, and cheap, eventually, but the quality of the first round of MD's was pretty poor. It used a 3-subband lossy coder, and it just didn't compare to CD's. It was also fairly proprietary.
It seems that at this point, the industry just gave up. I don't know what really happened behind the scenes, but the entire industry seemed to undergo a cranial/anal inversion. When DAT tried to get near the market, they got scared and had the Digital Home Recording Act [Tax] enacted. This was the start of viewing the customer as the criminal adversary.
Meanwhile, the personal computer industry was booming. Computers started to get hard disks capable of storing lots of music and good perceptual coders came to market. I remember ripping all my CD's onto my 601-based Mac in '96 (in MP2, at 0.2x, after a separate rip stage, typing all the track names in) and it was just amazing. Soon everybody noticed that you could listen to your music in a form that you wanted. With the advent of CD writers and the iPod, the missing portability element came back. By 2001, the technology provided by the music industry had been totally overtaken by the technology the computer industry provides, and that's when they started sueing everybody in sight.
So, as I see it the music industry has 3 options:
1) Come up with a better technology. If I knew what it was, I'd be doing it, but it obviously involves the internet, probably 3G cell. The only thing I can't do with an iPod is get my music I don't have with me. Note: I don't want SACD's or DVD-A's. They don't solve any problems I have.
2) Put out good music. I doesn't even have to be new, I just bought a box set of remastered Miles Davis on Monday and In a Silent Way is my new favorite CD.
3) Criminalize everything the customers want to do and sue the begezus out of everybody who tries to help them.
What's behind Door #1 and Door #2 are sustainable options. Lurking behind Door #3 is a business model that has outlived its usefullness and is trying to get by on the creation of artificial scarcity. Stockholders ought to be very leery of a management that doesn't want any part of a sustainable market.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The record industry is looking for a government bail out. They look to Congress and the courts to fix ailments that they brought upon themselves. I find it funny that in this day of: "let the marketplace decide", the music industry seems to be seeking (and getting) special treatment. This industry should be left to live (or die) by its own bad decisions. I'm in my fourties, and I find that the 'big five' record companies have completely alienated me. Apparently they don't want me for a customer. All they seem to care about is serving my daughters, who can't afford their exhorbitant prices any more. My attitude is why bail therse clowns out? Let them die and be replaced by better run companies who care about serving their customers. Of course, we all iknow the answer to why this won't happen: $$....the flow of $$ to Congress' pockets that is!
No. No. No. and a final time, No. They are "infringing" -- a well-defined crime, distinct from stealing. How do I know? Leaving aside the single-user issue, let's also consider: No court anywhere has ever set up guidelines for "reasonable theft" of physical property. But for intellectual "property", the courts have -- as much as the RIAA wishes to God they hadn't -- carved out an expanse called "Fair Use", wherein use of copyrighted material without compensation is considered legal. (I am not arguing that Napster was or was not Fair Use. I am just pointing out that Fair Use exists in well-codifed law.) Likewise, real property rights don't expire. If you own a car and never ever sell it to anyone, then guess what? It's yours, forever and ever, world without end, amen. But if you publish a copyrightable item, and never ever sell a copy to anyone else, do you know what happens? Eventually your "property" rights evaporate, again without compensation... it's not a government "taking", it's the (legal) nature of the beast.
So unless you're willing to draw the analogy both ways -- that is, to allow "Fair Use" of your physical property and to recognize that your ownership is time-limited -- then stop BSing and drop the "infringement is stealing" crap.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
If you think the fact that someone trades data is proof that the data has some aspect of quality, then you simply do not understand the draw of illicit data. It doesn't mater if the data is warez, credit card listings, music, or bomb recipes. The draw is that the data in question is illicit... forbidden knowledge... prohibited... or otherwise illegal to own.
Think Eminem is an untalented idiot and his music is audio tripe? That's not the point. The point is that YOU got a copy of his recent album before it was even RELEASED. There's a brand new game that you'll constantly rant bout sucking... but you've got a copy of it in your collection. And whether you know how to use AutoCAD, much less have a desire to ever install it, isn't as important that you HAVE a copy of it.... cracked and dongle-less.
When I was a kid, I used to collect bomb instructions. I was convinced a large portion of it was created by people with just enough knowledge to be dangerous - to the unfortunate who followed the instructions. I never had any interest in actually creating any of the devices and substances described. But it was forbidden data - and I had a lot of it. And that idea alone appealed to me.
Sure. Some people who collect bomb instructions want to make bombs. Some people who download music see value in that music. But I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of file trading is simply a combination of packrat behavior and the thrill of handling illicit data.