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State of Online Music: RIAA's Efforts Paying Off
melquiades writes "The NYT (regreq) has a new article about online music, suggesting that the recording industry's war against P2P is paying off: pay-to-download services are rising in popularity. "Largely because of tough actions by the record companies to combat free music sites through the courts, legislation and even through techno-guerrilla tactics, there is a noticeable change of sentiment in a small segment of the downloading cognoscenti. Though their numbers are low, many are the early adapters who spot a trend first." Though the article falls into the common fallacy of equating P2P with illegal copying -- I'm one of the numerous artists who wants people to download my music for free -- it sums up the state of affairs well, particularly in this quote from online music consultant Michael Haile: "Record labels know what consumers want. We all do. They want a Napster you pay for. We all know that. But why would the labels want that at all? Making CD's is like printing money.""
The RIAA would love to take all the credit and say that the music subscription sites succeed because the P2P services are getting worse, but that's simply not true. The guerilla tactics hardly put a dent in my p2p experience. It sounds to me like the subscription services are just getting better. They know what we want, they've just been afraid to offer it to us because they coudn't put together a viable business model.
What's it going to be like when internet2 is pervasive? When every home is wired with fiber optics for 100 Mb net access, or 1000 Mb access or whatever? You will be able to download the equivalent of a present day CD in a few seconds. You will have a handheld with 100s of gigabytes of storage and, thanks to BlueTooth Rev. 17, you'll be able to beam an entire movie at DVD quality to a friend's handheld in a matter of seconds.
In this future world, perhaps about five to ten years from now, how on earth will RIAA prevent music and video piracy? It seems doubtful that drm initiatives will succeed; people have an enormous incentive to bypass it, and as bandwidth increases, that incentive will only grow.
I think eventually we'll have to come to some sort of compromise between the content producers, marketers, and consumers, and settle on some sort of "reasonable fair use" doctrine as once existed with cassettes and VCRs.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
One Buck Forty or Die
I thought this was one of the best things I've read on this well worn subject in awhile.
i'm another musician who wants people to download my music for free. look. most musicians start off like this. they do it because they love it. then some record label comes along and fills the musician's head with promises of bags of money. over time it gets ingrained. must ... make ... money. then, when the label screws the artist, the label can blame the internet.
my band's solution is to remove money from the equation. take our sounds for free (ok, pay for the hardware -- actual cd's, shirts, etc).
why don't we care about the money? because, and this is the part that pisses other bands off most, we believe we actually OUGHT to have day jobs. yep. and we pull it off, too. we have mortgages and wives and 9-5 day jobs AND we tour once a year AND play gigs about twice a week. in the spring we're touring europe for 4 weeks. this is a lot of hard work. we do it because we love it, not because we want to make a fortune. and, in my opinion, great music has to come from a passionate and difficult place inside. not a comfortable one.
ok now i'm rambling.
anyway, point is, i have no sympathy for a greedy musician. a band CAN survive on enjoyment, love, energy, and passion, without the corrupting notion that the band is a "business". mine is living proof.
i could live a little longer in this prison