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The Recording Industry's Failed Digital Strategy
An anonymous reader sends us a link to the Toronto Star, where Michael Geist has a terrific article on how the record labels got the Internet completely wrong. While somewhat specific to Canada, the article' arguments are more broadly applicable. The article links together the misplaced reliance on DRM and the Canadian industry's advocacy for increasing levies on blank media to demonstrate just how wrong-headed this strategy has turned out to be.
TFA:
So now what? A tax on internet access? Charging per port?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Anyone can see it. If EMI is preparing to offer DRM free downloads, and everyone but the other majors want to do away with it, it's only a matter of time before it's eliminated. As much as the content industry might hate it, consumer demand is more powerful than their distribution policy. If they think they can force draconian DRM on people who won't accept it, then their sales will just decline further and they will not fix any of their current problems.
It took them years to allow internet distribution in any format. It might take a few more before they will allow it in a format which will gain wide acceptance, but ultimately it's in their best interest as well as the consumers'.
EMI sounds like some smart CIO refreshed their memory on the failures of DIVX; introduced in part by Circuit City to negate the early years of an open DVD format. If you wanted to "own" your movie, you just purchased a "silver" status (at more or less the same cost of a DVD) but were only able to view it on your DIVX player (and other hoops to jump through). Sound familiar? You do not need these lock down schemes to part my money from my wallet. Just look at my DVD and CD shelf. Really, you don't need DRM.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
AACS was the advertised poster child of "perfected" DRM. Everyone kept holding that up as the end of DRM cracking. It is dead now, and suddenly nobody in the media is mentioning it.
Trusted computing is the last on the table, though I don't really classify it's completed implementation as DRM.
Because the "ideal" trusted computing platform is built to refuse to run unsigned code period, a "trusted computing" compliant computer really cannot be classified as general purpose any more than a box wrench could be classified as a screwdriver.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
As the man said "Music and song were thriving for thousands of years before the recording industry." ...and now - it's totally corrupt. Just think about it - how the record industry created these "Big Stars" - just like Hollywood and the National League [of your favourite sport here]. What fools we have all been to elevate these people to the status of gods! Of course, we have been manipulated by the mightiest marketing machine history has never known, but still, we bear the responsibility for our own actions in the end.
It's totally absurd that in this world where a quarter of the world's population suffers famine and we have so many other problems and priorities, that a few "stars" earn millions, and their promoters earn billions. And who are these people? For the most part, they are not musical geniuses; rather, they are icons of a corrupt pop-culture. They are stand-in symbols for whatever the current generation wants - anti-authority figures - 'sex, drugs, and Rock n' Roll'.
Centuries ago, art and music served as a form of worship, reaching for the highest ideals and aspirations that Man could strive for. Bach wrote his Fugues. Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Shakespeare wrote his plays, Byron, Shelley, Keats wrote poetry, Handel wrote his choral works, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mozart composed their symphonies, the list goes on and on. Did any of these people, whose works have endured for centuries, ever earn millions of dollars? And did someone acting as their agent or producer earn many times more?
What has this world come to? I just typed "Greatest artists of all time" into Google and what do I get? Michelangelo? Leonardo da Vinci? Rembrandt? No, though that is exactly what I was looking for. Get this: According to Google, it's 1. The Beatles, 2. The Rolling Stones, 3. Jimi Hendrix, 4. Led Zeppelin, 5. Bob Dylan, 6. James Brown, 7. David Bowie, 8. Elvis Presley, 9. The Who, 10. The Police, 11. Stevie Wonder, 12. Ray Charles, 13. The Beach Boys, 14. Marvin Gaye, 15. Eric Clapton. Isn't there something wrong here?
Give me a break! "Greatest artists of all time" - how many of these people will even be remembered a century from now? I would only call one of these people an artist - Bob Dylan, and many of the rest are monster pop-icons created by the music industry back in the good ol' payola days. (Well, I have to admit, I too liked their music - most of them anyhow - what can I say? But that doesn't make them the "Greatest artists of all time". It's a matter of proportion, isn't it? What kind of a narrow view do we have, as reflected by Google?
Now, please don't get me wrong. I love contemporary music as much as anybody. I probably don't know any more about Classical Music, Fine Art, or Great Literature than you, and there certainly were times in my life when I would have liked nothing better than sex, drugs, and Rock n' Roll if/when I could get it.
My thesis is that record companies grew to be giant multinationals by catering to the worst within us, corrupting us with there greed, polluting our values, hijacking our culture for thier own monetary gain. Let them go back to Hell where they came from. It's time for this bullshit to end.
Peter
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