New EMI Boss Says 'Downloads May Be Good'

warrior_s writes "Douglas Merrill was just installed as CIO of EMI (one of the big four that forms the RIAA). The ex-Googler recently stated it is a 'poor business model to sue your customers. I don't think that's a sustainable strategy.' Quoted by the Guardian, he was referring to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG's current practice of trying to use legal systems around the world to force their customers into buying products rather than using the free P2P networks and independent music sites and services. 'Previously, the music industry has rubbished studies that claim file sharing can have a positive effect on music sales. "I think people will pay," Merrill said. "There is evidence that people we think are not buying music are buying music. They're just not buying it in formats we can measure."'"

Comments

Business model

[esocid]

"We should do a bunch of experiments to find out what the business model is."

Um, I believe people have been screaming it at you for the past 5 years.

1. Flat fee all you can download buffets.
2. No DRM.
3. Multiple quality formats.
4. Wide variety of artists.
5. Profit!

Sorry had to throw that last one in there.

As a side note I don't think my ordered list worked. Bug?

Wrong position title

[Honest Man]

It should be noted he's not the CIO of EMI, he's the President of Digital Business. http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-interview-douglas-merrill-president-emi-digital-business/ http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2008/press40.htm

Re:And your job is... what, exactly?

[CSMatt]

Believe it or not, record companies still provide vital marketing for their artists even though their primary purpose of distribution has been made obsolete.

Re:Where's the money?

[Captain Spam]

I think you've got it, but to try to make it a bit clearer:

If someone buys a song/album, they industry counts it as an $X gain in their records. That's the normal part.

If someone pirates a song/album, the industry counts it as an $X loss in their records. This is where they get their annual "zomg teh big scary internets are costing us eleventy hojillion dollars a YEER!!!! i <3 my private jet" statements from.

But, if someone pirates a song/album and then turns around and buys it because he or she likes it, the industry counts it as BOTH a $X loss due to piracy AND a $X gain due to the sale. That's what he's talking about. They have no way of knowing if the $X gain was due to the $X "loss" from actually listening to the song(s) first, so it goes down in both records, even if the $X gain should replace (not just neutralize) the $X "loss".

That, if I am not mistaken, is where the big scary loss figures come from. They assume that it keeps inflating the "loss" column, instead of what it should be doing, erasing from the losses. This is how they can cry over the so-called massive losses sustained from piracy while raking in ever-growing profits year after year. It's either a culture of stupidity that makes them unaware/unwilling to realize this, or a culture of greed that makes them think they can somehow translate their imaginary "loss" into profits by litigation.

Just my interpretation of it. It's probably the same as what you were thinking.

Re:There may be hope yet

[TheRaven64]

Also iTMS is the worst kind of download, DRMed. Not all of iTunes downloads are DRM'd, and the ones that aren't are most relevant to this article since most of them are from EMI. I've bought a few albums from them in the last six months, 256Kb/s AAC (the same quality I rip my own CDs), no DRM.

not instantaneous, but still sorta magical.....

[zogger]

.....there's two ways to get a broccoli, you can buy one at the store, or get a packet of seeds and make a lot of copies for cheap. Go ahead, share some with friends! I'm in ag, that's where my money comes from,yet I encourage everyone to grow as much of their own food as possible. Because that is just a good idea, cheap good food for everyone is the goal. That's the best this side of another industry that's been around a long time can offer, bioreplicator technology. Go buy your meats directly from the farmer, save bunches. Go to produce stands and farmers markets, save a lot. *Food is the original replicator technology*, buy a heifer, you can "replicate" a lot of beef that way. There are ways to keep it cheap(er) and affordable. (and I am against food patents and seed DRM..that's lame, use open pollinated/heirloom "open source" seeds).

The digital bits for expensive industries-music,movies,software- are out to lunch, just charge very small fees, make it quick, easy, and legal, don't annoy the customers at all, skip the DRM and all that other nonsense, and make some money on HUGE volume sales. Even 99 cents a track is pretty steep, it should be like a dime maybe. And stuff on a cheap plastic disk? Coupla bucks, tops...make it impulse item cheap, sell zillions of copies that way. They are stuck in a pricing model from decades ago when making copies was expensive..it ain't that way now, not even close, drop prices severely or deal with "piracy" as your customer base routes around digital prohibition because it is stoopid to put up with it and constitutes irrational price gouging. Example of how far out to lunch they are, you can get the HARDWARE to replay the music now at the low end CHEAPER than a single plastic disk with some music on it. Tell me that isn't an indictment of price gouging by the music industry, and skewed expectations. They just refuse to drop prices as technology proves they can, that's all, just tired old avarice.

Re:Sad Mentality Indeed

[compro01]

i don't think he's referring to current 3-D printers and prototype fabricators and such.

we're talking objects-like-files, star-trek-style replication. right-click, copy, paste, and you've duplicated a car from random atoms, at near-zero cost. post-scarcity.

while this is not feasible now (and it may never be), as he said, it's an interesting path to wonder what would happen if we suddenly did have that capability.