Much in the news days is the conflict between the "Music Business" and those dirty Pirates - presumably the hope is to sway popular opinion enough so the "War of Filesharing" can begin. That one should be fun. I'm conflicted about the whole thing - I used to download MP3s but that was on a 28.8kbps modem and only a tiny percentage of people even knew what they were. It didn't occur to anyone that it might be illegal. Note I really mean download MP3s. There was no such thing as P2P at this point -it was slow, and actually back then cost more in ISP charges than it costs to get some songs all legal like from Amazon now.
Price wasn't the factor though - that's not why it was done. It was to get hold of music you couldn't get here. Music that was coming out, or remixes, or samples (some from the labels back then, even). It was all a bit wild west and quite exciting.
My taste in music is eclectic and all encompassing, but I wouldn't typify myself as a music-lover. I like it a lot, but I don't love it. If you gave me life without music, or say alcohol - I'd take the alcohol. Hell I'd take computer games over music. I spend maybe £200 a year on music, but that's only maybe two thirds for myself, let's say £10/month or thereabouts. Or in iTunes terms maybe 120 tracks a year. Except if you check the stats that's a huge amount of money on music - that put's me in the top 20% of music spenders apparently. I'm the battlefield on which the "War on Filesharing" is to be fought. And I really don't care. The Music Industry has a hard fight on it's hands it seems. But they've done this to themselves, and here's why:
Low Price, High Cost: Apparently downloading a track costs about a £1 with a bit of variation. Want to refresh your older music? Can't be arsed ripping all your old cds? Well check out some of the online retailers. I decided to pad out the music library with older stuff last year via compilation cds. I tanked £80 on Amazon and got about 1250 tracks from compilations CDs. There was some duplicates, but not as many as you might think and though the stuff wasn't current, there nonetheless was a lot of good material. At a cost of 6-7p a track. It was cheaper to do this than do it myself because it would have taken ages to do it myself. Sweet sweet cheap music. But The Music Industry wants to get me coming, going and sideways. Want to have a radio on in your shop? Licence to perform required. Oh and a Licence to use a composer work. And it depends how many people are listening for the cost of that, and for how long. If I'm listening to a track I own on the radio in an office - The Music Industry has been paid: Once for me to license the track personally, once by the station to play it, once by the office to perform it and once for the composers. And if I download that track again in the office they'd like me to lose my job and pay them $150,000. Unless it's from Spotify, then that's okay, cos I'll be paying my subscription. Hmm. Not so cheap after all. And I'm one of your best customers? Nice service guys. Now obviously, I'm cheating a little here for the sake of hyperbole, the performance rights and composers rights can't be sorted out by the Record Companies - because they're apparently thieving bastards that don't pay the artists. Although, reading around on the internet so are the Rights Societies if you're not huge. So way to fix one problem by introducing two more and causing customer resentment.
In short, The Music Industry wants you to realise you have free access too on the radio, or can pick up for pocket change or get free with your paper - is in fact a high value limited resource. Technically, given a 32GB SD card that's maybe a gram filled with 6500 high quality MP3s nicked off the web at the full wrist-slapping $150,000 value would be "worth" 975 million dollars. That's $975,000,000. Actually, $975,000,100. Better pay for the SD card. That's per gram. A perfect, well-cut blue diamond weighs in at about $2.75 million dollars a gram. Diamond dust is about $60 a gram. So according to The Music Industry that SD card is worth 16.25 Tonnes of Diamond dust. You could buy an island with it! No wonder they have to crack down!
Vicious, Aggressive Competition (That won't play by The Rules): For so long The Music Industry has all the cards, they've been a little slow catching on that whilst they have all the chips on the poker table, everyone else is over on the couch having a grand old time playing Wii Sports. And whilst they've blundered over, spilling their winnings on the floor, they appear to have less grace and co-ordination that the seemingly ever present five year old that is oddly skillful at tennis. In order to "win" they've taken to paying off the other players to not play, unfortunately the 5 year old doesn't want to play anything other than tennis, is prone to screaming, and really doesn't give a crap about poker chips. When The Music Industry looks round they're going to notice everyone else is over on the PS3 playing Singstar. With all his poker chips.
Welcome to the Internet guys! You'll love it here! Well, you won't, but we do.
Okay, maybe I over extended the metaphor, but things are changing fast and competition is suddenly everywhere. When the artist rights guys are telling the artists they're thieves if they choose to make their works more available to the public it's pretty clear someone can't keep up.
The Players in that metaphor? They're everywhere. Use Google. And attempting to buy all the competition when the resources to get started are maybe a thousandth of what it costs to buy them is just wealth re-distribution, Mr Recording Industry - you're not some kind of commie or something are you?
Some people want to give away their music, other are joining Co-operative labels, others want to be world tour megastars. Some just want to play concerts. These are not all the same thing, so please stop trying to make them so.
But Think Of The Childr....Artists!: I have mixed sympathy for the Artists - they absolutely should be paid, but then I don't sympathise with people signing stupid contracts for a house they can't afford and then losing it. So yes it's appaling that people aren't paying Artists when they download music, but then if the Industry gave them a better cut in the first place they wouldn't be starving would they? Why is it just the downloaders fault? The Industry seems to survive just fine.
Death of The Music Industry (has been misreported): People crowing about the death of The Music Industry are, I think, as misguided as the industry itself. I think what we're looking at here is the same thing happened to bricks and mortar bookshops ten years ago. We're not killing the music industry, we're gaining choice. Some people will go on buying CDs, some will never find the other options, some will never buy the commercial stuff again. But the other metaphor guys were playing SingStar, and movies need to license tracks from someone. We may not be getting a musical revolution after all, but then perhaps a musical evolution is better for everyone anyway.
But whatever happens, I won't be spending more than that £200 a year, so yes you'll see declining profits, because it's no longer all on your balance sheets. Having a tirade about it and alienating the people that do spend money with you is perhaps not the wisest course. In fact this year I'll be watching and supporting Be The Source with interest. And I suspect they'll be taking some of your poker chips this year, Mr Music Industry. Maybe not a lot, but some. And it's not because I'm a dirty filesharing pirate. I'm just thinking of the Artists.
-TechTonic
No comments:
Post a Comment