Cayocosta
Some interesting posts at Velvet Rope highlighting how the music industry is typically (and falsely) accused of being slow to adapt. Of course, record companies can't adapt to piracy, as there is no way to successfully compete with free. After all, it's been eight years since Napster - a period where anyone could have entered the music business with a new-model solution - yet no one has successfully done so.
Might as well chastise the majors for their failure to devise a viable perpetual-motion machine.
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2 comments:
hey man,
you don't think that a universal or warner music should have built their own iTunes w/ straight mp3's at a similar price point?
the only reason that piracy gets so much attention from the majors is that their petrified of losing the perception that music is a commodity w/ a solid price. if the majors had launched an iTunes first, they'd be wallowing in mp3 love with $.99 returns on a virtual product -- you know, the dream product for those bean counters at the majors.
the slept, now they have to wrestle back control from jobs.
great article in wired, btw.
Research indicates that paid downloading is slowing in growth year-over-year, with projections that it will not make up for the respective increasing loss of income attributable to falling CD sales.
Therefore, such a move (now or then) would appear to represent ultimately no more than a stopgap.
For I believe that should the majors offer DRM-free downloads (again, there has been a report suggesting recent DRM-free offerings are not increasing overall sales) for 25 cents a shot tomorrow, it wouldn't be enough to compel file-sharers to go legit - at least in numbers large enough to make a meaningful difference.
(By the way, the next argument against paid downloads would likely be the demand for lossless audio encoding - already showing up here.)
The progression would probably begin with DRM-free, then downward adjustments in price until such a point where piracy is capped at an acceptable percentage of consumers - however, if 89 cents is perceived as too much per track, and the removal of DRM is not enough to overcome it; then where will the price become acceptable - and can the industry sustain itself at this point?
Moreover, the drop in CD sales would be hastened, further adding to the financial stress the industry is experiencing.
This is the reason RIAA actions make sense - for the risk it associates with piracy raises the potential price-point at which legal downloading would be considered worthwhile.
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