RIAA Insists That, Really, The Music Industry Is Collapsing

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120217/15023417795/riaa-insists-that-really-music-industry-is-collapsing-reality-shows-its-just-riaa-thats-collapsing.shtml

by mdariani • 14 years ago

43 28 14 years ago

techdirt.com

Anilm3• 14 years ago

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

Music industry should die for what it's trying to do with our liberties.

sl4yerr• 14 years ago

When The Oatmeal starts telling you what's wrong with your industry, it's time to shift gears:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

zackzackzack• 14 years ago

Once I saw that, I knew pirating was going to go mainstream. It has to. People like movies too much, pirating is so easy, and everything else is hard and is a shitty service.

mcdillon• 14 years ago

More on shitty services...

I have an hbo account through verizon fios, and typically watch shows through hbo go. Its hbo's streaming answer to being able to view the content you already pay for. The service is terrible, it constantly stops buffering and looses its place in the show / movie and you have to restart the player constantly. This can't be due to my connection because speed tests report everything as fine and dandy.

lotharbot• 14 years ago

http://xkcd.com/488/ - on what happens to DRM-locked files when technology changes

http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg - comparison of a pirate to a DVD buyer (via http://boingboing.net/2010/02/18/infographic-buying-d.html ; I don't recall the original source)

ethank• 14 years ago

Reminds me of http://www.blackrimglasses.com/2008/08/23/the-frustration-of...

Basically: I wanted to buy a song. It wasn't available. I ended up pirating it and donating money directly to the lead singer of the band.

Or in other words: windowing strategies cause others to make up for the deficiencies of the market reach. If you don't offer a free or paid option, someone is just going to infill it.

joejohnson• 14 years ago

To the RIAA, the Music Industry really is collapsing. They are used to the Music Industry being one entity that they have control over. But the music industry is just changing, and now many indie artists and producers are able to release music to a huge audience without using the distribution channels that the RIAA sought to protect. So, the Music Industry as it was known 10+ years ago is collapsing. However, in it's place is a new music industry with a vastly different business model. And the RIAA will either realize the world has changed and try to grab some market share before it's all gone, or they will cease to exist.

warfangle• 14 years ago

It's interesting how these dyed-in-the-wool capitalists are getting so butthurt over getting their asses kicked by more able competitors.

incongruity• 14 years ago

Monopolists (oligopoly I guess, technically), particularly those who've been in a monopoly position for a long time are only the dried up husks of capitalists.

It comes as no surprise that competition is a completely foreign concept to them, IMHO.

philwelch6• 14 years ago

It's a new music industry that very well may have less revenue and less profitability. There isn't much elasticity for concert ticket prices to go up much more, but there's a lot of room for record sales to fall, which means turning them into a loss leader just means losing money.

monsterix• 14 years ago

I quite frankly, disagree. The artist, who embraced and grew up on the new fora, earns more than what he/she could have ever done via label-sponsor-plastic route.

In fact some of the well known artists of today are artists only because of the new fora. It's no more like Joe needs to know the big-daddy before he/she could even release some good music.

geoffw8• 14 years ago

You know what, I'm totally new to this party in that this is my first ever written comment on the situation. But I have to admit, I'm starting to get pretty pissed.

The thing that really gets me, and the thing that has recently dawned on me is that file sharing isn't the only thing that is eating away at "sales" - I realized just yesterday I have never paid for a CD, or bought a DVD. In my younger years I "acquired" content in the common, frowned upon, ways but in the last 4+ years I can say the same for my content purchasing habits - I just don't do it.

You know why?

Netflix. Spotify. Love-film. Youtube. iPlayer. 4od.

I just don't have to buy content any more because I can pay ALL of these guys and get pretty much all the content I can watch. I genuinely haven't opened a torrent app or downloaded from a file locker for longer than I can remember and I am what you'd imagine is that kind of guy.

Just today I got a phonecall from LoveFilm telling me about their new "stream only" packages, and that they're now owned by Amazon so their streaming tech is much better than it used to be.

Not only that, but I'm sure maybe even yesterday I read an article about Katy Perry's (Mmm) millions (if not tens of) plays on Spotify earning her next to nothing.

Now look, I know a lotta guys do fileshare but file-sharing is not the only reason the industry(s) are on their arse, it infuriates me that this whole charade is still going, I know I don't need to tell you guys how ridiculous this is.

This isn't even to mention everything else that us guys read daily about what the industry should be doing differently, or how to improve this and that. This is a set of commercial deals they have in place that give me an extra option in addition to "download illegally", or "buy download/CD".

So I'm of the opinion that if you took file-sharing out of the equation, they still have nobody but themselves to blame.

Cieplak• 14 years ago

This is a standard case of technology cutting out the middleman.

billpg• 14 years ago

"Don't worry about sales. Make your money by touring."

If I were a musician, I'd be the studio based type. (Mike Oldfield, et al.) Re-taking and re-mixing until the recording is just right.

For someone like that hypothetical me, going on tour would be to expect people to pay to watch a substandard live performance or to watch me mime to a recording. I'd find both rather dishonest.

Its a good job I'm a software engineer. My customers expect me to test my work before delivery.

xp84• 14 years ago

Couldn't hypothetical you just do a really polished tour? I mean, take electronic music for instance. Their performances are them moving sliders around and stuff, on things they've already spent a LOT of time creating and mixing.

evertonfuller• 14 years ago

I don't think anyone here knows how the music industry works.

TDL• 14 years ago

Would you care to enlighten us then?

AJ007• 14 years ago

If lots of people are more than happy to do something for free, then just how important is it for those people to get paid to do that activity.

This isn't metal mining or oil drilling, making music is something humans do because they enjoy it. I would assume that 99% of music makers/creators/producers not only make no money from it, but pay money to do it. Thus, we could argue that when that 1% ceases to make money from the activity society, as a whole, is better off because that capital is now re-allocated somewhere else -- be it another leisure activity, healthcare, food, investment, etc.

RIAA Insists That, Really, The Music Industry Is Collapsing

Related Stories