February 12, 2004
MP3s: two links and a rant
This article says that web "piracy" (particularly referring to "unauthorized" mp3s) will basically disappear when widespread high-speed mobile web access proliferates, when price-fixing ends, and when the music industry actually opens up its full catalog online.
He says most of the current online music stores are more of a "wink-wink, nod-nod" than an attempt to actually create a viable business solution.
But the most interesting (and dead on!) point he mentions is this:
"It costs $20,000 to fill an iPod from iTunes Music Store. Quite simply, no one looks at a 40 GB iPod and thinks, "it will cost me $20,000 to fill it". It's a polite fiction. It's a looking the other way."(And one million songs sold by iTunes would only fill 28 iPods!)
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PC Magazine's John Dvorak has another great take on this subject. Read it.
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Here's what burns me.
Whenever I get into an argument with any "adult" over mp3 "sharing" (or whatever euphemism you want), I will regularly mention the small share of profit that an artist gets, the huge amount that the record company takes, and how many people take chunks out of that pie.
To which some have responded, "You can't fault a distribution channel! There have to be middlemen! You don't go down to a farm and buy your tomatoes, your apples, your cow, so you can take it home and save money. The people in between save you time and you pay them money for that!"
Sure. That's reasonable.
Except the entire idea of digital music is that it absolutely eliminates the middlemen. It absolutely hacks the distribution channel down from 20 guys with their hands on it to (potentially) two. And when you get that close, profits get a lot slimmer for everyone on the distribution side, because the real authority then belongs to the artist.
The recording industry should die.
We don't need a seven-mile long distribution channel. The internet has proved that.
What we truly need is a worldwide music-level combination of amazon.com and ebay with in-depth comments from individuals and a way to track what is good that's out there, as well as the right for people to pay what they're willing to pay for something -- and paying it straight to the artist.
What I'd like to see is artists take back the responsibility for marketing and sellling that music. Of course, that means MTV and corporate radio would have to die to create a level playing field... but I'm more than okay with that. It's just too bad that the cream doesn't rise to the top of the music charts... just whatever is dictated to be (over)played the most on radio.
There is a reason that the non-payola/plugola college music radio stations have a completely different sales & popularity chart than corporate radio. (See CMJ's charts vs. Billboard's charts.) And it has absolutely nothing to do with college students' tastes. And, truth be told, mainstream hits do make it on college radio as well. (See Outkast's massive successes on both independent and corporate radio.)
The difference between independent (usually college) radio and corporate radio sets the standard for the entire music industry. On one side, it's about diversity of ideas, styles, and personalities. (Kind of like life, which I heard is what art imitates or is it the other way around?) On the other side, it's all about profitability, and there sure is a lot more profit to be made from selling a million of one album than ten thousand of a hundred different albums. And so the playlists shrink. You don't hear it, you won't buy it.
I love music to death. The recording industry loves money to death. Money ain't dying any time soon. And music ain't dyin'.
I know that I will die. And so must the recording industry.
There's nothing wrong with the recording industry dying. If the corporation is legally viewed as a person, as these guys illustrate can't a corporation or an industry get to a point where it just dies? I mean, people die all the time. Yeah, you're darn right it's not fair! Death sucks! I'm certainly not looking forward to mine! But who died and guaranteed everlasting life for the corporation?!
Sorry.
I have no sympathy. If you don't like it, go invest in the movie industry! Oh, wait...
