The music industry as we know it today is doomed-not because the industry is evil, though it may be, nor because it promotes its profits over the rights and well-being of its clients and customers, though it does. Rather, the music industry represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is doomed because it is obsolete.
The RIAA represents recording artists to a limited degree, but more importantly it represents the recording industry and its producers, studios, publishers and promoters. The industry it defends is built around finding, promoting and selling musical talent. As such, it has to be sensitive to the tastes of its customers-people who buy music. At the same time, the music industry as a whole has gained the power to dictate taste to masses. For years, outside of the college and indie music scenes, top 40 radio, MTV, late night television and other venues requiring industry connections have been the primary way of introducing new acts to the music-buying public.
The Internet, however, makes the entire promotion edifice unnecessary and overly coarse. Services like Apple’s iTunes, Pandora and Magnatune.com allow consumers to discover new music based on their individual listening tastes and modes.
While iTunes is well known, Pandora-at www.pandora.com-tailors its streamed music based on user feedback. Listeners let the service know the bands and songs they like, and it streams stylistically similar music that can be rated to further tune, no pun intended, the stream to their tastes. Magnatune allows users to browse through a catalog of artists and stream entire albums and then make a purchase based on the entire music selection.
As listeners become more Internet and high-bandwidth savvy, the current industry model will wither away. Hopefully, the RIAA/MPAA information racket will wither with it-they are greedy and stubborn enough to do so.
The RIAA, along with the Motion Picture Association of America, and its contributing member corporations have made headlines as of late for labelling online music sharing as piracy, trampling free speech and fair use and abusing the legal process to ensure the profitability of industry.
And sharing information, be it software, music, ideas or books is neither piracy-that’s when people violently capture and destroy shipping-nor is it theft, which involves taking something away from the victim. It is at worst merely copyright violation and, at best, free speech. But the RIAA, realizing that digital media allows unlimited copying and thus unlimited supply, is intent on demonizing data sharing of any sort.
They are right to be fearful but wrong to be paranoid. The digital medium greatly reduces the cost of producing and distributing any given song. Once I have a copy of it, I can make unlimited copies and distribute them wantonly, without regard to the artists and producers-a violation of both the spirit and letter of copyright law.
Thus, the RIAA and its cohorts claim loss of profit. Thus, they attempt to control the free exchange of information, which is both nearly impossible and against the fundamental ideals of American society, to protect their profits. They ignore the fact that people are willing to pay reasonable prices for music: just look at iTunes.
Instead of embracing one of several possible methods of profiting from electronic distribution, the industry has fought every step of the way to keep its current “treat songs as tangible goods” model. Recently, they tried to up the price of songs on iTunes to several dollars per song, which would destroy the service. Otherwise, consumers will go back to file sharing systems, refusing to pay the industry’s monopolistic premiums.
The “sell every song” model the industry uses is obsolete, doomed by the law of supply and demand and an informed consumer base less than willing to pay outrageous prices on music that costs practically nothing to distribute.
But because of its institutional greed and paranoia, the RIAA and MPAA continue to try to control the flow of information through legislation and court cases. Either they will succeed in creating an authoritarian system of information control that enforces their industry models at the expense of individual privacy and freedom-the Analog Content Security Preservation Act of 2005 before Congress now is such an attempt-or the lower cost of distribution will allow independent labels and artists to compete with the entrenched industry.
The Internet and its free exchange and replication of information essentially dooms the current industry models of music distribution and promotion and greatly improves the market in favor of the consumer-barring near-fascist legislative interference or consumer apathy. To ensure a freer, more artistic market, check out the alternatives like Pandora.com and Magnatune.com, and keep a close watch on legislation like the Analog Content Security Preservation Act.