More Music Exec Idiocy
“It’s going to be difficult to get the consumer to stop thinking about owning music, and think about paying for participation instead,” said one executive.
Found in this article at the Register. One wonders if perhaps, just maybe, the music executives should stop worrying so much about what the public “should” be thinking and worry more about how to make their products more compelling. Put another way: Instead of trying convince me to fork over ever more money for the exact same experience why not add some value to the equation. Just a thought.
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“paying for participation” ?!?! I thought forking over some of my hard earned paycheck to buy a CD or other form of music was “participation.” These execs are so out of touch with People in the Real World.
Actually what these guys don’t get is why the money they make is decreasing year after year. I have not heard this point before but the transition from the CD era to the MP3/digital music era was the first time in history a change in the music industry was driven by the desire of the consumer rather than the whim of the music industry/record labels.
When they gave us the CD, as with the cassette tape and 8 track tape, everyone had to go out and re-purchase all of their music. When the tech companies figured out affordable ways for the masses to rip their own CDs to a new, digital format it started a new era for all of us, an era that meant the end of re-purchasing the music we already owned. Ironically the music industry did this to themselves by creating the new CD format that gave us music “files” that allowed us to copy it without the loss of quality for the first time.
One argument they keep giving us is that the price we pay for music includes certain usage rights. Where were those imbedded costs each and every time I bought “Every Breath You Take” by The Police? Shouldn’t I have received a credit by turning in my cassette when I bought it on CD?
The recording companies are still flailing about over the fact that they have no control any more. We can now take their music and change the format to whatever we want within DRM restrictions at least. If they cancelled all contracts with Apple (iTunes) and Napster and Real and the rest and opened their own stores now it would be too late. Now that the internet distribution model is alive and well, all that would have to happen is for someone to open an online music store and invite artists to submit their music for sale and get a cut of that sale.
Eventually I suspect that is what will happen. I think the only reason Apple has not done this is because the record companies would pull their contracts.
The recording studio execs have never had to worry about pleasing the customer since they controlled every aspect of the market. Now we have alternatives and it will take a while for the recording industry to learn how to move from a monopoly to a free market capitalist system. In the free market, you have to work harder for people’s money.