There's something that's been bothering me for awhile concerning the music recording industries cracking down on piracy. First of all, I think it's important to point out that I have never pirated music, nor do I ever have any intention of doing so. However, in the past, WAY in the past, I used to buy tons of music whenever it was released. Music these days is so overpriced for minimal content that I rarely buy any new music.
So, one would think that I shouldn't give a care about the conflict going on between the pirates and the gatekeepers. But I do. The reason I care is something no one is really thinking about.
First of all, the recent tactics of the recording industries has been to crack down heavily on the people they suspect, and they are cracking down on the universities themselves that maintain these sites for the students. Now, someone who never pirates this stuff would probably think: "good, let's get them all." But that's not what I think because I realize what is eventually going to happen. A school, fearing potential high-impact lawsuits, is going to start limiting broadband capabilties for students. Right now, we have a really good thing, but because of the music industry going after people with a blanket approach to catching those doing what's wrong, everyone is going to start suffering.
Personally, I love ethernet because one of the things I do is play games online. I find it a wonderful way to spend the few hours a week that I do have to myself. People like me will be completely shut out because of the fear of lawsuits from paranoid universities. I also do a lot of online research which will then start becoming limited because for the most part, the way you figure out who is downloading a lot of music is by first going after the individuals who are doing a lot of downloading of any sorts. The easiest way to police this problem is to force people to have to download content through official proxies, in which the freedom to surf for info will start becoming legislated by universities that fear backdoor internet access through the main firewall lines.
In other words, every student will be punished because the music industry has chosen to target the universities where a small percentage of the criminals are located.
If the music industry wants to solve its problems, perhaps it should take a closer look at itself. First of all, when they went from vinyl to CDs, they sold us on the idea that these things would be cheaper to make, and we could look at $9.99 as the price of music albums. That never happened. They then started changing their claims on this, and next thing we knew, $15-20 was the "listed" price. Recently, the music industry, in several of their own big conventions, pointed out that they would start moving their prices back down to $9.99 because of the realization that they were losing tons of money through lack of sales. This was two years ago. It never happened.
Now, just a few months ago, music conglomerates have banded together to create a new "internet music downloading service" of which they promise that an entire album will cost "only $9.99". Now, this is with zero overhead other than the initial set-up costs and labor involved in running the service (which students have shown only takes one very dedicated student and a decent programmer). Yet, this figure of $9.99...where have we heard this before?
The music industry is NOT going to make up its money by going after students in an environment that a bunch of old music executives cannot possibly understand. They are trying to sell an old medium onto a new marketplace and not realizing that they are trying to sell ponies in car dealerships.
Perhaps they need to stop running focus groups amongst people who are part of the old paradigm and start running focus groups where THEY are not the ones asking the questions. They are so out of touch with consumers these days, and they don't even realize it.
Stumble It!
So, one would think that I shouldn't give a care about the conflict going on between the pirates and the gatekeepers. But I do. The reason I care is something no one is really thinking about.
First of all, the recent tactics of the recording industries has been to crack down heavily on the people they suspect, and they are cracking down on the universities themselves that maintain these sites for the students. Now, someone who never pirates this stuff would probably think: "good, let's get them all." But that's not what I think because I realize what is eventually going to happen. A school, fearing potential high-impact lawsuits, is going to start limiting broadband capabilties for students. Right now, we have a really good thing, but because of the music industry going after people with a blanket approach to catching those doing what's wrong, everyone is going to start suffering.
Personally, I love ethernet because one of the things I do is play games online. I find it a wonderful way to spend the few hours a week that I do have to myself. People like me will be completely shut out because of the fear of lawsuits from paranoid universities. I also do a lot of online research which will then start becoming limited because for the most part, the way you figure out who is downloading a lot of music is by first going after the individuals who are doing a lot of downloading of any sorts. The easiest way to police this problem is to force people to have to download content through official proxies, in which the freedom to surf for info will start becoming legislated by universities that fear backdoor internet access through the main firewall lines.
In other words, every student will be punished because the music industry has chosen to target the universities where a small percentage of the criminals are located.
If the music industry wants to solve its problems, perhaps it should take a closer look at itself. First of all, when they went from vinyl to CDs, they sold us on the idea that these things would be cheaper to make, and we could look at $9.99 as the price of music albums. That never happened. They then started changing their claims on this, and next thing we knew, $15-20 was the "listed" price. Recently, the music industry, in several of their own big conventions, pointed out that they would start moving their prices back down to $9.99 because of the realization that they were losing tons of money through lack of sales. This was two years ago. It never happened.
Now, just a few months ago, music conglomerates have banded together to create a new "internet music downloading service" of which they promise that an entire album will cost "only $9.99". Now, this is with zero overhead other than the initial set-up costs and labor involved in running the service (which students have shown only takes one very dedicated student and a decent programmer). Yet, this figure of $9.99...where have we heard this before?
The music industry is NOT going to make up its money by going after students in an environment that a bunch of old music executives cannot possibly understand. They are trying to sell an old medium onto a new marketplace and not realizing that they are trying to sell ponies in car dealerships.
Perhaps they need to stop running focus groups amongst people who are part of the old paradigm and start running focus groups where THEY are not the ones asking the questions. They are so out of touch with consumers these days, and they don't even realize it.
Stumble It!
posted by Duane @ 10:32 PM
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