The record companies have had their heads in the sand regarding digital availability of the music they promote. They have tried to hold on to the model that made them so much money for so long that when digital availability came along, they tried to stamp it out by suing the downloaders, instead of recognising it as a great way to distribute the content and modifying their practices. Now they are so far behind I can’t see how they can catch up. And in a way, I hope they don’t. I hope they fold. How can anyone support an industry that is opposed to change and attempts to bankrupt kids for downloading a handful of songs?
I love music. I am happy to pay for music I like, especially when I know that the money I spend goes directly to the artists who make it. I celebrate when I find artists who allow me to download their music directly from their websites. I will happily go to a concert they perform at when they come to Australia. Direct marketing by artists through the internet and word of mouth and direct sales and downloads of their music means an end to the monopoly that the record companies have enjoyed for so long. Why do we need them? They are a relic of the 20th century. They deserve to fade into obscurity.
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“I have a problem when people in the industry say ‘it’s killing the industry, it’s the thing that’s ripping us apart’. I don’t actually believe it is… (Pirates) might not buy an album, but they’re spending their money buying concert tickets, a t-shirt, whatever. It’s an analogue business model in a digital era. The business model has to change. You’ve got to license out more music - have more Spotifys, more websites selling more music. You’ve got to make it slightly cheaper to get music in order to compete with the peer-to-peers. BitTorrent is very utilitarian, it’s deeply unsexy. The Richard Branson of nowadays would be able to set up a really amazing website for 14- to 24-year-olds that deals with their music … and do something really innovative and make it really easy for people to buy music, and cheap. A lot of 14-to 17-year-olds don’t have credit cards, so how are they going to get music digitally? These are very, very, very basic issues - I find it staggering that the industry seems to be really dragging its heels on this - this is stuff that you could do in one week. Move quicker! That’s been the whole problem in the last 10 years. Why are we here now? Because the recording industry dragged its feet over digital.” Radiohead: The Music Biz Could Cure Its Ills In One Week | paidContent:UK (via rikin) |
