WhackArnolds – Technology, Politics, Pop Culture, Life commentary delivered hot and fresh!

Regardless of what the music industry says, music piracy is still alive and still very strong. The general way of thinking in a big music company is that if you get enough press about winning lawsuits against pirates it will slow things down. This, as everyone knows, is absolutely stupid and is just what you would expect from an executive. The truth is, most of the people who are sued don’t have the cash to pay the judgement, so the lawsuit costs more than the amount earned from the judgement. On top of that, they sometimes get the wrong people because of all the bot-nets out there.

The lawsuits have been coming fast and furious, but what has happened to music piracy? Nothing! Napster is gone now, but there are tons of other networks now. Recently the owners of The Pirate Bay were found guilty and were sentenced to 1 year and 1 million in damages, however nothing changed in the piracy world. In fact, there are other versions of the same website hosted elsewhere. You can see how stupid this approach is right?

No matter what the music companies do, they will never stop music piracy. There are plenty of people in other countries and here in the USA that have no problem hosting torrent searches. The music companies are basically wasting millions on this stuff with no exit strategy. It is and always will be a losing proposition. All they are doing is creating more and more barriers for paying customers. I personally don’t buy music anymore, but I don’t pirate it either. Up until recently, there was no way to get DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) music on the net, so I stopped trying. I got an iPhone and Pandora, buying music has gone away for me! This isn’t a good solution for everyone, but it works just fine for me.

So, how do you slow or stop music piracy? Here you go:

1. Stop being stupid and use the technology: This is something that is pretty simple to do and has started to happen. You can get DRM-free music on Amazon and now on iTunes. The only problem is that on iTunes there is a tiered pricing model, which is stupid. Having a model where people pay a premium of a few cents for newly released music is only going to force people back to the Limewire and Bearshare’s of the world. Why would someone go and pay $1.25 for music that used to be .99 cents? The pricing has been .99 cents for a song for years and now you are inflating the costs simply so you can show more profits for your stakeholders? That is stupid and is destined to fail. Don’t get me wrong, the nice people out there will bend over and buy that, but raising prices isn’t going to get the pirates to buy. That is what I call “Stupid Executive Syndrome”. So, using the technology is a good start, but the implementation is a little brainless.
2. Stop ripping off the artists: Another reason why people pirate music is because they don’t believe that the musicians receive any of the music sales. Touring is where musicians make most of their cash, and that’s why you see people going to the concerts and buying merchandise. Support for a band is something that even pirates have no problem with, but anything that is going to help out “The Man” is a bad thing. So, how about giving more cash per unit to the people who are making the music. This is especially more important now that it’s extremely easy to put together an album in your basement using a computer and a few extras. By not paying your talent enough you are effectively killing yourselves.
3. Stop letting lawyers think for you: When you let lawyers think for you, you will undoubtedly go out and sue like you do now. That isn’t going to help out your cause, but it sure will help out the cause of the lawyers wallets. It’s also bad business for you to get press saying that you sued an innocent woman who was unwittingly part of a bot-net. The damage done by the bad press is worse that the number of songs stolen. Sorry, but the truth hurts fellas.
4. Offer better options instead of better DRM: Since we can all agree that copy protection is stupid and is usually cracked a few hours into it’s launch, we need to think outside of the box. How about a normal price for music downloads, .99 cents or less since the production of the digital track is cheaper than making the CDs, and then charge for better quality, behind the scenes video, etc. Added value always trumps added protection. I understand that money is everything to the music exec, but the reason people listen to an artist is not because of money. It’s way more emotional for the fan than it is for the music exec. Because of this, it’s going to be worse when that person feels that they are being ripped off to listen to their favorite artists. Imagine what would happen if you were dating someone, and fell in love with them, then they started charging you little by little to see them. What would you do?
5. Get rid of the music companies: I know, this post has been about how the music execs can slow down piracy, but in reality they won’t ever change. Pirates aren’t going to ever change either, they are always going to fight the music exec. Music execs with always attack their customers in an effort to get pirates and Pirates are always going to pirate their music. Piraters are smarter than music execs, it’s true sorry. The only way to really get this thing closed down is to remove the music execs from the equation. With the internet it is very easy for artists to load up a website and sell their music directly to their fans. All music executives and music companies are there for is promotion, and quite frankly, they aren’t needed. There are plenty of websites out there where these artists can promote themselves. The artists with egos will be washed away and the sincere music artists will rise to the top. Now that is a business model I like and I am sure fans will enjoy. The music will be better, and the money chasers who put out useless music (Soulja Boy etc.) will disappear.

There you go, fairly simple right? Either the music companies wise up and change their business model, or they resign themselves to the same fate as the newspapers. You can’t fight the internet, you have to embrace it and get creative. The old models don’t work, adapt and get better. Good luck.

Tags: Music, Rants