On Tuesday 20 July 2010 18:19:52 sajan venniyoor wrote: > *Record labels should make MP3s free, and freely shareable* > By Milo Yiannopoulos, 19 Jul 2010 > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7898359/Record-labels-sh >ould-make-MP3s-free-and-freely-shareable.html > > A few days ago, with no small amount of glee, Ray Beckerman from > the Recording Industry vs The People blog suggested that $16m in > legal fees had netted the Recording Industry Association of America > less than $400,000 in court judgements against pirates in 2008. > (You can see for yourself just how much glee Beckerman > felt<http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2010/07/ha-ha-ha >-ha-ha-riaa-paid-its-lawyers.html>by reading his post title, which > is: “Ha ha ha ha ha. RIAA paid its lawyers > more than $16,000,000 in 2008 to recover only $391,000!!!”.) > > But beyond the gloating blog posts, there's a truth emerging: > aggressive legal tactics against pirates simply aren't working. > Worse, they're turning into a PR disaster for the recording > industry.
The legal tactics are not against the organised pirates, who thrive and do a roaring business, but against individuals most of whom are regular joes who want to hear what they are buying first. > Illegal downloading is costing record companies – and, ultimately, > artists – a lot of money in lost sales. No one would seriously deny > that (though they may argue over just how much it's costing). Most of the money is skimmed of by the music company and even very well known artists and their inheritors have had to sue the record companies for fudging accounts. Further illegal sharing has come about because of an utterly outdated method of distribution coupled with other crooked practices like bundling. And the "losing money" bit is a plug by the very same group - news and media companies - whose business models are obsolete. The rest of the article is partly true. However what the author fails to understand is that the days of superstars writing mostly rubbish which was lapped up by hungry hordes, simply because that was the only stuff served on TV and radio is long over. Lady gaga, Madonna (lip sync) Ccionne and a few others are the last dying embers. Passive consumption of entertainment, news, information, learning is over and dead. This model of congregating in one place to consume something reminds me of the colosseum - 2500 years is pretty good run for a business model. Well one might even go all the way back to a campfire 2.5 millon years ago, (though i doubt you paid or got invited to these rock-n-barbecue parties), with a prime and propah shaman to link you with the ethereal spirits. A few million years later the media companies are mighty worried about losing their shamanic roles. It would cost very little for a new group to organise a live show over the net. As an example, in the electronics industry until a few years ago, there used to be several seminars every year on the use of components made by some manufacturer or the other (National, Intel, Analog Devices, TI etc). Today these are replaced by webinars. Login to one of the these company websites and participate. Every now and then a live event is announced with the old world fixed schedules, registration, even a real physical meeting place. But the whole kaboodle is now also available on the net LIVE. And subsequently as an e-seminar. Music and the performing arts are no different. Infact one can have an infinitely large audience as opposed to one restricted by the size of a Ravindra Natya Mandir or Shanmukhananda Hall, or one constantly interrupted by brain dead fairy cream ads. The internet is a pardigm shift. Like it or not, the way we deliver services and information has changed forever. There is plenty of room for the shaman, he just needs to virtualise the campfire and stop being a pain in the a... -- Rgds JTD _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
