The end of the RIAA?

Have a look at this rather windy post.

Yes, I do like seeing them hoist by their own petard.

Another article, this one via /.

CharleD's Idea just seems too good to be true.

I like the concept. Providing music so cheaply as to make piracy just too much of a bother.

Providing music so cheaply as to make piracy just too much of a bother.

For the last couple years I have been thinking something along these lines is the only legal music distribution model that could work at this point. Get rid of the concept of purchasing music and simply do music on demand for a minimal monthly fee. Of course this presupposes sufficient, ubiquitous, wireless bandwidth so that nobody needs a physical copy of the music. Take a device the size of an iPod and replace the hard drive with a WiFi or 3G radio and a slick search interface similar to the empegs and let everyone have access to every song ever recorded for $5-$10 a month. Allow creation of flexible playlists so you could still create your music library, but without storing the actual files on the device. The technology is getting close, but the traditional music distribution model needs to die first.

-Mike

What happens if I want to listen to music while in a remote location? Music-on-Demand would increase piracy in my opinion. For instance, if I were denied the ability to buy pre-recorded music, I would *not* pay a monthly bill to access a service. I would download everything I wanted for free and never think twice about it. Maybe mailing a few bills directly to the artists every now and then.

Bruno

The idea you proposed seems like something someone from the RIAA would devise. I mean thats instantaneous infinite revenue for them. They would never have to worry about producing good music again.

If I was an artist I wouldn't 'buy' into that scheme. If my new music was that good, I wouldn't allow it to be placed on that network making it inconvienent to use since you have to not only use the 'all encompasing' music network but also illlegally download it somewhere else and not even be able to play it on the device you proposed. If it was that good I think people would pay for it in that situation. However I do feel that the current pricing scheme must change.

I think the best solution is to sell CD quality music, i.e. lossless formats such as FLAC over the internet per song and then crack down like the KGB on pirates so that it really makes it not worth it to steal music. Selling individual songs would make artists create better music since most albums these days only have maybe one good song and then a bunch of crap. If you liked the entire album then maybe you could purchase it at a discount price. Have individual songs cost $1 and maybe an lbum that has 15 songs cost $10. The question then comes to who can sell the music or how do you charge for music downloads say on a peer to peer network.

Of course this won't solve the problem of finding smaller unkown artists versus financially backed artists of the RIAA and their brand of canned teenie pop music.

I think the real question that needs be asked is how can we as music fans find a better way to listen to the unknown music that we love?

It's getting pretty silly now - time to fight back, you people.

crack down like the KGB on pirates so that it really makes it not worth it to steal music

...

the real question that needs be asked is how can we as music fans find a better way to listen to the unknown music that we love

Well, the traditional way is to listen to music for free and decided whether or not you like it. But ClearChannel, et al., don't want us to listen to stuff we haven't already heard and isn't approved for new airplay. So the only thing left is to let your friends borrow your music. But that violates your first thesis.

There are always places like mp3.com where artists make their stuff available for free. None of the big stuff, of course, but then you can get that on Clear Channel anyway. I suppose it's in the middle stuff that's the real problem (signed to a major but not hugely popular).

'Im' talking about people on the internet not people who borrow cd's. I didn't say the RIAA would like that idea. I think they just want to crack down on every one and keep the distribution system the same. Being able to sell a cd generates alot more revenue than a single song so well see how far they go with this single song thing at apple.

Although he's not been flavour of the month for a while, this show's Michael has not completely lost it. Good man, this changes my attitude to him!

I think they just want to crack down on every one and keep the distribution system the same.

And that's the big problem. I remember one concept that made an impression on me during my business classes at school: If you want to succeed, find out what someone would have to do to put you out of business and then do that before they can. This is the concept that has made Bill Gates so successful (though admittedly a lot of it he did unethically). This is not, however, the strategy the RIAA is choosing to employ. They are holding on for dear life to their current model, and someday that model is going to be outdated. Is a recipe for disaster, but they're too busy blaming people who use mp3s (some of us even legally) to notice.

His statements are even more interesting considering the amount of music he owns the rights to in addition to his own music.

This link is of some interest.