DRM News

If you listen to the RIAA, and only the RIAA, one might think that music is dying, that piracy is rampant and that everybody is out to get them. Well…the last may be true, because they are not exactly loved. This might be because they are a heavy handed organization that is aggressive in the pursuit of its profits. Now I don’t think anyone begrudges the RIAA profits, I know I don’t, but I do have issues with an organization that goes around the world bullying people and companies and lobbying governments to do their bidding. It appears as if they’ve watched too much Judge Dredd.

So what is it they have done lately? Well in Ireland they have been going a bit crazy. They’ve attempted to make a claim that music played in hotel rooms for guests deserved a ‘performance right fee’. They are going after Irish blogs about music, saying they have to pay royalties to continue to have these songs on their blogs, even though many of the artists and labels are sending them this music. Its idiocy like this that gives the recording industry a bad name.

Here in the US the RIAA have just gotten the AFL-CIO (a large labour union group) to back their push to say that radio stations owe them money for promoting their music. Now this is the same group that went to the FCC to complain about radio stations NOT playing their music last year. Now I find this argument to be absolutely idiotic, and I’m disappointed in the lawmakers who have gotten behind this effort. I don’t see why the broadcasters don’t go after the RIAA for unpaid promotion of the RIAA’s music. The reality is that if it wasn’t for radio, music would not be selling near as much as it does, and radio would be nothing without the music, unless you want to listen to talk radio all day long.

Music Ally ran a live blog of the Tomorrow Never Knows debate that had ten panelists that included industry reps and also included Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi from The Pirate Bay. Over all very interesting and here are some highlights.

20.17: Moot from EMI Publishing chips in, saying that “the joy of ownership is a very different thing from the joy of a digital download or stream”. He thinks the industry has been too quick to bang on about digital, and not to “cherish ownership”.

The ‘joy’ of ownership? Really? Does he know what decade he is living in? Digital distribution is growing faster and faster and CD players have given way to MP3 players.

21.56: Questions from the audience. “I haven’t heard anything looking forward,” says a questioner. “There’s no 15-year plan, no 20-year plan!” Over to Next Big Thing’s Higham. “In the short term, record companies should focus, maybe a quarter of their resources on selling singles to teenagers and pre-teens, and the other three quarters on selling CDs to people over 40.” And in the long-term? “Unquestionably the format is going to change. It’s going to be about downloads, but more likely about subscription and streaming.”

This seemed to be a running theme from industry reps, ‘CDs are still the future, and we’re going to continue to push them over digital’. Again these guys are stuck in the past and don’t want to move on. Is it any wonder why the music industry is growing, while the RIAA is losing money?