it’s hard for me to think of an industry that goes out of its way to spit in the face of it’s customers more than the recording industry. there were of course, the infamous 2003 lawsuits against 12 year old kids and 71 year old grandfathers over file sharing.
this year saw swat-team style riaa representatives with stupid wanna-be fbi jackets raiding a warehouse with fulton county officers and arresting two atlanta dj’s who really were helping artists promote their music.
and now, of course, they are coming after internet radio. this article in businessweek is all about how the recording industry is now going to impose much higher royalties for internet radio than before. most internet radio is licensed under the digital millenium copyright act (dmca) and royalty questions are heard by the copyright royalty board. soundexchange, who collects the royalties for the recording industry, went before the board and got them to change the royalty structure from a percentage of revenue to a per-song fee.
according to the article this is going to spell huge increases in royalty payments for internet radio stations.
joe kennedy who is the ceo of my favorite internet radio site, pandora.com, is quoted in the article as saying:
I’m not aware of any Internet radio service that believes they can sustain a business at the rates set by this decision.
so there you go. internet radio delivers a cheap way for you to discover new music. because royalties were low and distribution costs cheap, sites like pandora could afford to expose you to a non-stop stream of commercial-free radio. you could find a great band you like while listening at work and then head right on over to amazon and buy them.
sounds good for you. sounds good for the internet radio station. sounds good for the artist.
so of course the recording industry wants to kill it.
again, record labels hate their customers. it’s the only conclusion anyone rational can draw.
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March 8th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
The best way it seems is to do EVERYTHING yourself, or as I call it, “Aimee Mann style.” The majors still operate on “throw it on the wall and see what sticks” method.
In some good news for indies, the courts decided in their favor on the payola scams, giving indies garaunteed time on commercial radio. Who listens to commercial radio still, I don’t know. One can hope that this will help break some good bands to the masses.
March 9th, 2007 at 3:04 am
i think this is like any empire in its last days…lashing out at every perceived threat…unfortunately the labels and the recording industry can’t stem the tide of economics or human nature.
their business models are bound to fail, and frankly the way they are reacting they won’t be nimble enough to adapt.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
[...] First, let me point out in fairness I am absolutely no fan of the RIAA (see here) and I really view this as just another example of how little respect the RIAA has for their customers and frankly how clueless the major labels are about what is going on. [...]