Moodspins | Am I At Risk?

Potluck

Am I At Risk?

By widro ⋅ September 21, 2003 ⋅ Post a comment | Email the author

The 12 year old girl who was sued by the RIAA has garnered a fair amount of sympathy from music fans and mainstream news outlets alike - if the RIAA is going to sue a 12 year old girl, where will they draw the line?

That’s probably the exact reaction the RIAA was looking for when they embarked on their latest plan to counteract “illegal downloading” and continue the crusade for copyright protection.

The suit will probably not have the long lasting effect that the RIAA is hoping for - recent statistics show that the suits have had no impact on the volume of files traded over popular P2P networks. Critics of the RIAA say that the PR impact of the suits will adversely affect the RIAA and the music industry. But can it get any worse for the industry? What do they have to lose?

The RIAA might not exactly know how to deal with downloading, but they are actually doing some things right to curtail the trading of music. Have you tried to download a new CD by a mainstream artist lately? It will usually be a nice mix of bogus MP3s, MP3s with artificially added sounds to ruin the song, or messages from the band. Or maybe live recordings. Or maybe MP3s recorded from streaming Real Audio.

This isn’t the same as the Napster days when everything was super easy to find and the quality was better. This is late 2003 where the networks are littered with phonies, and only the truly dedicated can get any kind of value from their time on a P2P network. Just ask my mom - she loved Napster and now relies on me for downloads. Or ask anyone with a job - why not spend the $10 to buy a CD instead of hours online trying to hunt and peck for the last MP3 on a CD without pops.

I will admit that I use Kazaa Lite and I download a fair amount of music. It’s usually stuff that was recommended to me by friends or Web sites, or bands I heard the name of but couldn’t associate a face with. For the most part, at least lately, I’ve been buying any CDs I end up wanting. Except for a very brief time where I was enamored with downloading, I’ve always bought CDs - to have good versions of songs I download, to add to my large CD collection, to have the CD play perfectly on all my CD players old and new, etc.

But according to the RIAA, I’m a criminal because I download copyrighted material. Again, where does the RIAA plan on drawing the line?

I’d say in the past year, I’ve bought about 10 concert t-shirts and been to about 25 rock shows of varying size and cost. I’ve bought about 30 CDs. But I’ve also downloaded 100s of tracks of bands I heard on the radio, thought about buying a full CD, or even a mainstream band I only like one song from (cough Evanescence cough). If the RIAA sued me, wouldn’t they be shooting themselves in the foot? Aren’t I the type of music fan they need - a merchandise buying, concert attending 20-something with an interest in spending money on music?

Apparently not.

I haven’t been sued yet, and am not really worried about it. The chances are so slim, I’d rather worry about the million other worrisome, trivial details of my life. But as the RIAA keeps attacking the wrong problem, they will continue sinking millions or billions of dollars into an endeavor that is not improving sales.

I’m not a proponent of downloading that ignores the fact that some downloading cuts into album sales. For every guy like me who uses Kazaa to sample and expand my musical tastes, there are 100 college kids who have tons of MP3s and no purchased CDs. But where is the margin in attacking these people? The college kids, even if they had to buy CDs, wouldn’t have tons of money to spend on tons of CDs - they would simply listen to the radio or just fewer bands. College kids, high school kids, and other age groups that have enough time and energy to traverse today’s file sharing networks aren’t likely to have been the biggest spenders on music anyway.

What if the music industry instead used the millions or billions they are spending on anti-downloading campaigns to improve their core business? The nature of a capitalistic, semi-free market economy is that there will always be new technology ready to supplant old technology, and the onus is on industry stalwarts to adapt or fade away. Just ask Kodak about the film industry these days. Kodak is trying to adapt - adding CDs of digital images to print film developing, trying to bridge the gap between film and digital cameras. Shockingly Kodak is not suing AOL users for utlizinging the “My Pictures” feature in emails.

What if the music industry found a way to once again make the CD purchase worth $10, even if the actual songs are no longer worth anything? There was once a time that the artwork, physical product and booklet were valued by consumers and collectors. Shouldn’t it be possible to once again establish value for a product that is also available free?

Think it’s impossible? They try explaining bottled water. It’s all about creative marketing, fresh new thinking in a corrupt dinosaur of an industry.

Think about this - M&Ms are a cheap, easy to find candy. A few years ago, the marketing staff at M&M Mars came up with the idea to make a few dozen colors of M&Ms, charge a substantial premium for the product in specialty candy stores, and market the product as special. The candy is exactly the same as the cheap version available in stores everywhere - the only difference is the choice of color.

The music industry needs to find a THEIR choice of color, and convince the public that what they are selling provides a premium over the alternative (free). Imagine if the creative people in the record industry had billions to find that alternative. Imagine if the money being spent on lawsuits and anti-downloading propaganda was being used to reestablish and reinforce the core business of the music industry by using new technology to create new revenue streams.

They probably feel they are doing just that - the lawsuits will surely be a fabulous new revenue stream.

I guess that will work - until they’ve sued enough to make sure there were no music fans left.

- Widro

Widro is a columnist and head webmaster for 411mania.