Within the last year or so, it?s been on the news and specifically, posted on a lot of websites, about how the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has gone on a rampage of suing people who use programs like Kazaa to share music with others. I just read this morning that another 482 people in the US are being sued for the same thing, but because the internet companies are not willing to disclose the personal information of these people, the RIAA is suing all of them as ?John Does?. Why has the RIAA got its panties in a bunch? Read on.
Let?s take a big step back in time to the days before the VCR was invented. In those days, if you wanted to see a movie, you forked out a few bucks to go out to the theatre to see it. You couldn?t rent it, you had to go out and see the movie. If you watched a lot of TV and were going to miss a show, there were no VCR?s with timers to tape what you wanted, and no PVR or Tivos to record them either. You just had to hope you could get home in time to watch All in the Family.
In the late 1970?s and early 1980?s, Sony introduced the VCR which would allow you to record any of your favorite shows. This was a great thing. Now if people were not home, they could tape a show they would miss. This spawned an entire industry but at first, a lot of companies and people like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America, RIAA equivalent in TV/movies) had fits. They said that people would start copying shows off the TV and giving it to their friends, and that we?d be stealing from the companies that produced these shows because now we could skip the commercials, and make copies of TV movies for ourselves.
This was a huge issue and big companies were mad as hell, just like the RIAA is now about file sharing. But what happened back then was the birth of a completely new, and totally unforeseen market; video rentals. How much money to the movie studios make now with video rentals? A lot of movies get released directly to video and they still make money. Is the MPAA still whining about VCR?s? Nope.
Same thing happened with cassette tapes and taping your friends other tapes to listen to them. This was going to destroy the music industry. Did it? Nope. In fact some people did make copies but they usually sucked so bad that they bought the original, especially if they really liked the artist. Does anyone bitch about people copying CD?s to cassette tapes anymore? Nope. It?s not a problem.
So why is it that the RIAA has shit itself over file sharing? The biggest reason they claim is loss of record sales. They claim that because people are sharing their tunes on the net, artists are losing album sales because now people are going online to download the music for free. But ironically, if you look at all the surveys from people who do download music, what?s the most common reason for not buying the CD. It?s not that the music online is free, but that CD?s are too expensive.
$15 is the most anyone should ever pay for a CD and even that is a bit steep. Once the CD is out for awhile, the price starts to creep up to over $20 and who the hell wants to dish out that much money for a single CD? I spent $27 on a Tomahawk CD because I wanted to support the artist, even though I had already downloaded the entire album to my PC off the net.
My beef, the price of discs is too high. I like the idea of pay-per-download on music sites like iTunes and others. $1 per song plus taxes if applicable is not bad. I like that. It means I can get the songs I want when I want and how I want. I don?t like that these things are copy protected and that I can?t move them from one computer to another. To me, I paid for it, I should be able to do wtf I want with it.
Anyways, the actual point of this rant is about the RIAA. They are so damn obsessed with suing people because they really seem to think that these miniscule little downloaders and lawsuits are going to persuade the others to stop downloading. It?s not going to stop. It?s not going to go away and I wish they would wake the hell up and realize it. They could sue more and more people all they want and it won?t make a difference. What they need to start doing is finding a way for people to do what they do now, but make it work for the music industry instead of against. Things like pay-per-download are ok, but not enough. When I pay for something, to me, that means it?s mine and I can do whatever the hell I want with it. I should not be limited to listening to it on one machine or burning it only once or twice.
Another thing that?s interesting is the actual cost of a CD. You can imagine that these big artists like Avril Lavigne or Metallica who release thousands of CD?s when they release an album. Obviously that costs money. But the more you produce, the cheaper it is per unit. Let?s take a small indie example. The recently released Tormented CD had 500 copies produced. This was 500 CD?s, shrink-wrapped, with a full color insert, pressed CD, and fully professional looking. Came from a factory press. It also came with 500 ?promo? discs which had no jewel cases but did have the insert. So technically, 1000 CD?s were produced, with half of them with no jewel cases. The actual cost of these 1000 CD?s? Well, to be fair, and to account for half not having jewel cases, we?ll say it cost roughly $1.25 per CD to make. These discs are selling for $10 each from the producer, and slightly more in the stores. That means that $8.75 of that goes into the pocket of the producer. Now, that doesn?t account for paying the band, paying the producers, etc. But the point I am trying to make is that if they are producing a million records for a single artist, you can imagine what the cost per disc is, and how much is made on these discs. Plus, the bulk of the money made by labels is not from record sales but live shows, and regardless of whether or not the consumer buys the CD or downloads the music, if they like the band, they?ll shell out the cash to see them live, and that?s where the real money can get made. Why bitch about a few tunes downloaded here and there.
Interestingly enough, there are tunes that I hear on the radio that I think are cool so when I get home, I pop on the net, and download it. Truth is, if that was no available to me, I wouldn?t go down to the music store and buy the CD unless I thought the song was SO INSANELY GOOD that I had to get it. But now music stores have listening stations so you can hear the disc before you buy it and I?d know right away if it sucked or not. Downloading music has not affected my desire to go buy CD?s at all. In fact, if I stumble upon a few songs by an artist I like, I may go buy the CD because I want to support them.
Luckily, file sharing and download is not illegal in Canada although copyright law is being examined now to try and fix that so I imagine the lobbyists will get their way in no time at all. But, it?s still ok to download music, just not share any, and as long as you don?t share insane amounts of files, they won?t ever bother with you. I download music once in awhile but not that often. I buy CD?s only if I want to support the artists because I don?t like buying a CD and getting one or two good songs and the rest being crap. I?m sure everyone out there has bought a CD because they heard a song on the radio and thought it would be cool and then they get the CD, listen to it, and discover they shelled out close to $20 for a single song because the rest of the album sucks. Admittedly, I won?t do this again. I would rather download one or two songs for nothing, then pay $20 for one good song.
The RIAA has a long battle ahead of them and if they want to win, they need to think about the consumer and what we want. Not how to bleed us dry.
So there. I?ve had my say!
