From instapundit:
Instapundit.com: "MORE MPAA LAWSUITS PLANNED, this time against BitTorrent and eDonkey."
Though I couldn't care less about the MPAA, it does bring to mind the lawsuits being carried out by the recording industry, which I do care about. I don't blame them for the suits, and I have stopped downloading music peer-to-peer. I never felt right about it anyway, as many of the artists I listen to will never get any air time on the radio and need every dollar they can get.
However, as long as the recording industry continues to blame file sharing for all their problems, they will remain in their slump for some time. I'm not saying it isn't an issue, but it is not the only, and maybe not even the biggest, reason for the recording industry's decline.
I stopped listening to music years ago, when Rush Limbaugh started to make it big and talk radio emerged. I was raised on country music and love it, along with the blues and roots rock. And in the 90's you couldn't find that stuff on the radio to save your life. Country was co-opted by pop, rock had splintered into punk, grunge, hip-hop, alternative. Roots music was dead.
MTV had a lot to do with this transformation. As I heard a DJ ask once, "Don't fat chicks make music anymore?". The recording industry had abandoned any pretense at finding and marketing good music, and were now into marketing a package. The look, the image, the style, the attitude is what mattered. Mediocre music could be made a hit with the right music video.
The real audiophiles like myself were left in the cold. It was on finding a maverick radio station in Dallas - KHYI - that I realized there was still good music being written, performed and recorded. You just had to dig for it. Now, with the internet, satellite radio, digital satellite tv, etc., it can be heard.
The biggest threat to the recording industry is not file sharing, it is the same as the threat to MSM: choice. People don't have to listen to local radio and be served up the industry's lowest common denominator, packaged-up crap. And this means that the recording industry might have to (gasp!) respond to the market and appeal to a broader audience than the 12-25 crowd. Have the record execs ever considered that it's not that the industry has responded to the only demographic that buys music, but that the demographic buying music is the only one being marketed to?
Though I couldn't care less about the MPAA, it does bring to mind the lawsuits being carried out by the recording industry, which I do care about. I don't blame them for the suits, and I have stopped downloading music peer-to-peer. I never felt right about it anyway, as many of the artists I listen to will never get any air time on the radio and need every dollar they can get.
However, as long as the recording industry continues to blame file sharing for all their problems, they will remain in their slump for some time. I'm not saying it isn't an issue, but it is not the only, and maybe not even the biggest, reason for the recording industry's decline.
I stopped listening to music years ago, when Rush Limbaugh started to make it big and talk radio emerged. I was raised on country music and love it, along with the blues and roots rock. And in the 90's you couldn't find that stuff on the radio to save your life. Country was co-opted by pop, rock had splintered into punk, grunge, hip-hop, alternative. Roots music was dead.
MTV had a lot to do with this transformation. As I heard a DJ ask once, "Don't fat chicks make music anymore?". The recording industry had abandoned any pretense at finding and marketing good music, and were now into marketing a package. The look, the image, the style, the attitude is what mattered. Mediocre music could be made a hit with the right music video.
The real audiophiles like myself were left in the cold. It was on finding a maverick radio station in Dallas - KHYI - that I realized there was still good music being written, performed and recorded. You just had to dig for it. Now, with the internet, satellite radio, digital satellite tv, etc., it can be heard.
The biggest threat to the recording industry is not file sharing, it is the same as the threat to MSM: choice. People don't have to listen to local radio and be served up the industry's lowest common denominator, packaged-up crap. And this means that the recording industry might have to (gasp!) respond to the market and appeal to a broader audience than the 12-25 crowd. Have the record execs ever considered that it's not that the industry has responded to the only demographic that buys music, but that the demographic buying music is the only one being marketed to?
posted by The Man at 11:43 AM
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