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Blog under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Sep
25
(2005)
Ars Technica has a great reaction to the RIAA’s reaction to Steve Jobs’ comment about the RIAA being greedy.
Now, the RIAA is claiming that it would be totally fair, and that the consumers would support or even demand, that the record labels get to charge more for songs sold via iTunes, and to get a cut of iPod sales. Even though they have to spend roughly $0 to market music via the iTMS, and spend exactly $0 to sell music through it. And they spent exactly $0 to design, manufacture, market and distribute the iPod. But, they need a cut of the pie.
Did they get a cut of every 8 track player sold? Every record player? Cassette player? CD player? If the answer to any of these is “no”, then why on earth would they get a cut of the iPod?
Instead of lining up to thank the one company on the planet that gave the Big Labels a chance to maintain some relevancy in the new online music market, they insist that they need a cut of everything even remotely music-related, from end to end of the food chain.
Somebody needs to hit the RIAA with a big ol’ clue stick. The Music Industry isn’t just greedy – that would be understandable and we could all deal with that. On top of greed, they appear to be criminally stupid.
As of the last few years, there should be an addendum to that dictionary entry: “See: RIAA”
amen.
double amen.
davidicus, your amen counts waaaaay more than anyone else I know on this topic – being a musician yourself!
What I need to figure out is why on earth the Big Labels are still necessary. I was talking with King about this over lunch, and he mentioned the back catalogues as the main reason – they own them, and therefore control all existing music. But, new music (or more accurately, new musicians) shouldn’t have to bow down to the monopoly that the RIAA is so zealously guarding. They can just pick up some cheap hardware, with some cheap/free software, and by and large produce something that rivals what the big studios could put out…
So, you say you want a revolution…
“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”
-Harlan Ellison