Tuesday, December 23, 2008

RIAA lawsuits: "See ya!"

The recording industry's lawsuit campaign against illegal music file-sharers officially ended last week. In my piece for rollingstone.com -- it was too late for the actual print magazine, which is taking its annual two-week break and doesn't come out until Jan. 9 -- a major-label source says, "Everybody realized this was making us the most hated industry since the tobacco industry."

Yep. In Appetite for Self-Destruction, I make the lawsuits one of several "Big Music's Big Mistakes." It's important to educate consumers that pirating copyrighted music off Kazaa or BitTorrent is illegal. But making consumers hate your guts is bad business in the long run. I'm convinced that part of the reason Netflix was able to get so popular so quickly -- in addition to its awesome business model -- is that customers hated Blockbuster for charging the late fees.

3 comments:

GhostOfMachined said...

Well the Term "Pirate" are we the consumers it? or is the BIG BOX Greedy Record Industry and the BIG RIAA the "REAL PIRATE" think of that awhile and see what you come up with.
How much do they make of a cd? and how much do they charge for said cd? In my opinion WAY to much and that in itself is a "Fleecing of the American Citizen"
RIAA should of known the consumers were right and way too powerful to be taken down. Remember the Software days? that did not last nor do jack.

Note: Don't mean to be harsh,but I just see it as the RIAA is too Greedy and so are some of the BIG record companies...

Steve Knopper said...

Ghost,

I really think you would enjoy the book!

Steve

Unknown said...

I consider myself part of the evolution of music and remixing is critical. We need to be able to remix music, this new artform is taking off.

Just bumped into your article on blogger doing some research for an article. The RS link is broke.

What we do with sound is growing by leaps and bounds, the biggies backing off, in any way, is CRITICAL for the growth of new music.

Thx for reporting on this issue!