Copy Protected CDs
It’s this kind of stuff that got the labels in trouble in the FIRST PLACE!
Why do these companies feel that their actions have no consequences? It’s
not only record labels, it’s the radio industry too. They cut the playlists,
added a ton of commercials and what happened?? PEOPLE STOPPED LISTENING! Yup, they keep making new people every day, the population is increasing, but radio listenership is down.
In the nineties the labels released shittier and shittier acts with only one
good track on their CDs that kept going up in price. The companies believed
they had all the power, that they could DICTATE to the marketplace.
Wrong. The customer ALWAYS has the power. To see P2P services purely in the
context of free is to miss the point. From the very BEGINNING of Napster,
when fewer people were trading files than today, however much publicity the
practice was receiving, college students were TESTIFYING! Albums sucked and were overpriced to boot! And that they wanted to acquire music in a new way.
The battle is over. Apple’s already sold 22 million iPods. Don’t expect a
fall-off for Christmas. The iPod Nano will be hotter than any album released
by the Big Four. iPod users want the file, the CD is irrelevant, unless it’s
used as a ripping device. WHICH IT CAN NO LONGER BE!
Instead of looking towards the future, getting AHEAD of the marketplace and
corralling the public in a profit-making venture, the labels want to keep
everybody in the past. They want to focus on CD sales. Oh, Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
and the other powers say they BELIEVE in the digital sphere. But the iTunes
Music Store and Rhapsody and Yahoo Music are INHERENTLY crippled services that
the public is not interested in. Only a tiny FRACTION of the public utilizes
these services. Because they don’t deliver what people want, which is much more
USABLE music at a LOW PRICE! But, these services do one thing the labels
LOVE! They make the CD look like a good alternative. This is like selling
Hyundais with three wheels and saying horse and buggies look good in comparison! Or, as the Firesign Theatre once said, "How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all?"
TODAY the CD is the main revenue generator. I have no problem with labels
selling CDs. To switch to files only would decimate their bottom lines. But,
by not preparing for the future adequately, they’re INSURING their marginality
in the era to come. They somehow believe their big budget productions sold
solely in the way they want will rule in the future. I don’t think so. I think
independent acts are going to eat their lunch. After EMI gets burned by
giving all that money to Korn they won’t be ponying up that kind of dough in the
future. Which will INSURE that the artists of the future, or at least SOME OF
THEM, those who treasure artistry over greed, will do it all themselves.Â
Invest little in dollars but a lot in sweat and get a lot back. NOTHING is being
done by the majors to combat this paradigm. This paradigm is what they fear.Â
Then again, maybe I can’t berate them for defending a dying business model.Â
But do they have to do it via a disinformation campaign and the suit of music
LOVERS? I mean they can live in the past, but must we ALL?
But what’s bad about copy protected CDs is they’re insulting the people who
are PLAYING ALONG with the majors’ game. The people willing to plunk down ten
to fifteen bucks for a disc. They can’t duplicate the CD for use in their
car, and they CAN’T RIP THE FILES FOR USE ON AN iPOD!
What I hate about fat cats is they’re so technologically stupid. You insert
one of these CDs into your computer and it adds all this software, just to
PLAY the disc! Windows XP is rickety enough. You’re going to add an untested
program which might interfere with not only other programs but your whole SYSTEM
just to hear a fucking CD?? Talk to computer users. They see that warning
that they’re about to install software on their PC and they FREAK OUT! In an
era where viruses and spyware make your machine almost unusable you DO NOT want to add anything unnecessary to the mix.
But, you can rip copy protected WMAs.
I’ve got to ask you, when you think of digital music do you think of
MICROSOFT?? Is that the big name in digital music? No, you think of APPLE! And,
Apple’s iPods won’t play copy protected WMAs. Why should they? Apple should
give Microsoft an in after the company monopolized the market for desktop
software? (Yup, Microsoft was ADJUDGED a monopolist by the government.) It would be one thing if the Microsoft solution was better. But it’s not. There ain’t a
player on the market as good as the iPod. There’s not JUKEBOX software as
good as iTunes made by Microsoft or any other third party. Microsoft’s tethered
download software Janus??? It’s so defective that Yahoo won’t even charge
for its use. And APPLE is supposed to capitulate?
But, you say, Apple has DRM, known as FairPlay.
But I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Just about every file on the
iPods in this world have no copy protection. Because they were ripped from CD
or acquired P2P. As far as this copy protection battle goes, the public thinks
it’s a joke.
So, what we need are unprotected files that everybody can acquire and pay
for. We’ve got every element except the last. We’ve had P2P for five plus
years. But the labels refuse to charge for it. We have the SOLUTION, but they’d
rather spend money suing than collecting.
The labels are clueless here. They think the fact that copy protected CDs
are selling today means nobody cares. The backlash is BREWING! There are
entries on Weblogs. People are PISSED! The majors are just further breaking the
trust with their customers. Insuring division. PROMPTING file-trading.
Really, you label heads, the people making this inane decision to copy
protect CDs. I’m telling you now. You’re wreaking havoc on your bottom line that
you can’t foresee.
Then again, maybe you don’t foresee further employment. Maybe you don’t plan
on sticking around that long.
If you believe CD burning is the culprit, the reason sales are down, then you
probably believe landlines are hurting the cell phone business. You probably
believe that cheap typewriters at flea markets are hurting the computer
business. You probably believe copy machines are challenging e-mail. You probably
believe the floppy is hurting hard disk sales. You probably believe the
cassette Walkman is challenging the iPod. You probably believe radio is hurting
album sales. You probably believed home taping killed the music business.
But it did not.
It’s not free to burn a CD. You’ve got to BUY the CD. You’ve got to take
the time to burn it. You’ve got to give it to a friend. It’s absent artwork.Â
And it’s not what you want ANYWAY, you just want the FILES!
Why can’t the labels just cut to the chase. Why can’t they make files
available cheaply and easily. We’re living in the future. No, we’re living in the
PRESENT! This is the system that exists TODAY! Can’t anybody acknowledge it?
Do we have to wait until EVERYBODY trades P2P and sales are dismal? This is
not unlike what happened in New Orleans. Everybody knew the levees were
weak, that there was an accident waiting to happen. They just figured if they
ignored it, maybe it wouldn’t happen on their watch. Then, disaster hit and the
public saw how incompetent those in charge were.
The public already knows how incompetent the record labels are. The only
people who DON’T know are the labels themselves.
But every fucking week sales get worse. You’d think they’d address the
underlying problems. Lousy overhyped acts selling overpriced CDs. But rather than
deal with the CORE they’d rather deal with the penumbra. It’s not THEIR
fault but the customers’. If we just make it a little harder to steal, everything
will be all right.
But it’s not.
And you can still steal anyway. By burning the files to disk and then
re-ripping them.
But why do that? When from the moment you purchase the CD the unprotected
MP3s of the music contained therein ARE ALREADY AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET FOR
FREE! Only the record labels would INCENTIVIZE their customers to steal.
