So let me get this straight.\u00c2\u00a0 The Pirate Bay shuts down and suddenly all its users go legit, stop trading and start buying the wares of the entertainment companies.\u00c2\u00a0 What did Roger Daltrey sing in the Who’s "Naked Eye"?\u00c2\u00a0 IT DON’T REALLY HAPPEN THAT WAY AT ALL?<\/p>\n
I sympathize with the rights holders.\u00c2\u00a0 Their wares are being stolen.\u00c2\u00a0 But didn’t they sue Napster ten years ago?\u00c2\u00a0 Did that help record sales?\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve learned how this works, you shut down one service and then a bunch of new ones crop up, and the RIAA is bad at playing Whack-A-Mole.<\/p>\n
I get it, it’s the legal theory\/precedent.\u00c2\u00a0 But wasn’t that the rationale behind the Napster suits?\u00c2\u00a0 Establishing the law?\u00c2\u00a0 So now we’ve established the law in Sweden.\u00c2\u00a0 Where next, Afghanistan?\u00c2\u00a0 Cuba?\u00c2\u00a0 North Korea?\u00c2\u00a0 You can put a server anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Pirate Bay is appealing and shows no willingness to shut down.<\/p>\n
No, the only solution is new services that people want.\u00c2\u00a0 But this requires a change in headspace.\u00c2\u00a0 The rights holders must realize that the old business they used to love is kaput.\u00c2\u00a0 There won’t be diamond selling superstars, but a bunch of niches. Kill the Pirate Bay and suddenly U2 doesn’t sell 10 million copies of their new album, Eminem doesn’t dominate like he did a decade ago.\u00c2\u00a0 You probably don’t even grow any new revenue.\u00c2\u00a0 So until you realize that you’re living in a changed landscape, you can’t strategize for the future.<\/p>\n
The game of charging a high price of admission is working about as well as MySpace Music.\u00c2\u00a0 iMeem is failing, burdened by payments to rights holders, and MySpace has got a user interface akin to Windows 3.0.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can find what you’re looking for on MySpace Music, you’re a better surfer than me.<\/p>\n
As a matter of fact, the Pirate Bay verdict isn’t even the biggest story this week.<\/p>\n
Actually, there are three big stories this week.\u00c2\u00a0 Amazon, Domino’s and Susan Boyle.<\/p>\n
Amazon’s flaws, keeping gay books out of the search results, became a raging story on Twitter.\u00c2\u00a0 As did the Domino’s employees mucking up the company’s food.\u00c2\u00a0 And then Susan Boyle went on to become the biggest superstar in music today.<\/p>\n
The lunatics are running the asylum.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s no longer a top-down world.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to succeed, you have to realize you’re in PARTNERSHIP with your audience\/consumers.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the only way out.\u00c2\u00a0 There are a million cops, looking to bust you for the heinous policies you used to employ every day.\u00c2\u00a0 And these same teeming masses decide who is a star, not radio or other traditional gatekeepers.<\/p>\n
How long would it take for radio to go on Susan Boyle?\u00c2\u00a0 You’d need SET-UP!\u00c2\u00a0 The record would have to be tested!\u00c2\u00a0 But none of this interference is run on the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 You can get an instant spike on YouTube.<\/p>\n
Sure, Susan Boyle sprang from the platform of "Britain’s Got Talent", but they don’t air that show in the U.S. and my inbox was burning up moments after she appeared on the show.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how fast you can make a star today.<\/p>\n
Will she last?<\/p>\n
Well, she’s got the requisite CV of a star.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s an outsider, a virgin who’s never been kissed.\u00c2\u00a0 She was dissed by her schoolmates.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s not a Barbie.\u00c2\u00a0 The same people suing the Pirate Bay are the ones who are foisting unreasonable "stars" on the public, less and less successfully.\u00c2\u00a0 The public knows it’s cookie-cutter, that you’ve got to be beautiful and have true desire.\u00c2\u00a0 Talent?\u00c2\u00a0 The handlers will take care of that.<\/p>\n
The public saw something in Susan Boyle.\u00c2\u00a0 The same thing they see in James Hetfield.\u00c2\u00a0 Somebody who’s not playing by the rules, who believes in himself.<\/p>\n
For all the bullshit about the end of civilization, the death of record companies and newspapers, those of us not employed by these entities, sans the blinders, view this as the most exciting period of our lives.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, the Davids have power. Our lone voice now means something.\u00c2\u00a0 Truth holds sway in a way it has not previously.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s no longer who you know, but how good you are.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody can be a reporter, he just has to show up at the city council meeting and write down what happened.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, the newspaper has cut that staffer and TV news doesn’t do any reporting anyway.<\/p>\n
The public is hungry for music.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what all that trading on the Pirate Bay is about.\u00c2\u00a0 The key is to figure out how to satiate this desire, not combat it.<\/p>\n
The TV companies came up with Hulu.\u00c2\u00a0 Spotify’s pretty damn good.<\/p>\n
Bring Spotify to the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 License others with innovative distribution systems.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t try to get back to where you once belonged, but perceive that the past is truly history, and that if you want to survive, you’re going to have to morph your company and yourself.<\/p>\n
Selling at Wal-Mart was a start.\u00c2\u00a0 But CDs are dying.\u00c2\u00a0 Trent Reznor is innovating outside the major label system.\u00c2\u00a0 Same deal with Josh Freese.\u00c2\u00a0 Metric may have sold bupkes, but the band made a lot of money.\u00c2\u00a0 And isn’t that what the labels care about, money?<\/p>\n
There’s a ton of money to be made.\u00c2\u00a0 Not by driving people to the past, but living in their neighborhood and realizing, just like parallel computing, the collective consciousness is smarter than the individual.\u00c2\u00a0 Universal Music can’t beat the Pirate Bay, can’t beat the public, it’s IMPOSSIBLE!\u00c2\u00a0 Universal can only try to join the fray, reinventing itself along the way.<\/p>\n
We’re not building stars, we’re building careers.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s where the money has always been.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe right now the percentage of revenue is higher in tour grosses and merch, but don’t fight this, know that gas stations used to be full serve, you sent a letter, not an e-mail, you bought an album and played it to death because you couldn’t AFFORD more music! We’re not going back to the days of scarcity.\u00c2\u00a0 Stop trying to jawbone the public into the past.\u00c2\u00a0 Stop laying your album-length opuses on people who don’t care.\u00c2\u00a0 Give us more Susan Boyles, who don’t have a fake bone in their body, who own their identity, who follow their path so independently, that we follow them. <\/p>\n
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