Ever see a western?\u00c2\u00a0 With the posse in pursuit of the bad guys?\u00c2\u00a0 What does the brainiac ALWAYS say?\u00c2\u00a0 LET’S CUT THEM OFF AT THE PASS!<\/p>\n
Maybe record execs didn’t watch enough TV, maybe they aren’t aware of this most basic concept.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t succeed by convincing people to play nice, to come back to where they once belonged, but by CORRALLING them at some future point!<\/p>\n
Rental, and make no mistake, SpiralFrog is rental, it’s just that you pay for it with your eyeballs\/time as opposed to cash, has been proven to be a failure.\u00c2\u00a0 Napster’s going out of business, and Rhapsody is a niche product.\u00c2\u00a0 So, why in HELL should I care, should ANYBODY GIVE A FUCK, about a service that allows you to have the material on the MAN’S terms when you can steal it all and own it with no questions asked?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t the solution to monetize the stealing, by charging at the ISP level, as opposed to capitalizing enterprises that nobody wants, trying to convince people to be satisfied with LESS than they’re already used to?<\/p>\n
How Apple became the villain, I’ll never know.<\/p>\n
Hell, let’s go back to the beginning.\u00c2\u00a0 The Diamond Rio.\u00c2\u00a0 The major labels SUED to halt production.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank god they lost, for if not there’d be no iPod, never mind an iTunes Music Store.<\/p>\n
And why was the iPod successful?\u00c2\u00a0 BECAUSE OF EASE OF USE!\u00c2\u00a0 Does SpiralFrog sound easy to use to you?\u00c2\u00a0 Forget the hypothetical interface, you’ve got to plug in every month to keep your tunes?\u00c2\u00a0 God, a kid can’t locate his house key, but he’s going to play by SpiralFrog’s RULES?<\/p>\n
And then, Apple creates the aforementioned iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 Providing the major labels with revenue and an avenue for future distribution that allows them to mesmerize Wall Street and prevent their stocks from crashing completely.\u00c2\u00a0 And somehow, Apple is at fault?\u00c2\u00a0 Apple creates the market, but is a goat because it won’t allow the labels to raise the prices?\u00c2\u00a0 Give me a break.<\/p>\n
But the real story, which the labels won’t admit, is that the iTunes Music Store sales are de minimis to the ongoing theft.\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind P2P, but CD and hard drive swapping.\u00c2\u00a0 But rather than address the stealing, the record companies focus on Apple’s near monopoly?\u00c2\u00a0 Trying to break that?\u00c2\u00a0 Unbelievable.<\/p>\n
And why does Apple have this monopoly?\u00c2\u00a0 Because of the sheer ineptitude of its competitors.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody can make an MP3 player, but people want iPods, because they WORK better.<\/p>\n
Let’s ask Sony.\u00c2\u00a0 Which had the name brand advantage.\u00c2\u00a0 Connect and their devices are a failure.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe because, at first, they only sold the music in a proprietary format, THAT NOBODY ELSE USED!<\/p>\n
I know that Microsoft pushes WMA.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you think Microsoft always wins, you’ve never heard of Google.\u00c2\u00a0 WMA IS NOT the music standard.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, do we have to watch the Betamax movie one more time?\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, WMA preceded Apple’s AAC, but it’s been ECLIPSED!<\/p>\n
And, everybody savvy knows the real standard is MP3 anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 And isn’t it funny that the labels want to punish Apple by throwing in with MICROSOFT? Isn’t that like punishing Righteous Babe by throwing in with UNIVERSAL?<\/p>\n
And should we be impressed with any digital moves made by Universal anyway?\u00c2\u00a0 These are the same guys who came up with Farm Club and PressPlay.\u00c2\u00a0 Literally the same guys, Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine.\u00c2\u00a0 Doug’s a sexagenarian song guy.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy?\u00c2\u00a0 He’s an opportunist.\u00c2\u00a0 Believing these guys have the digital answer is akin to believing the guys who did the Mentos movie are going to eclipse Paramount.<\/p>\n
And really, if you’re paying attention to digital, isn’t Warner the ONLY company taking any risk?\u00c2\u00a0 (Even though their efforts have been overhyped.)<\/p>\n
But back to WMA.\u00c2\u00a0 In case you didn’t know, it’s incompatible with iPods.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s worse, it’s MAC-incompatible.\u00c2\u00a0 How about all those schools who signed up for Mac-incompatible music rental services?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re dropping them like crazy.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Macs are BIG on campus.\u00c2\u00a0 And, as stated earlier, people DON’T WANT TO RENT!<\/p>\n
But it gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Microsoft has stopped developing Windows Media for the Mac.\u00c2\u00a0 Prove it to yourself by trying to watch MTV’s Overdrive on a Mac.\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t be done.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the idiots running the labels are afraid of having their content stolen.\u00c2\u00a0 So now a whole slice of the audience can’t sample your wares AT ALL?<\/p>\n
And Macs may only have five percent of overall computer sales, but amongst individuals, it’s much higher.\u00c2\u00a0 And these people are zealots.\u00c2\u00a0 Who do you think broke the iPod?\u00c2\u00a0 Mac-users and early Windows adopters who told everybody how fucking great they were.\u00c2\u00a0 Who in the hell is going to tell ANYBODY how fucking great SpiralFrog is?<\/p>\n
But Apple’s at fault here.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though THEIR products are 100% Windows-compatible.\u00c2\u00a0 Make me puke.<\/p>\n
Then there’s the issue of the copy protection not working ANYWAY!<\/p>\n
If copy protection was a good idea, Andy Lack would still have his job.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t grow a business by making sure fewer people can sample your wares, but by ENCOURAGING sharing\/word of mouth.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, the labels speak the mantra of street teams, but they want the product locked up.\u00c2\u00a0 The key is to MONETIZE WHAT’S ALREADY HAPPENING, not to try and bring people back to a past that never existed.<\/p>\n
As for the WMA copy protection, it’s been broken…\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Just read this: <\/p>\n
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