Record Store Owners Blame RIAA For Destroying Music Industry

techdirt writes "It's not like it hasn't been said many times before, but it's nice to see the NY Times running an opinion piece about the RIAA from a pair of record store owners which basically points out how at every opportunity, the RIAA has made the wrong move and made things worse: 'The major labels wanted to kill the single. Instead they killed the album. The association wanted to kill Napster. Instead it killed the compact disc. And today it's not just record stores that are in trouble, but the labels themselves, now belatedly embracing the Internet revolution without having quite figured out how to make it pay.' It's not every day that you see a NY Times piece use the word 'boneheadedness' to describe the strategy of an organization."

Mod the parent 'Funny' please

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent refers to the poem Ozymandias. I leave it to you as an exercise to fill in the blanks.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- "two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away." --

Re:As a record store owner

[Anonymous Coward]

Shamelessly plagiarized from the internets. [google.com]

Re:a little anecdote...

[owlnation]

"to all the people that download music, if you think you are only hurting big companies you are wrong. There are two working people with families who no longer have jobs because of music piracy."

That's actually very unfair, and not necessarily correct. While I think this is a great article and agree with their assertions about the RIAA, there are other factors that have had a massive affect on record shops - e.g. Amazon, and iTunes. Perfectly legal, but many record shops (and book shops, in Amazon's case) haven't adapted to face that challenge.

eBay is also a massive factor in the collector's market.

Re:last.fm..

[lys1123]

The problem is the RIAA is already trying to kill them too. They have convinced the Copyright Royalty Board to increase the royalties for entities that stream and/or distribute music online, they have removed the lower royalties that were available to small businesses. Worst of all they have imposed a $500 fee "per channel" for all broadcasters. So a service like last.fm which provides a different lineup of music to each user might have each individual user stream defined as a "Channel" and be forced to pay $500 per user based on this model.

Many people are calling this the end of Online Commercial Broadcasts.

You can read more about this here:
http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/archives/internet- radio-copyright-royalty-board-releases-decision-ra tes-are-going-up-significantly.html [broadcastlawblog.com]

Re:The fear did more damage than the theft

[poliopteragriseoapte]

Not really. Kids, and less time, came later. I stopped buying because I was offended by the presumption that I was returning CDs after copying them. And I stopped buying because, for classical music, there is no very good way of deciding whether you really like an interpretation, except by listening to it from beginnig to end carefully. I did not want to feed a lottery $18 at a time.

Re:last.fm..

[Sri Ramkrishna]

last.fm is located in the U.K. and is not affected by the streaming royalties. In any case, I believe that is being looked at again. Hopefully, we can get some sanity in that process. But sometimes we might have to sink to the bottom in order to get things better. Once they lose enough money and it is shown that they are attacking even legitimate businesses, they will deserve the death they so richly deserve. Businesses who can't evolve with the market deserve to die. I hope to God that the U.S. government doesn't interfere and recognize that entertainment will always be around. We've had it since the dawn of man; hell even monkeys know how to entertain themselves. :-)

sri

Mods: GP Plaguerized. Parent links.

[Ahnteis]

The parent notes that the grandparent ("I am a record store owner blah blah blah") is just a copy-n-paste job . Which I suppose is oddly appropriate given the subject.

(BTW, if original author is around, books are EASIER to transfer over the net -- but most people like the physical product because it offers added value over just the content.)

Re:..(but not a music businessman)

[geekoid]

He was being sarcastic.

I propose a new mod : -0 Sarcastic Bait.

Re:Bullshit.

[StewedSquirrel]

The RIAA only exists as a cooperative braindump of the largest labels.

Labels such as Matador who actively refuse to be a part of the RIAA (and have gone to great lengths to show this) actually have strong sales growth.

Surprised?

heh

Stew

I used to be an audio pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell yes. Back in the early days, I downloaded loads of stuff from Morpheus, and then Kazaa when Morpheus rose onto the radar enough to suck, and then when Kazaa got into the public eye, Usenet. I've got thousands of songs in a library with a few hundred ripped from my own CDs.

I still grab the occasional CD from Usenet, as it's the most convenient place to get full albums at good bit rates.

However, in the past year, I've bought more music from iTunes than I downloaded from Usenet. I only go to Usenet now if I can't find it in iTunes.

In my case, I'll gladly pay if you provide the product I want at a fair market price. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. There will always be piracy, but if you make a convenient, fair alternative to piracy, people will use it.

Re:a little anecdote...

[odbasta]

Some of us prefer to buy albums because we love the BANDS not just the SINGLES. If you don't have the patience to listen to an entire album, then that's fine---go to itunes and get your catchy pop single. However, if you have a bit of taste and enjoy hearing what the artists have to say in a non-ADD manner, then upgrade to the album. And for fuck's sake, listen to it at one time...you might actually enjoy the experience.

Re:a little anecdote...

[rolfwind]

The recording industry will soon die, and eventually the only survivors will be the indie bands singing for the love of music. They'll end up as 21st century minstrels wandering from pub to pub, settling for a meager income and drinks on the house, regardless of their talent.

I think the Grateful Dead were one of the highest grossing bands on tour of all time yet they never had that many mainstream hits. They also allowed people to copy their music like crazy.

Even if the death of the CD and record industry comes, there will always be stadiums/concerts/etcetera that have to be filled. Artists of greater talent (or popularity) will fill the bigger venues, as it is now, and make their money this way. You have not really explained why this will die - people will always want to go to events.

I cringe to bring this example up, but the ratings of American Idol still show music is very much a profitable business (even if that is mixed with drama and whatnot).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Mods: GP Plaguerized. Parent links.

[Maitri]

There is a great article posted on Baen's site about media pirating. It basically says anything I could possibly say but better. It comments on how badly the situation has been handled, how most artists should love the free exposure, and also states that the consumer and tax dollar should not be responsible for the music industry. If you are interested, it is part of the Prime Palaver by Eric Flint. Go to http://www.baen.com/library/ [baen.com] and the link is on left side of page - the article is #11 in the series (dated 9/16/2002 which shows that this is no new thing).
Incidentally - it is posted as part of the comments for their free library. That's right free. You don't even have to register. Is there anything better than a FREE BOOK? They have over 60 titles from some big name sci-fi and fantasy authors available to read online 'cause they practice what they preach. A perfect example of how giving people a chance to experiment with new authors (or musicians) will actually increase your sales.

Re:Mods: GP Plaguerized. Parent links.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a direct link to the referenced column on filesharing and the RIAA [baen.com] written by a music artist.