About the music industry
Huge forces are moving pro and against file sharing. Independently of the moral arguments, this fight has already brought us things like the increasing MP3 player market, including the rebirth of Apple riding on its iPod and iTunes, and has moved the music industry to bring prices down as well as forced them to distribute content over the Internet.
Peer to peer networks have shown an incredibly resistance and ability to survive. They have moved from Napster all the way to FastTrack, donkey and they will eventually settle down on privacy protecting software as Mute.
This topic has always been overcomplicated. We live in a boring and gruesome world. Music, cinema, books and TV, in other words, legal evasion mechanisms, are always going to be in great demand, and not everybody will be able to afford them.
In one side, the music industry wants to keep its monopoly, set the prices and decide who can access the content, when and how. On the other, normal people want that content. They have always had access to it. From storytelling to reading all the way to playing an instrument or playing a CD. We all had collections of tape recordings. We all browse our friend’s music libraries. But then, nobody shared it with everybody, right?
Everybody can understand both worlds, and the solution is obvious. A fair music industry that protects its content only when it needs to. File sharing music that you don’t own is socially considered stealing. And some people’s morality can cope with that pretty well. On the other hand, if somebody who can hardly afford to feed their family downloads some music to play to their kids, and then gets sued for stealing, then my morality also changes sides. Or if I can no longer borrow my music to my brother, or my friends. Music is a treasure of humanity, not a possession of a few rich businessmen. But it’s this businesses that keep a flourishing music industry, so they should get some reward out of it.
The problem for the music industry is that they are viewed as the oppressing and cruel landowner. They make thousands of times more money with music that the actual money they spent producing it. Most people, and this is proven, don’t mind stealing from the music industry. In comparison, they are the unfortunate ones who work 10 hours a day and just want to be able to afford some music.
Marketing is an added problem. The music industry spends millions marketing their new releases. They brainwash their potential customers continuously. On the radio, on the movies, on the ads, with celebrities. They induce a state of dependency on this new releases and then surprise themselves of the low morality of people that steal their product. Some psychologist should research into the addiction caused by unwanted marketing.
The point is, music prices have to plummet. And the time that passes until they are considered completely public should be much shorter. I consider The Beatles a treasure of humanity already.
And music must start to be distributed electronically, maybe only electronically. Why waste the resources and energy of manufacturing a CD? Don’t destroy our planet without need, be reasonable. I compare this transition with the photography industry. No more chemicals and photo paper. Most photos are never good enough to be printed nevertheless.
Ideally, I am sitting at my TV with a remote control. I am searching a huge music database (obviously hosted by Google) and choosing what album I want to play. The music is then broadcasted in realtime to my hi-fi, probably through my Internet TV which acts as a tuner, and my account is charged. I don’t own the music, I just listen to it. I pay a subscription service to the database, but I can listen to anything I want. Maybe this year’s music is more expensive.
I can also chose to listen to Internet radio stations if I want to. Or to tune into Internet TV channels.
I also have a movies database, and a TV programmes database. And the Internet is flourishing with amateur Internet radio and TV stations. Young musicians are broadcasting their content directly, as well as young film directors.
The humanity blossoms in a climate of creativity and arts.
Everybody is still making money. Subscription services are offered cheaper when they come with some (personalised) marketing.
This is the future I see. Or I hope.
