Did you hear the recent news about illegal down-loaders? Those shady, evil, conniving pre-teens that are destroying the music world as we know it are buying the most legal music. The audacity of those… a… what?
I had to have read that wrong. Let me see… what does it say exactly? “The people who do the most illegal downloading also buy the most music.”
Maybe I should put down stones before casting them and all that…
Shocking as it may seem to those that buy the music industry lines, these findings don’t really shock anyone that knows someone who downloads illegally. You see, illegal downloading has never been about getting something for free (to most). It has been about finally getting quality control back in a system that has always made big bucks on consumer ignorance.
Let’s face it – how many albums do you have that you would have never bought if you could have listened to it first? The music industry has made big bucks from pushing artists to finish before they have good songs, or just putting a mediocre band in the studio to record two hit songs and bunch of filler, or putting good albums on cheap quality mediums that will scratch, break, or go obsolete within a few years (forcing consumers to re-purchase their entire music collection). They have always counted on you not knowing what you are buying. You are supposed to hear the one good song on the radio and rush out and buy the whole album – filler junk and all. Then you are supposed to play that one song to death until your record scratches, your tape breaks, or your CD melts on your dash and you are forced to buy a new one.
Oh, and of course they have a way to get more money off of the bands that can produce an entire albums worth of good songs. They just “invent” an entirely new format for delivering music every few years, forcing you to buy an upgrade… at full price. Remember when they tried to get those mini-discs to catch on, and then Gold discs, and then the super discs, or whatever all of those “CD-upgrades” were called? All of those formats tanked – because people were fed up with the constant upgrade.
Did you know the same is also pretty true for the movie piracy business? Most pirated movies come from someone sitting in the back of the theater with a handheld camera. The quality is pretty horrible. But people download them so that they can see the movie first before deciding to go to the movie theatre to watch it.
Of course, the unfortunate side effect of this for the smaller labels and independent bands is that people expect to be able to preview music, but have a harder time finding the less popular artists. If they don’t preview it, they don’t buy it. So the truth be told, the mp3 revolution is hurting the “little people” in the business. The only way to change this side effect would be to change the system. But the big labels don’t want to do that, because it would even the playing field. I fully believe that this is the main reason why big companies have been reluctant to embrace the mp3 revolution.
They are afraid of their filler junk being on a level playing field with all the quality little guys and girls out there.
(this article was also published in the December 2009 issue)
Tags: music downloading, music industry