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If the music industry could be characterised as a person, it
would be:
- A Control Freak: (controlling artists, outlets, radios,
customers through DRM),
- Paranoid: Instead of embracing the new digital
era, instead views it as the enemy. Sony even sued it's
self! because of this...
The music industry bands together and has a collective mouthpiece / legislator the RIAA.
Through the RIAA they prosecute old ladies for file sharing (even
though said old lady has never seen a computer),
buy new laws (DCMA), influence international relations (Russia's
joining of to the WTO).
Rather than list all the nasty business the RIAA enters into, we
will add a little humour by parodying the music industry as
characters from the Mister Men series of books.
Introducing: The Music
Industry as Mr Greedy:
enough is never enough, more, more,
more... |
Introducing: Sony as Mr
Tickle:
tickling starts out enjoyable, but
becomes unpleasant |
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1920 to
1970
| Mr Greedy's job was
to sign music artists and sell their music. Mr Greedy
supplied his musical goods on Records, all was well in
Mr Greedy's world, but less so for artists. They signed
to a slaves contract, most contracts enslave an artist
until 3 albums are produced, it is in the artists best
interest to get off the contract (which they might not
see anything from, despite having multi-million album
sales...). |
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Consider this invented
contract to gain an insight:
Sign up as a
domestic cleaner, 5 years minimum contract and $200,000 per
year. Sounds truly excellent, one million $ over 5 years!,
except after the first year I deduct $195,000 from your salary,
to cover your costs (went on a nice Ferrari, for me, not you, after all
I have to drive around to promote your cleaning abilities).
After the first year, despite being doing an excellent cleaning
job, you have not seen any return and want to break away...to
the courts...except they will not help, the remaining 4 years
have to be served. Modern day slavery.
1970 to 1980
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Sony created a revolution, consumer tape
recorders and Walkmans, Walkmans and Sony were fun and
hip. Mr Greedy cried foul, anyone could record records
onto tape and share the tape around, to Mr Greedy
control was slipping away: this tape machine was the
devils machine and will bring about the destruction of
the whole industry, millions will be out of work.
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A court case brought by Mr Greedy's cousin
(movies) against video recorders, they were ruled legal. Mr Greedy
was stuck with tape recorders.
1980 to 1990
Introducing: Audio CD as Mr Happy:
your small disc, saves constant rewinding,
such joy
The proposed end of the world never happened
because of tapes, ironically Mr Greedy made more money, albums
were bought on Record and Tapes, by the same person, double the
money!!
Mr Greedy had a greedy
inspiration when he first saw Audio CD: CDs are cheaper to make
than tapes or records, yet lets charge 2x more for a CD.
Everyone will buy the same discs again, in CD format, life
thought Mr Greedy, could not get any better. Mr Greedy became,
very large and powerful.
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1990 to 2000
Introducing: Computer as Mr Clever:
as time goes on
you get cleverer and cleverer |
Introducing: Portable mp3 Player as Mr
Brave:
like tapes before a
revolution in personal audio |
Four devastating innovations clouded Mr Greedy's world:
- CD drives appeared on computers,
- mp3 an audio compression,
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Portable mp3 player,
- The Internet
CD drives
initially read only, expensive, slow, but the
potential was there to record the CD digitally onto computer. Drives
evolved fast, 2x speed, 4x then writers.
Like tapes before them, CD-R would destroy Mr
Greedy's world, or so he said. People and courts were not so
believing this time, except for the few sad countries which levied
taxes which went straight into Mr Greedy's pocket for any CD-R sold,
regardless if used for audio or not...Mr Greedy is indeed very
powerful.
Beavering away in their German institute, Fraunhofer
invented technology which made audio files
manageable on computers. 10:1 compression with passable quality, now
computers could store and playback audio. Audio files of around 1 to
2 MB were just able to uploaded and downloaded by the slow modems of
the time. The stage was set for a revolution.
Portable mp3 players, Rio was one of the first
manufacturers (MPMan were the first) and felt the full force of the
Greedy's anger, were taken to court for contributory copyright
infringement, despite the fact the Rio 300 at the time was a one way
street, it could not share audio. The courts ruled in Rios favour
(another loss for Greedy), but the case damaged Rio financially. For
years portable players were limited to being read only.
Were was hip Sony? surely a company of their
innovative past would embrace this digital revolution?, no their mp3
players were not even mp3 players, rather they played ATRAC
their own proprietary format. The software for uploading to said
players was lambasted by users (would force users to re-rip CDs
after a period of time, to make sure the original CD had not been
sold, I kid you not!). This treating their customers as potential thieves would
raise its head again later...Why the change at Sony? Sony had grown
and encompassed Sony Music Entertainment, one Sony division created
that, a division in the company and made sure Sony would not create
a Walkman equivalent mp3 player.
The Internet
connected people, promoted the free flow of
ideas and information.
Mr Greedy does not like the words free, connected & flow, in-fact he does not like the internet at all.
Born of the internet came Napster, appearing from no-where, Napster
was an over-night hit, first with students then the world, trading
in these new mp3 files. Despite not selling anything, or making any
money, Napster was valued in the 100's of Millions, such was the
innovation. Napster set music free in many senses of the word, free
as in freely available without cost, free from its media (CD).
2000 onwards
Mr Greedy lashes out...
DCMA
Mr Greedy wanted to put end to the union of CDs and Computers
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That was until a Mr Mp3 visited Mr Computers
house for a party, this party had lots and lots of games, one
was called 'Pass the Mp3', a certain Mr Internet was very, very
good at this game. Mr Greedy peered into one of Mr Computer's
windows, he saw 'Pass the Mp3', and decided he could spoil the
party if only he could keep Mr Mp3 locked inside Mr Computers
house. |
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Mr Greedy went home, he was angry, very, very angry,
would he still be able to make huge piles of money?, Mr Greedy decided
he needed something to put an end to Mr Computers party, he got together
with his greedy buddies, the idea was to employ a Mr Copy-Protection to
put special marking codes on the music CDs, Mr Copy-Protection had the
potential to seriously hamper, and possibly put an end to Mr Computers
party. Alas, this was not to be, for Mr Greedy and his buddies would not
stop quarrelling amongst themselves, they simply could not agree on
exactly how Mr Copy-Protection would be employed.
It has not all been bad
news for Mr Greedy, no sir, for Mr Greedy has had a hand in the creation
of Stand-Alone-CD-Recorders. These devices plug into your Hi-Fi and
enable CD's to be created without the need of Mr Computers help, however
all is not as it first seems. Stand-Alone-CD-R's will not record onto
normal CD-R disks, they only record onto special Consumer-Audio-CD-R's,
and Mr Greedy has placed a special Greedy tax onto these discs, which
goes straight into his pocket. What is this greedy tax called? it is
'refund to Mr Greedy of the expected loss from illegal copying', this
tax is truly obsurd when you discover that Stand-Alone-CD-R's will not
copy commercial audio CD's. Mr Greedy truly is a very naughty person.
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Just when Mr Greedy thought things could not
get any worse, Mr Napster started a new Taxi firm, Mr Napster is
able to deliver thousands and thousands of people to Mr
Computers party, all these people are able to partake in 'Pass
the Mp3', how is he able to do this? Mr Greedy did a little
detective work....it turns out that Mr Napster's Taxis are free
of charge, well, well Mr Greedy was not going to stand for any
of this. |
| Mr Greedy
calls together his greedy buddies, they all get together to come
up with a plan...Why not create our own taxi firm?,
shouts one of the greedies, we could charge a little for the
trip and still make plenty of money, just not as much as before.
This plan does not go down very well with the rest of the
greedies, who are far too greedy to even consider it, so it is
decided the best plan is to try to force Mr Napster out of
town...... |
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A Light Hearted Look at Music Industry Pt. 2
Much has changed..., the village has been over run with taxi firms, all
has changed too for Mr Napster. Once the king of the road Mr Napster has
been under constant attack from the greedies, as such he only has a few
really old cabs that no one wants to use because they now have to work
under tight rules, but other firms are doing booming business. Some of
these taxi firms operate on a house to house basis, from no central
base, Mr Greedy is unable to find them, let alone stop them!
Mr Greedy and his greedy friends have been hard at work, and after much
head scratching they have created something fiendish - a CD that will
play on normal HiFi's, but when CD calls at Mr Computers house it is
unable to play! Fantastic, at last Mr Greedy can sleep safe and sound at
night, safe in the knowledge all music falls under his tight control,
well not exactly...what Mr Greedy fails to realize is that he is
actually making it much worse for himself, for the people who want to
take CD around to Mr Computers house are the nice people who have
actually given Mr Greedy bags of money for said CD, they might want to
transfer CD onto Mr Rio. When they find they cannot, they will I am
sure, find Mr Internet and one of the many taxi firms to get a copy of
the music they already own. The next time they are in one of Mr Greedies
shops they might just stop to think and decide it is better to not
bother giving Mr Greedy a bag of money for something that is far worse
they can get from Mr Internet. Mr Greedy should be congratulated, for
this is such a stupid plan.
Talking about Mr Rio he has lots and lots for Rio-esq friends now, some
of these friends are relatives of Mr Greedy, ironic as Mr Greedy tried
so hard to stop what his own family now embraces. If there is money to
be made, you can count on Mr Greedy to be sniffing around the action.
So what of the future? Mr Greedy want to keep his music under lock and
key, even if you were to give Mr Greedy a bag of cash, he want to
control exactly how-where-and-when you can listen to his music, this is
the complete opposite to what the people of the village want, the
majority are fine upstanding citizens who are quite happy to give my
greedy cash for his stuff, but they do not want to be told
how-where-and-when they can listen to it, imagine buying a car and being
told you can only drive it from here to there and nowhere else.
Unfortunately it would seem the sheriff of the village is on Mr Greedies
side, why you ask? because Mr Greedy is all powerful with his Greedy
friends, in this village money = power.
To be continued......
sony rootkit
sueing old ladies...
ipod generation, drm free
internet radio, hike in fees
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