Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Music Industry Is Missing The Train... Again!

For years the music industry pretty much ruled with an iron fist. They decided when and how to release music no matter what the consumer wanted and in what format. They would put a bunch of crappy music on an album with one good song and force the fans to buy the entire album for that one decent song. They also decided who would be blessed with star status, whose music would be reviewed and who would get lucrative recording contracts. Then the Internet arrived...

The music industry chose to ignore this and file sharing grabbed a hold of the market and after years of piracy and demands by music fans finally they [music industry] were forced kicking and screaming into the Internet age by releasing music one song at a time for .99 cents each. Many of us Internet industry guys watched this and marveled at the sheer power of the Internet to force change where it was needed.

However the music industry decided it might move into the Internet age, but it wasn't going to be nice about it. They have and continue to develop extremely draconian policies and security to stop piracy. I can understand after the entire Napster era their need for this, but they are again missing the train.

Now I am no sound recording genius, but I quickly figured out that music that was compressed from CD into MP3 format lost some of its quality and sound. I found as did probably many others that the sound quality just wasn't there.

However the market was quick to develop a solution, a software company developed a special plug in that as music is played from your favorite MP3 player jukebox software that it essentially "re-processes" the music and really brings it a lot closer to its original sound. I have no idea how this works nor do I care. I just know that it does work. The company that invented it used the Internet to distribute said software to everyone. Life was good.

However in an effort to again be idiots the music industry has put protections on music you download so that this third party application can't re-process the music and so it sounds terrible if you are used to hearing it the old way. Essentially they have stopped the players from feeding the music through this processing software because they believe it could jeopardize their iron-fisted grip on the Internet music market. Unfortunately customers like me who have already paid for this music and essentially own it for private use are unable to play it in a format that makes it better. They have seriously diminished my and many other's customer experience so that they could keep iron fist control of the industry.

Now if that isn't bad enough most of the players won't or can't allow users to burn this music to a CD. Again the whole piracy issue. As if I am really going to rip thousands of CDs and distribute them worldwide for my own profit potential, really, get real.

So again music that I bought online is again controlled in another fashion to "protect" the industry. So let's summarize, shall we, they were forced onto the Internet, which they reluctantly entered, but then decided to be as absolutely unhelpful and restrictive as possible.

Unfortunately this won't stop creative programmers from finding a way around this and when they do the music industry will again be forced to make changes, but not before they miss the train again. You see this draconian security they are using here is simply a way to make the Internet market a little less attractive than buying that CD in the store. Another very feeble attempt to hang onto their control and power and force the consumer to adopt to them instead of the other way around. One would hope that one day they will get smart enough to realize in the Internet age it really is about the customer and not your pathetic control that matters.

When software companies and innovative programmers find a way to again work around the fools in the music industry they will again be behind the curve and not in front of it. They will again be playing catch up. If they would simply find ways to make the customer experience number one instead of number 306 on their list of priorities they wouldn't have so many people trying to stick it to them.

At .99 cents per song, even hard core pirates have to acknowledge that it might just be easier to do it the right way instead of constantly dodging the music industry law suits and harassment's. Unfortunately when music purchased over the Internet is inferior, consumer will simply seek out alternatives, i.e. non-protected, i.e. non-Internet purchased music.

Too bad that means most likely pirated music which doesn't have the security and therefore isn't subject to all the restrictions. It is superior and superior product leaves the market wide open for pirates to keep doing what they are doing and you will have plenty of consumers willing to skirt the law to get the "good stuff".


To quote Mr. Smith from the Matrix 3... "Do you know what that sound is Mr. Anderson? It is the sound of inevitability!" In an open message to the morons running the online music industry...

That sound of pirated music is the inevitable sound of change and it is coming for you. You can be ahead of the curve or behind it the choice is yours, but know that the Internet and willing consumers are a powerful economic force that will and has changed many industries, including yours.