Not every media boss is an idiot, just most
In the oh-my-God-no-way department, the new boss of major record label EMI says that the record industry must embrace digital or die.
I know what you’re thinking, “no way,” but it is true. At some juncture the major media companies, whether they produce music, TV, movies or journalism have to fundamentally understand that digital is the future. They can no longer just pay lip service while trying to hold onto the past as tightly as possible.
EMI does give me hope because they were the first record label to go Digital Rights Management (DRM) free on their music downloads from Apple’s iTunes Store. I think they realize that fighting what users want is futile. And users will get what they want one way or the other.
That other way, of course, doesn’t pay record labels a dime. In fact, trying to attack music sharing services like Kazaa is a losing strategy. All it will do is inspire people to try to find much harder to detect methods of music sharing, like bit torrents.
Suing your own customers is an even worse strategy, especially when you sue them over 28 songs. Almost all the people who have pirated music also purchase music. Trying to attack your own customers is a good way to get less customers.
Working with consumers is the way to the future, and it is just plain common sense. You can’t scare or sue people into liking your products. You can get people to like your product, however, by offering products consumers like in attractive distribution packages.
Yes, it may be a rocky road, but all industries face challenging times when major change occurs. You can either embrace change and help push it forward or resist it.
We have seen what resiting change has gotten music and journalism. No where.
Well, actually it has gotten both industries somewhere — losing customers and profits.
Additional reading: It’s not just a journalism problem, part 1.
October 9th, 2007 at 5:46 am
An abosultely spot on message. Incredibly enough the digital revolution (to use a cliched, over-used phrase) has been so grass-roots led that those who should have capitalised on it like newspapers, magazines and the music industry actually chose to purchase grade-A quality buckets, fill them with sand and cerebrally reside there for the past seven years. With their higher-brain functions thus embalmed exec decisions were made with what can only be presumed to be the knee-jerk reptilian brain stems (digital magazines: BAD, paper: GOOD, music pirates: GET THEM) which somewhat explains the responses we have been seeing. Magazines and newspapers embraced the web ONLY when, last year, the ad money spent on media websites exceeded that spent on paper. Similarly, the music industry is trying the same approach. The enlightened “we must embrace the web or die” slogan begs the question: “Dude? Where were you at the beginning of the century, living on a cauliflower farm somewhere cut off from the web?” What makes all this poignant is the fact we can at least follow it all online and record it for what it is. The net is changing the way we do things and those who fail to understand this are Luddites which will be consigned to an interesting and somewhat amusing note in history.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:58 am
[...] Not every media boss is an idiot, just most. [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
[...] 3. Patrick Thornton talks sense over at Journalism Iconoclast. [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
An intelligent article, but even with EMI it seems like too little too late.