Sony to blame tube sites too?

[griffin8r]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

Well that explains it then. Us versus the thieves. What a buncha bastards those music industry guys are. They deserve everything they get for resisting technology. Silly old cunts.

You are impossibly obtuse, you know that?

[griffin8r]

Originally Posted by griffin8r

You are impossibly obtuse, you know that?

Okay, after taking a few minutes here, I realize this was a bit over the top.

Sorry.

Let me frame my point in a slightly different manner.

From the original quote:

Why? Because people 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it for free, 'they'll steal it.

This is really close to the truth, but not quite.

Most people who use the internet 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it. But most people only go through the hassle of installing annoying software, suffering through hours of searching, picking up viruses and spyware along the way, to get what they want because they can't readily get it at any price anywhere else.


Napster and the whole peer-to-peer file sharing networks came about because sites offering free mp3 downloads got shut down.

The problem was, removing these sites created a vacuum. People still wanted to download their favorite music a la carte instead of buying CD's, and the industry was fighting tooth and nail against offering this option, instead of recognizing the profit potential.

This is the mentality that has to change. Yes, there was a niche of people who just flat refused to pay for anything (they also distribute software on these channels, along with anything else they can load up) - but the idea that everyone in the world wanted to get shit illegally for free instead of paying for it? That's just plain bunk.

All the Napster suits (and the subsequent Napster user suits) did was bring publicity to a segment of the internet that was very much in a dark corner where most people didn't see it and couldn't access it.

Same thing with the Pirate Bay court case. I was probably the only person I know here locally that knew anything about torrent files and the torrent filesharing network - because I was actually using it to pass large (anywhere from 5-60G audio and video projects back and forth between collaborators in my little circle, because it's faster and easier versus paying for hosting.

But now that there has been prosecution, all of a sudden everyone knows about torrents, and you can't buy a half terabyte hard drive in the stores anymore, because they're always out of stock.

So, what's my point? (Hopefully you won't just quote some random piece from the above diatribe and call it my point)

My point is there's got to be a better way to get it done.

Litigation shines the light of publicity on something, for better or worse. Kinda like TMM's lawsuit against Shelly - they're shining a great big public spotlight on the issue they're addressing.

In both cases, it's really not something they want to do. Big bad corporations trying to "beat up on the little guy" (which is how the public sees it anymore) does not make that "little guy" look bad, it makes the corporation look bad.

So what to do?

Improve delivery. Streamline production costs, so you can deliver a less expensive product to the market and still make profit. Do a better job vetting on the front end to make sure virtually every piece of content you produce is one that will not disappoint the consumer. Make sure you have comprehensive a la carte services available, so the consumer doesn't have to buy something they don't want in order to get something they do want.

Do this, and the pirates will wind up back in the dark corner they were in back in the days of dial-in BBS services, when no one but them knew what they were doing, and no one cared.

That's my point. They're doing it wrong, and the original quote from the Sony CEO enshrines that fact. And the music industry will go the way of the dodo if they don't figure it out.

And so will everyone else that clings to this ideal of fighting new technology instead of embracing it and making it work for them.

[softball]

Originally Posted by griffin8r

You are impossibly obtuse, you know that?

I will take that as a complement.
You might want to take a bow and move on. TTFN