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Originally posted by Tobiasly
As far as the RIAA, they are desperately grasping at staws more and more. They still don't "get" what consumers want, and they probably (hopefully) won't until it's too late.
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The RIAA is grasping desperately to a business model that no longer works. It is based on hiring thousands, and spending $millions to promote THE song they want us to like. Internet makes that system irrelevant. The music industry must downsize - as all industries eventually do - in response to technological advances.
It takes maybe 10% or less people to run a larger phone system. Same applies to electric utilities. Sears gets eaten alive by Walmart because retail now takes so many less people if advantages from new technologies are utilizes. But the RIAA likes having big exectives with $multi-million promotion budgets.
In order to preserve this system, the RIAA is even promoting laws to have ISPs police and report any music that you download. Whether the law is reasonable or will even be voted on is irrelevant. The point is the RIAA is so desperate to protect their old system that they would even promote basic violations of civil rights to protect that system.
They were successful in essentially keeping DAT recorders out of America. They got Canada to give them money for every DAT sold there - regardless of the purpose of that DAT. They have a system so expensive that they might leech money from anywhere they can. The RIAA is not operating in the interests of their customers. The internet now makes that obvious.
From an Economist survery some years back on the recording industry, I listed five functions that the recording industry provides. Most of that can now be performed for much less from oustside or indepenent organizations - because technology advances. RIAA does not like losing control of any of those five functions. But then we know their original solution to the internet was to ignore it. They could not fit it into their business model so they ignored it until Napster made that impossible. So now their solution is to impeded the internet - to protect the old RIAA business model. We are suppose to call it Dinosaurs.