Music biz: piracy our "climate change," governments must act!
Found on Ars Technica on Thursday, 21 January 2010
According to this view of the world, the music business has now tried its hand at being "innovative" and "customer focused."
IFPI admits that only 15 percent of European Internet users even engage in piracy at all, and it further admits that many of these users purchase music, but it still claims that piracy is the "fundamental problem."
As for what's selling, these are the major labels, so the top 10 singles are pretty execrable stuff unless you like Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, or songs with titles like "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" and "Boom Boom Pow."
Over the years, the industry has turned music into something totally uninteresting for me. It's not even worth sharing it because, honestly, all that mainstream music is worthless. Free (as in beer) music is more interesting and, not to forget, less dangerous for the everyday downloader. So, thanks to the big labels for their log-time efforts to drive users away from their content and for bringing attention to those artists who don't mind filesharing because they realized it only helps them.