Capitalism is a fine balancing act. Somewhere along the line the music industry has gotten way out of balance. The latest endevour to deliver "Rip proof" cd's which don't actually work in all cd players has got to be a nail in their coffins. Instead of questioning why so much piracy is occuring they make the basic assumption that a humans natural stance is that of being a thief and act accordingly. This of course leads along the road we are now going down - the DCMA and other tools stop us from using music in a way that is convinent. It is easy to imagine a logical conclusion: perhaps we will all be forced to wear a listening device that works out what music we hear and charges us accordingly - a few pence for that song in the shop, a few more for the album you listened to in the car.
So why is this a bad thing? after all the music industry is a business and has money to make - it has a right to safegaurd its intrests. This is true but its only one side of the equation. Instead of the internet making music easier to come by and cheaper it will end up reducing the amount of choice and making it more expensive. Our computers will be more expensive so that they can play music securely (if some manufacturers get their way indcedently preventing unlicensed (ie. home made ) music from being played).
Of course a balance will be struck - hackers will circumvent encryptions and if the music industry continues to make music inaccessible a new "independent" one will grow in its place. An industry that supplies what people want. The issue is that this "war" didn't need to happen in the first place. There will of course always be pirates but the vast majority of people would buy CD's or download tracks and pay for them if they felt the price was right. We all know that CD's are overpriced, the manufacturing costs are small and very little of the money goes to the artist. The vast majority goes to the record company.
I download a fair amount of mp3's - most of them are of records I own (I have a large amount of vinyl but no record player) - others are things I am considering buying. Rather than ripping the music industry off I probably buy more cd's than I did before.
At the start of a new century comsumers and suppliers are locked in a foolish battle over how our economy will work in future. Rather than accepting that an information enconomy can not work like the old manufacturing economy business is instead trying to legislate to make information act like it is a limited resource. Images of King Canute come to mind.
Oh well better get back to work. I am listening to "Fields and Waves" by O.rang (ex-members of Talk Talk) - a mad and beautiful album that far to few people know about.
Posted by Mark at August 15, 2001 03:59 PM