pampelmoose Dave Allen of Gang of Four’s Music and Media Blog — music . media . web. culture

There’s a discussion taking place over at the American Public Radio website about the recording industry’s ongoing and fruitless attempts at putting the genie back in the bottle when it comes to free music. The best pull quote? – “Bottled water competes with free everyday.” Some excerpts:

Bob Moon: “Innovation marches on, one technological funeral at a time. As Fred Von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, the music industry once made its money selling sheet music for the family piano.”
Fred Von Lohmann: “That may seem quaint now, but it sure did seem like Armageddon to that business when they were facing a player piano that could do this without the need for sheet music. But of course, it unleashed a much bigger, much more exciting music industry that was made possible by recorded music.”
Von Lohmann has little sympathy for an industry that’s been complaining about free downloading for almost a decade now:
Von Lohmann: “Get out there and do the work, right? Bottled water competes with free every day, private schools compete with free every day, lots of industries compete with free by delivering a better product, a more convenient product.”
He says the attraction of file-sharing sites isn’t just that they’re free — they offer a far better selection than any pay site, he says, with no restrictions on how files can be copied or played.
Von Lohmann: “You’ve got to give fans what they want. They want the whole catalog, they want it conveniently and, you know, I think they’d be willing to pay a few dollars for it. But oftentimes, you can’t really get all the songs — even on iTunes, even if you want to pay for them.”

Meanwhile – Felix Oberholzer says: “The industry’s actually very healthy — a few of the central players in this industry have not found a new business model that can cope with the new realities.”
After comprehensive research, Oberholzer concluded the music giants are wasting time trying to stop free downloading. The Harvard study found no measurable effect on sales.
Oberholzer: “The link is essentially non-existent, and so I think it’s time for the music industry to move on.”
The major labels dispute his findings, but Oberholzer contends downloading helps fans learn about new music, and might even spur sales — if the industry offers added value that gives fans a reason to buy what they can’t get for free. Sony-BMG and Universal, for example, will soon bundle ringtones along with songs on CD singles.

Meanwhile the RIAA continues to ruin the lives of innocent people who get caught up in their net. Here’s an interview with one such Oregon woman and her fight with the RIAA. If you like, you can turn yourself in to the RIAA by reporting piracy.

Also a blog over at the NYT has nice thread going – What’s the future of the music industry?

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