I constantly here the refrain that the labels would do fine if they would just give the people what they want, which implies that it's just stupidity and stubbornness that they don't. But in fact, the reality is that they are desperately fighting for their lives, and they see the only POSSIBLE path for them as total DRM everywhere on every device.

And, they are completely right.

Of course, asking whether that's their only possible path is not the same as asking whether it is likely to succeed...
2:49:33 PM    

He's right that it would be a PR nightmare for them, but I can't see any other way they can survive as businesses. While artists like Janis Ian can make a living from touring (see my earlier blog entry today), but that doesn't help the labels.

It's argued that mp3's spur CD sales, and I would not be surprised if that's true so far, but as it becomes easier and easier to get whole albums online for free and more and more people have the means and knowhow to do it that will certainly not be true any more.

At that stage, I can't see them not going after individuals. They can't slow down gnutella, for instance, any other way.

They are obviously bowing to the PR aspect for now, and can afford to do so because they know downloads may actually be helping (or at least not hurting sales much) now... but I just don't see how they'll have a choice in the matter as downloads start to really cut into sales. It will be bad PR or death. Of the two, they will choose bad PR.

Where is the flaw in that reasoning? Let me know.
2:12:25 PM    

She makes it clear that artists who sell at her level, which is way below the superstar circle at this point, lose nothing by file downloading. They make NO money from record contracts with the major labels, so free downloading simply means free exposure, meaning more fans know about her to turn up for her concerts.

If you look at it that way, only the record companies themselves and megastars like Britney are harmed by file copying.

The only problem with this logic is that the Internet makes it possible for artists to find an audience even where that audience is too small to provide enough people in most localities to support a concert (and pay for traveling to it). For those people, a non-concert revenue mechanism must exist. They would benefit from being able to sell their music.

Janis comments that she's made more album sales because people heard her through a free download and subsequbought the CD, but even in her case, the number of such sales is only 180. Real small-audience-artists will get far fewer than that.

I continue to believe that we need paid-for downloads for small-audience-artists, and the only way that will happen is if they are more convenient than free downloads. And they will only be more convenient if there is a barrier to making one's record collection available on the Internet for free. And that barrier, as far as I can tell, will have to be fear of prosecution. And, the downloads will have to cost much less than CD's do in order to take into consideration the fact that there's no manual labor, no packaging, and no shipping.
12:58:46 PM