Salon.com Technology | Embrace file-sharing, or die
A record executive and his son make a formal case for freely downloading music. The gist: 50 million Americans can’t be wrong.
Editor’s note: John Snyder is president of Artist House Records, a board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and a 32-time Grammy nominee. On Thursday night, he submitted the [linked] paper to NARAS.
That’s not exactly what he claims, but we’ll let that go. What he gets right is far more important.
This is the same article Rebecca links to, and like her, I can’t find just one pull quote.
So here’s a few, in case you had any doubts this is a compelling read.
- Intellectual property has not always been defined and protected as it is today. Thomas Jefferson wrote about the philosophical considerations:
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.”
- It could be argued that the record companies are responsible for their current predicament. Again, how did they turn themselves into one of the most hated corporate sectors, and what are they going to do about it? Five years ago nobody gave a second thought about record companies; now they are reviled. Record companies need to realize that music is now viewed as a commodity with a shelf-life of 90 days, and that they made it so.
- Record companies are not logical, righteous entities. They are ramshackle, profit-driven enterprises. They act in their perceived best interests, and they act ruthlessly and, in many cases, irrationally. The people who run them still have their e-mail printed out by their secretaries. We have to wait for the next generation to take over, the “software” generation, the generation of people who don’t remember growing up without a computer around.
- “Any time you skip a commercial … you’re actually stealing the programming.” Viewers might find that reasoning less than persuasive, but they’ll probably be very persuaded by the threatening, accusatory tone, and dismiss Mr. Kellner and his concerns. This is another example of an old media being unable to adjust to technology. Yes, Jamie, your business is threatened. You will have to change your way of thinking to save it. Abandon failing tactics.
- [T]here is an industry that has found a solution to this problem, and the music industry should take notice. That industry is the bottled water industry. Bottled water is a growth market. But common sense would indicate that when water is virtually free (i.e., tap water) that people wouldn’t want to pay $1 for 16 oz. of water. Yet, most of us frequently do just that. Why? Because it is convenient and because we have been persuaded that it is safer, more pure, that it is “better” water. Convenience becomes necessity, belief becomes profit.
The bottled water industry is built on customer service. If the music business were to take this approach and ally themselves with consumers rather than fight them, it’s quite possible that their profits would still be growing. But record companies distrust their customers even more than their customers distrust them. The circle is unlikely to be broken, which in turn creates wide open spaces for the entrepreneur, for a “new” way.