And that one man isn’t a musician, a devoted promoter or even a thoughtful artists org representitive. It’s a geek. Same sort as now decide what is valid vs invalid worthy of delivery emails. Worse, it’s a biz-geek with a history of closed-circuit thinking.
So Gary is unhappy with the iPod and its dominance in the marketplace. Trouble is, I think he is confusing dominance with domination: the iPod owns the retail segment for portable music players but does that mean they own the music segment as well?
From where I sit, not hardly: you can buy an iPod and then easily ensure you never share so much as another thin dime with Apple. You can stuff your shiny little gadget with music you already own, music you record from internet radio, even music from the p2p networks [note: the legality or proprietary of these methods is subject to your local laws and customs].
And if you look at the RIAA, you can find plenty of musicians, promoters and the like: have they done anything to look more appealing than Steve Jobs to the average music fan?
I seem to hear this regular refrain that Apple or more directly Steve Jobs is wrecking . . . something. It’s not clear what, though. I understand the issues with DRM but those are easily sidestepped. There’s something about the very existence of the iPod that bugs some people.
And the piece (
1) referenced above makes it clear that the record industry is unhappy with the position they’re in: now that they see how well music sans media sells, they want to jack up the price, but they can’t. They’re like the monkey with his hand in the coconut, unwilling to let go of that handful of nuts, even as the lion gets closer and closer . . . .