Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's just bad business

It's actually quite logical, if you agree with their assumptions:

1) The increased availability of digital music will lead to an increase in piracy, and

2) An increase in piracy will lead to less money being spent on recorded music.

(Both those assumptions can be argued, but the music industry believes them to be true).

Given that, the following argument is logical:

1) At some point in the future the money being spent on recorded music will decrease to a point where it is not a significant source of income.

2) The longer that point can be delayed, the more money can be made from recorded music in aggregate.

3) Anything that makes digital music inconvenient for the consumer will delay the collapse of buying recorded music because it will reduce uptake (!!)

4) Therefor, fight anything that makes digital music better/easier to use.

5) Meanwhile, try and develop new sources of income (360 deals, streaming licencing, game licences etc)

From their point of view it's not bad business at all - it's the safest course of action.

Not to be too meta, but I think you also have to look at how they are choosing which strategies to implement. I remember hearing in a Clay Shirkey talk, that when an institution is threatened all nominal goals of the institution get pushed back, and survival becomes the main goal.

I look at the behavior of the music industry, and all of the seemingly short-sighted moves they make, and I can't help but think they are all operating or beginning to shift into survival mode, trying simple not to die.

I don't think it's that they want digital goods to die out, or are threatened by them, since iTunes, with foresight and good design, was able to turn digital sales into a success, I think it's more that they are experiencing the institutional equivalent of tunnel vision and depth-first thinking. They aren't implementing these solutions because they are too focused on the short term problem of their survival.

The problem is that there are $9B in recorded music sales. A small percentage of people actually steal music (I believe it's like 9%). You have a bunch of people who probably don't buy much music because it's inconvenient. Then you have other people who would buy more music if it was more convenient. The % of people who steal isn't likely to go up just because storing files online through Amazon's PAID service (keep in mind these people are stealing because they don't like paying for things) makes it easier to access your music. But the potential for the $9B worth of customers you have increasing their purchases is completely mitigated by this nonsense. If I am not an example of a fairly typical consumer in this area, I don't know who is.

You don't need to convince me; you need to convince the music industry - and to be honest I don't think your arguments are strong enough.

A small percentage of people actually steal music (I believe it's like 9%)

Where did you get that number? Most studies I've seen estimate between 25 and 50% of music consumer pirate at least some. Here's a random article:

Recently Entertainment Media Research conducted a survey with 1,500 UK residents and discovered that the number of music fans downloading music illegally actually dropped to 39 percent, a whopping 4 percent difference from last year’s statistics.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Music-Illegal-Download-MP3,news-...

The RIAA says:

NPD reports that only 37 percent of music acquired by U.S. consumers in 2009 was paid for.

http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

(Yes, it's the RIAA... but that's the music industry.. the people you need to convince)

The % of people who steal isn't likely to go up just because storing files online through Amazon's PAID service (keep in mind these people are stealing because they don't like paying for things) makes it easier to access your music.

That's where you and the music industry disagree very strongly - and in their defense I think they have a case. They look at the precedent of people paying for blank CDs to copy their friends CDs to, and say "well, why won't one person just go to their friends place and let them download their entire collection from Amazon".

Wish I could comment on the comment below but...

The point is, these people are stealing already, and the difference in the ease of stealing using what's already available and the ease of using Amazon is not that big of a difference, and the current stealing techniques don't cost a monthly fee. I don't see people switching to Amazon for all of their theft. As someone pointed out, Amazon could easily monitor this behavior and turn these people in. At least with the current theft you aren't being watched by a big company with a vested interest in you paying for your music.

(you can reply to a comment at any depth by clicking on the "link" next to the time stamp.)

Thanks!

>1) The increased availability of digital music will lead to an increase in piracy

(not a criticism, I agree it's arguable)

I would suggest that the availability of pirated music is approaching a fairly good level of saturation. It also keeps pace with new releases and in most cases offers a much greater variety of older/niche music.

I always try to buy what I can, but sometime it's not an option.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com