February 17, 2003, 12:58 pm
Doc Searls Weblog:
Cut off the customer and the industry dies:
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In Embrace file-sharing, or die, John Snyder, president of Artist House Records, board member of NARAS, and 32-time Grammy nominee, says something I said several years ago; but he does it with infinitely more credibility, and, hopefully, far more effect. Me: |
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Napster and its successors are the listeners’ workaround of the failed radio industry, which replaced trusted music connoisseurs with payola-driven robots that serve only as freebie machines for the record industry’s pop music factories. |
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Why is it that record companies pay dearly for radio play and fight Internet play? What is the real difference between radio and the Internet? Perfect copies? If we look at the Internet as analogous to radio, the problem becomes one of performance rights, not the unlawful exploitation of intellectual property. People are creating their own Radio on their hard drives, and they are constantly changing it. Would this have anything to do with the “McDonaldization” of radio by Clear Channel and others? Would the fact that almost every song on commercial radio is bought and paid for have anything to do with the narrow focus and homogeneous nature of radio? What drives radio is advertising and money, not music. A lot of music gets left behind thanks to the current state of radio; that consumers are rejecting it shouldn’t be surprising. They’re creating their own MP3 playlists, and if the labels were smart, they’d be doing everything in their power to be on those playlists, just like they do everything in their power to be on the playlists of radio stations. Instead, they scream copyright infringement and call their lawyers. |
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I wonder if the rest of the NARAS board is listening. Anybody know? |
