10 Reasons Why Big Labels and Publishers are Losing Sales – and It's not just DRM
1.Labels and Publishers Hate Talent and Innovation – They want rigid market control to create a few Hits and Stars to generate huge sales of properties that they own and control. Think Diamond Cartel, controlling the flow of diamonds to keep prices artificially high.
2.They Use an Obsolete Business Model Based on Selling Physical Objects Masquerading as intellectual property, art or entertainment. Digital Downloading and transfer eliminates the need for CD's, DVD's, tape or other physical media changing hands when a song or video is purchased, traded, or given.
3.They Steal Money from Artists. Almost every artist starts with a slave contract guaranteed to keep them economically dependent on the label. Then they create and perpetuate the myth that all artists are financially irresponsible – “it's their fault that they made a lot of money and couldn't keep it.”
4.They Create and only recognize Artificial Classifications and types of work. The 3 minute song is good because it standardizes the radio playlist and makes Commercial Segments easier to program to meet the station's financial goals. The 3 minute song does not exist because your attention span is not good enough to listen to something longer or because you only like 3 minute songs.
5.They Use Genres (Hard Rock – Country Western etc.) to create captive audiences to sell products to. The important thing is not the music, it's the demographic that they sell to the advertisers - who they promise to deliver. You actually like any music that sounds good to you, regardless of what kind of music the Label says it is.
6.They Hate Technology and the power that technology brings to the public. They know You're going to use it.
7.They use their Wealth and Power to try to Control Your reasonable use of technology. DRM – Rootkits – Legal System attacks on P2P – Legislative attempts to control Your use of the Internet. They want you to Pay for it, but they want to control and make money on how you can use it.
8.They want Centralized Power over Creators and Consumers of art, information and entertainment. This is why it is so easy for them to do what governments like China want them to do – like turn You in if you don't act right.
9.They Define their own Markets/Audience as a Class of Criminals because You won't willingly give up all of Your rights as purchasers of the product.
10.They continue to attempt to maintain an Illusion that artists who are not under contract to them are Inferior and that there is something wrong with producing and distributing your own work.
Even if they are not intrinsically Evil – although they do Appear to be Evil, unless you are Them, they are certainly Not working in Your best interests.
Whining and Complaining is not enough and is not appropriate. Saying things like, “The music industry needs to adjust to this new reality... “ totally misses the point, which is that You and I don't need these huge corporate interests to tell us what we like and give us permission to enjoy it.
We Decentralize. Look at digg.com. Instead of complaining that the big news organizations are not really meeting our information needs, they took control of aggregating the news out of their hands and placed the power where it belongs - In the Community of people who are interested in having a wide variety of news that interests them. This community doesn't need someone else to tell them what they are interested in, we already know.
As Creators of Content and as Consumers of Content, which most of us now are Both, we can develop and join more of these communities that are springing up and make our own decisions about what we want and don't want. And especially in the area of Digitally Downloaded Entertainment, Information and News, we are in control, unless we let them take it away from us.
DRM is not the only reason that music labels are losing sales. The Labels are terrified of losing control and Labels Hate technology and innovation because their customers and artists won't stop innovating and using technology in ways the Labels can't Control. In this war for control of technology and innovation consumers and creators are using communities like digg.com to win and keep their freedom. These 10 reasons are why this makes sense.
