“British music industry major EMI wants to cut its funding to the industry’s trade bodies, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday, which could deal a blow to the fight against music piracy,” Kate Holton reports for Reuters.
“The source said EMI, which was recently taken over by private equity group Terra Firma, was looking at ways to ‘substantially’ reduce the amount it pays trade groups,” Holton reports.
“The groups, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other national associations, represent music companies and the fight against illegal piracy,” Holton reports.
“Analysts at UBS said any move to reduce the funding to trade bodies could hamper the industry’s efforts to fight piracy and protect music copyright,” Holton reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
DRM is dead. EMI was out front with Apple on this, but even they can do better. Music labels should encourage musicians to make good music and sell it DRM-free at high-quality bitrates everywhere they can. That’s what we’d do – of course, we’re not 68-year-old, out-of-touch, technophobic music moguls who futilely long for “the good old days” or greedy music producers who lack basic business sense and seem only to want to screw music fans. The music business would make more money our way than by trying fruitlessly to place limits on everything which only drives more potential customers to piracy.
So, MacDailyNews is now a business consulting firm?
Hey MDN, why not stick to supplying retread Mac news written by someone else!
Ooooh, “Teflon” . . .
Not enough bran in your breakfast cereal today, huh? Why not eat a very large bowl of prunes and go back to your mama’s basement to relieve yourself?
Most of us adult wage-earners like MDN just the way it is . . . or we wouldn’t be coming here in the first place. So, get out your big tube of zit cream and do your best to become part of the mainstream human race again, OK?
Good.
Teflon (aka Jermaine Dupri or Doug Morris),
If MacDailyNews isn’t a business consulting firm, they should be, for the music business, at least. Their advice is perfect and it’s also how the music business will end up operating anyway whether they go into it voluntarily or not.
Teflon, you comment won’t stick for long.
Die RIAA!!!
Teflon:
Fair suck of the sauce, MDN were only offering an opinion, which is all we do down the bottom here too.
The problem with piracy is that it has become easily available, quickly, with high quality (despite Hollywood telling you otherwise) and obviously cheaply. You can’t beat those who steal – you never could. But I think EMI are seeing the ‘trade associations’ alienating even the paying customers and EMI are paying for this.
Cool EMI – I hope you sign even more bands as a result.
“illegal piracy”? As opposed to legal piracy?
Randian is just MDN writing under another name. Like it always does. ChrissyOne, Zune Tang being two other examples (hence the MDN move to incorporate registraton to protect its seudonyms).
Who exactly is MDN? When will the authors of MDN stop hiding? Hard to take this site serously otherwise. You could be a convicted peadophile for all we know…
It’s just a take Teflon, relax and enjoy.
and chrissy2 is ..teflon?
The age of 68 is irrelevant… point to the fact that the person hasn’t studied the trends and technology… age doesn’t matter here.
Teflon, what part of MDN‘s take did you disagree with?
“Digital Rights” should still be “Managed.” But the music industry needs to move away from putting technical barriers in the way of customers using its product. Imprinting sold media files with identification information about the purchaser (and making it known to the customer that such information is there) will discourage abusive “sharing.” The iTunes Store does that now with its protected and “DRM-free” files.
Honest customer will not be restricted in any way from using the files for their personal enjoyment. Companies selling players and digital media will not need to invest resources to create and maintain those elaborate “barriers.” It would be a win-win-win for the music creators (more sales), music consumers (more freedom), and music product vendors (less overhead). It would also end music-rental schemes, since by definition, they require those technical barriers.
Then again, Apple’s DRM system is pretty much invisible as long as your media player is an iPod. So the music “cartel” can take its sweet time coming to their collective senses, as far as I’m concerned.
Asshat writing as ChrissyTwo.
We know who pays you to astroturf here. We know ChrissyOne is real and Zune Tang is not.
If you do not take this site seriously, why are you posting here? Obviously it’s because the entity that pays you takes this site very seriously.
Rock on MDN.
@ChrissyTwo: “You could be a convicted peadophile for all we know…”
Yeah, sexually abusing peas is just sick, especially the baby french peas.
(BTW: Die, RIAA, die!)
Personally, I think the money they can save from cutting funding to these groups can better serve their stock holders. It’s not like these groups have managed to slow down piracy.
Teflon:
Heard of an opinion? Last I checked we’re all entitled to one (including MDN). God bless AMERICA!
mr_matalino: Heard of an opinion? Last I checked we’re all entitled to one (including MDN). God bless AMERICA!
Fsck Yeah! Thank America for inventing the concept of freedom of conscience.
Regardless of how music is sold, with DRM or without, there will always be pirates. Stupidly the music companies seemed to think that without DRM everyone would be a pirate which is obviously untrue. Their jobs is to minimise the effect of pirating whilst not alienating paying customers. Sure, DRM free products might make pirating easier, even more widespread but it will also boost legitimate sales. If they can make those legitimate sales big enough it will more than offset any potential increase in losses through pirating and they won’t have to waste countless millions fighting with their own customers.
By trying to combat the tiny percentage of “bad” users, they were/are causing a negative reaction amongst those customers who would legitimately pay them money.
“Randian is just MDN writing under another name. Like it always does. ChrissyOne, Zune Tang being two other examples (hence the MDN move to incorporate registraton to protect its seudonyms).”
Funny you’d keep saying that, what with how easy my real identity is to verify. Still, it’s fun being a myth!
Since you brought it up, *I* would certainly like to know a little more about the wizard behind the curtain. I’ve been posting here for over a year, and all I have to go on is the daily news takes and the name “SteveJack”. Who is this person? Personally, I think it’s a gestalt entity, created by crossing DNA from Steve Jobs and Jack Miller in a lab deep in the mountains of Buenos Aries. This “SteveJack” is nothing more than a grey, throbbing brain, resting in a pan of warm honey, attached with electrodes to a bank of X-Serves and plugged in to the world wide web. He may even have WiFi. From there, “SteveJack” plots the worldwide gangster computer-god living-death slavery takeover of the world’s Windows user’s identities and credit history, controlling their minds and making them buy iPods and computers with shiny screens. What an evil genius!!!
…or he might just be one guy who works at Kinney Shoes. Hard to say which.
-c
MW: ‘there is no magic word’ (sad, really)
You certainly can’t digitize the experience of being at a live concert. Artists should be trying to get their music out to anyone they can. The REAL profit for artists is in music publishing. Labels take almost all album/song sales and a good chunk of touring. As was the day before Elvis and will be the case in the distant future, popularity drives revenue. Elvis and the Beatles take in more now through music royalties than they ever did.
ChrissyOne the whore, ChrissyTwo the dipshit — who gives a f-ck.
I once pulled a straight iron rod clear through my anus.
I guess now that business model is changing it is no longer profitable to pay your dues at the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes Lodge.
Dupri and Jay-Z will miss them at the annual convention.
Just my $0.02
@ Chunky Butt Micro Fallacy
Wow. You must work out!
If I was a young up and coming musician with I wouldn’t put up the these companies backward thinking idea… there just trying to justify there own jobs!
I would strike a deal with Apple and sell my music direct and let Apple off set my production cost… after all the money is in the tours! That way my music would be owned by myself and in the long run that good!
I simply wouldn’t put up with there crap!
And I think the fans would support such a idea!
The industry really doesn’t need a middle man anymore if they ever did!