screwing your customers just makes sense

I thought this was an interesting little article about the present state of the music industry and where it’s heading.

In summary, the big labels know that people paying $30/album and $2/track for recorded music is not going to last forever, and have plans in place to deal with that eventuality. Those plans seem to mostly revolve around artists being beholden to the labels not only in terms of copyright in their recordings, but every other aspect of their professional lives too – performance, endorsements, mandatory blood donations, sexual services and so forth.

The really warm and fuzzy part, though, is that they are well aware that they are completely pissing off most of their current users by employing super-aggressive litigation tactics and generally behaving like dickheads.  But the thing is, you see, that

spreadsheets and financial models dictate that suing customers and partners just makes too much sense

I’ve written about the music industry’s war on its customers before. This kind of frank acknowledgement is exactly the kind of “fuck you” that reminds us that these aren’t just bumbling incompetents with no clue what they’re doing, naively floundering in a high tech future they were never ready for – they are ruthless pirhanas determined to cheat, scratch and claw their way to every cent they can get their filthy hands on.  Like a good political organisation, they are able to cover their pure cynicism with a helpful layer of feigned cluelessness.

Even at this very moment they are doing their best to brutally aurally violate Australians even further by charging outrageous amounts for the honour of having terrible music blasted in gyms (one of the many reasons I don’t go to the things).  Apparently $4.54/month PER GYM MEMBER is totally reasonable in exchange for having a shit Rogue Traders song which flagrantly rips off Elvis Costello blasted into your ears while you extreem-yogacize (aside: more on jerks who rip off Elvis Costello’s Pump It Up here).

However, there is an answer.  For you see, at present, we are all filthy, filthy collaborators.  Every artist who signs for a major label; every consumer who pays a cent of money to these people so that they can continue to molest us.  We are, quite literally, funding frivolous lawsuits against ourselves by buying products from major labels.

So, here’s my random five point plan:

• stop buying music if any of your money will go to a major label;
• do support artists like Nine Inch Nails who have chosen to go label free by offering free downloads combined with optional non-free stuff which is actually good and worth owning;
• do support independent labels who do not demonise you in exchange for your custom;
• do go to as much reasonably-priced live music as possible; and
• start paying attention in a political context to the terrible, regressive amendments which are slipped into our copyright laws year after year to enforce these dying monopolies – politicians should care more about what the general public wants than a select group of corporations, yet those corporations have almost 100% of the influence when it comes to lawmaking in this area.

And for $5 per gym member per month, it would be well worth it for most gyms with a few hundred members to hire their own musicians.  You know, real music, performed by humans with talent.  There is certainly no shortage of underemployed musicians going around…