Home
About
Apple
Career
Experiences
General
Graphics
Hardware
History
Humor
Interface
Networking
OS
Opinion
Politics
Programming
Quotes
Reviews
Security
Software
Sound
Thought
Web
Cheap International
Airfare Online
Wachovia online banking
Get Free Coupons Online
Finding the perfect
discount hot tub
Payday Loans
Stock Trading Online
Stuffed Animals
Smart Investing Online
|
|
Music Industry Lawsuits
Napster, Piracy and anachronisms
By: David K. Every
|
Kind:
Created:
Size: |
Article
2002-03-12 06:38:46
4 KB |
|
|
 |
 apster is a company, that created a product that works like a phone directory - it lets people find information they want on the Internet, and in this case the information is music files (known as MP3's).
Before Napster and MP3 -- if you wanted to listen to a song you had to either have to wait for it to be played on the radio, or go buy the CD. You couldn't really find and listen to the music without buying it -- and the only real way you can buy it was through distribution channels which are controlled by the Record Companies. Very few artists can break in to music because they can't get their music distributed, at least not without signing their lives and livelihood over to the Record Companies. These inconveniences are known in monopoly law (anti-trust) as a "barrier to entry". The Record are the middle men in this syndicate of "protection", and they take their cut from both sides. This is great for the music industry and distributors - but not so great for the artists or consumers.
The record companies do some good. Consumers do get some choice in music -- as long as it is deemed worthy by record executives. Artists (and industry) do deserve profits from the intellectual property rights they own. The music monopoly means that most music you hear is "taxed", and that the few musicians accepted by the record companies get paid a very small fraction of the revenue that they've created, which can still be huge sums of money. But at what cost?
Of course like other monopolies, the record companies charge exorbitant markups, keeping most of the juicy profits for themselves. Remember when CD's came out and we were told the only reason we were paying $10 - $20 for a disc was because of "cutting edge" manufacturing costs? It now costs pennies per disc to manufacture, music is far more widely distributed (meaning costs are deferred over larger markets), and they've lowered the costs of distribution - yet they've only increased the end costs of music. They've also reduced the choices we would have had in music, and through payola and other means, force-fed the masses on only certain songs and certain genre's.
The facts are that the cost of music is probably 100 or a 1,000 times higher than it needs to be, because the record companies (as a group) have control, and they artificially set the rules and tell us what we'll pay.
Along comes a digital format to hold music on a computer (MP3), a network to distribute that music around (Internet), and a College kids program (Napster) to help you find the music you want. So what do you need the music monopoly for? The answer is very little.
The Music Monopoly, er, record industry understands this perfectly. Those in power, don't usually give up power without a fight. Record companies are using their power to make new and bad laws (paying off politicians, lobbyists and legislators), to protect their power, sacrificing the rights of everyone else to do it. Even the intellectual property laws have changed to give less power to the artists, and more to the record companies. In the same way that a syndicate offers protection to a community, the record companies are using the excuse of protecting the artists, to force bad legislation and then suing anyone vaguely related to music (MP3.com, Napster, and so on) in order to keep the barrier to entry as high as possible, protect their monopoly, and keep everyone paying their music tax.
The good part is that you cannot stop the tide of progress -- at worst, the record companies are going to slow it down a little. The cost of information distribution is a minute fraction of what it used to be, and it is now in the hands of the masses (consumers and would-be artists). Like it or not, we are going to create cheaper ways to get our information (including music), and the monopoly will be broken. There will be more music, more artists, cheaper costs, and new channels of distribution - it is just a matter of time. 
 Format for Printing  Mail
|
|
|
|
