niks blog

I am an ardent supporter of antics that repel the insurgency of the RIAA. The RIAA proclaims to protect the interests of its members and artists from the effects of music piracy. I admit that music piracy is a disease that needs to be dealt with, however, I challenge the RIAA’s approach since it has done nothing but promote the growth of music piracy. In my opinion, unlike the pirates of the Caribbean, you cannot simply ‘attack’ music pirates and expect to win. Music pirates are not as clearly organized as pirates and virtually everyone around the world can be considered a music ‘pirate’ if you aren’t careful.

You can’t stop piracy

I know that many people know this already, but what I can’t seem to understand is why people will NOT admit it. The fact is that there is no way to stop music piracy. There is no need to do a case study on this matter, simply look at historical events in the past ten years:

• Napster was shut down and Kazaa came to the scene, offering much more than just music
• After Kazaa, there came BitTorrent and Suprnova
• After Suprnova came Mininova and PirateBay
• After PirateBay, BTjunkie and others are gaining prominence

Obviously, I left out quite a few websites/software that filled the void, but the overall image is quite apparent. The more the RIAA worked to shut down these illegal operations, other more evasive operations came online and blossomed. In the aftermath of Pirate Bay’s own demise, other BitTorrent websites and search engines are flourishing with activity.

Late in 2009, the RIAA suspended its ill-advised practice of suing individual file-sharers since the lawsuits only brought more sympathy to individuals than the actual plaintiffs. And I think the RIAA learned, to a certain extent, that suing pirates or going after a ‘pirate crew’ isn’t necessarily going to curb piracy. The fact is that music pirates are virtually everywhere and by definition, anyone who listens to music on a medium that they do not own or ‘unauthorized’ to listen to are pirates.

Ok, so let’s assume I’m a bit drastic in my conclusion. Why is the RIAA not investigating what the end consumer demands from the product? And this is where things become quite interesting.

Do you really know what you want?

The RIAA actions seem to suggest that they know the best balance between what the consumer expects and wants versus what makes good business sense. Needless to say, the RIAA is a strong supporter of media rights management aka DRM (digital rights management). However, DRM has always failed to properly empower the end consumer to really utilize the content in a manner they see fit. And some of that stems from our false expectations.

End customers want the same ability and freedom they have had with music CD’s for years. For instance, if I bought a CD, I could let my friend borrow the CD for a few days so that he/she can listen to the album. Can I do that with my rights managed digital music downloads? Of course not!

If the end customer feels that they are restricted, the initial reaction will always be to find a way around the obstacle. And the way around is to download the “illegal” version of the music and have the freedom to do what you please. And that is what we all want.

We all want the ability to do whatever we like with the music we purchase. And that’s now how the RIAA sees the issue.

The RIAA believes that when you ‘purchase’ music, you are, in fact, purchasing a license to listen to the music and are implicitly agreeing to the terms laid out by the music label. Such a move mirrors that of many software publishing companies.

Take a look at Microsoft. They do NOT sell you Windows. They sell you a LICENSE to use Windows on a machine that YOU own. If you have more than one machine, you need to purchase additional licenses because each license allows you to install Windows on only ONE machine. That is how Microsoft manages the rights of their intellectual property on your machine.

And the RIAA along with its members want to take a similar approach with the content that they control.

There is a solution

Believe it or not, there is a solution. The RIAA and its members need to evolve in their approach to making money. Information rights management is not the solution to the problem. And the RIAA also needs to understand that online music piracy is NOT as bad as they say it is. Many artists, such as Radiohead, also agree that music piracy is not destroying the RIAA members’ revenue.

I think it’s time that music labels started to fully embrace technology and the social (r)evolution taking place. Rather than discouraging users, the RIAA and its members should focus on empowering users to discover new music and engage in innovative ways to continue the social evolution. It’s not an easy concept to understand, but I strongly believe that by changing the business model, many music labels will find that they will have far more reach in terms of customers and artists will regain a lost inspiration that continues to elude them.