Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
They're putting themselves out of business by fucking the consumer dry. Just because people will continually buy what you sell does not mean you can forever inflate prices while simultaneously degraded product quality. The industry is getting exactly what it deserves.
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Yes, and free downloading is helping them stay in business.
I'm not trying to defend the current structure of the music industry. There's lots of inefficiency, bullshit middlemen, and exploited artists. There's plenty of collusion that jacks up prices. And there's lots of shitty music.
Well there's solutions to all of those that don't involve stealing:
1) Don't buy shitty music. An efficient industry isn't necessarily going to turn out good music at a higher rate than the current one. What will turn out good music is money flowing into artists that people like to listen to. You have to give them a way to sell there music so they can eat. Even Mozart got paid.
2) Attack the anticompetitive practices, which has been done (incidentally, the FTC issued a decision on some brazen price fixing of three tenors cds today).
3) Provide a more efficient distribution mechanism. Apple's music store, and buymusic and all of the other online sellers will revolutionize the way music is created, distributed, and sold. It has the potential to eliminate all the A&R guys, all the bullshit and whatnot. Any indy artist records some tracks, gets apple to allow previews, and sell it.
Downloading illegally advances none of this.
