At the end of this video (around the 14 minute mark), Gene Simmons tells Henry Rollins that the fans, through digital piracy, are responsible for killing the music industry:
Here, legendary music executive John Kalodner blames the fans in a similar fashion in the middle of this interview, by again going after the fans for "looting" the artists:
The issue of music piracy is old hat at this point, but it points to something that should be mentioned about the evolution of the music business since the RIAA went after the college students, kids, and other casual music fans for online music piracy (which Mr. Simmons claimed didn't happen, or at least to his satisfaction.)
One of the features of an industry - any industry - that ensures its continued viability and relevance is its ability to evolve, to change with the times, tastes, and preferences of the intended audiences. The problem I have with the piracy statements issued by the two gentleman listed above (and no lack of respect intended in the slightest), is that they seem to place what I think is too much weight on what is actually a symptom of a much bigger problem for Big Music.
One cannot under-emphasize the importance of the Internet and its capabilities as a commercial and communications medium. The medium itself, combined with the exponentially growing capabilities of microprocessors, personal computing devices that have now shrunk down to the size of a watch (and smaller), and all of the cost-shifting this entailed, should have been the subject of a major clarion call even before the Internet was made available for commercial exploitation in the early 1990s. Consider what has happened with the nearly all on-line distribution afforded by outlets like iTunes:
1. There are no "manufacturing" or "pressing" costs, meaning no pressing or manufacturing plants, no employees to pay, no shippers, no truck drivers, no record stores to send the "product" (and no employees to pay there), nothing. In place of manufactured tape or pieces of plastic or vinyl, the industry's "product" is hosted on remote servers - far fewer people to pay and far less capital investment involved;
2. Promotion and marketing are affected, as the promotional materials, in the form of social media, web sites, and downloadable freebies, change the cost structure. Like above, fewer people needed to reach more potential buyers;
3. From the music consumer's perspective, it's a paradise: iTunes, Amazon, and other online music outlets are available 24/7, with all content available on demand and no physical goods to stock, thus, you "never run out". There's no need to drive or otherwise get to a physical location to get your music fix.
This list is, of course, non-conclusive. But it illustrates an important point.
Todd Rundgren (and a few others) had been warning us about this shift since the late 1980s. He envisioned a world where the record companies would be hosting the digital content on their servers, with end users dialing into these servers like the early-Internet BBS services. His vision, with a few modifications, morphed into what we now know as iTunes and the other music sights. Why, then, did the executive not see the benefits to their bottom line that online delivery could provide? Imagine - music distribution at a cost so negligible, it could be described as virtually free. What kind of communication did Big Music have with Big Tech back in the early days of the Internet? A more collaborative relationship between the two would likely have alleviated a lot of the piracy issues Big Music loves to complain about.
In this case, the biggest problem for the Big Shrinkage of Big Music over the last decade cannot be attributed to the fans, who were merely sending a market signal to Big Music about how they wanted to consume Big Music's product. The failure, in this market communication, lies with the receivers of that signal - the Big Wigs in Big Suits sitting in the Big Offices of Big Music.
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