Tuesday 9 September 2008

Music Industry Needs To Change

I am well aware of the importance of copyright laws. Without them it would be very hard for anybody in the arts or entertainment to make some money and maintain personal control over their works. Nothing upsets me more than when I see one of my blog posts copied onto some spammers blog.

But really the music industry needs to start thinking about how it makes money. Pursuing a mother for a short video of her baby dancing to poor quality (sound not substance!) Prince music is not a sensible marketing strategy nor sound business sense.

Despite the success of iTunes the music industry still operates as if the internet never happened. Burying their head in the sand is not going to make the fact that it is now stupidly simple to share music illegally go away. Nor is it going to change the new social media websites that have sprung up allowing video and music to be used for all sorts of purposes.

The music industry has to adapt rather than fight. It needs to be intelligent about how it makes money and come up with new ideas. I know that the music industry is trying to make more money out of live events, which is a good step in the right direction. But they need to do more.

But alas I suspect they shall continue to persecute the innocent, the stupid and the lazy rather than get off their arses and evolve.

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