Trying to sort through what my night at the Grammys means.
The ratings for the Grammys were way down this year.
The industry itself blames illegal downloading, but I like this entry at Mashable.
One important thing here that the entertainment industry doesn’t understand, is how piracy works. Piracy works very, very well. The albums and videos and movies come quickly; they’re thoroughly checked by the community, they’re well organized, they have standards of quality, and they’re free. To beat that, you need to offer content that’s just as fast, just as good, just as organized, and then give something extra to compensate for the “free” part: higher quality bitrates, extra digital content, extra physical content (shirts, concert tickets, coupons). You can’t miss out any of these elements because your content will ultimately be worse than the stuff on Mininova or The Pirate Bay.
The recording industry has only been a powerhouse for the last 60ish years. That’s it. It doesn’t have an inherent right to exist and make money. It needs to change and give people what they want.
The rise of illegal downloading also coincides with the rise of the Clear Channeling of American radio. There is no variety in what we hear on free airwaves anymore. Just more of the same old crap, repackaged for our neat consumption.
But people don;t want neat and orderly, they want cool and creative. I think of free downloading as akin to what local radio play used to be — a way for people to discover new and untested music. They sample a wide variety and become loyal to the stuff that strikes their fancy.
The Grammys, corporate radio, and the recording industry are living in a world where they can still control things from the top down. This is not the case anymore.
It’s a bottom up world now, remove the gatekeepers and give us what we want.
5 Comments
February 11, 2008 at 6:25 pm
“…been spending most the night texting in a Grammy’s paradise…”
February 11, 2008 at 8:53 pm
“It’s a bottom up world now…,” you wrote. Absolufrickin’lutley. We’re seeing that in all entertainment now — and we’re seeing how industries are handling (and mishandling) it.
I’m a “giving it away is okay” content creator who watches the publishing biz. In the past week, a flurry of mainstream publishers announced that they’ll soon give away free e-books of big titles. The rub: In some cases, you can’t download the book (viewable on website only), or print the book. That strategy is insulting to users, and showcases the deathgrip control companies want to maintain over content.
The irony, of course: the text and audiobook versions of those works are already freely available via torrents. The content is already in the wild. There’s no sense in handcuffing an interested audience with DRM and the like. Why not embrace the sea change and ride the wave?
Excellent post, Kent. Keep up the great work.
February 11, 2008 at 11:18 pm
amen.
February 13, 2008 at 8:28 am
Yep
Exactly.
February 22, 2008 at 6:37 am
yup. How come bittorrent nerds in Scandinavia figure out 700mb is the most efficient size for a movie file and not the film distributors? (fitting nicely on a single blank cd if you want to burn).
Just like mp3, the reality is, that the average user would rather have flexibility, speed, low cost than Hi Fidelity. 80% is good enough.
On pricing. An album doesn’t cost 12 dollars. that’s a price point created and maintained by the industry regardless of their production costs going down. (with cds and downloads)
The price of music (or anything) is only what someone will pay for it. It looks like free is a popular price.