Despite the worst efforts of the RIAA, the music industry will survive

Ian Lamont — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:33:03 -0500

The news that the Recording Industry Association of America is winding down its heavily criticized campaign to fight music piracy with end-user lawsuits shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. What is a surprise is that the music industry didn't pull the plug years ago.

The campaign was a disaster from the get-go. The idea that suing thousands of people would somehow convince millions of others to trash their P2P clients was remarkably naïve. The way that the plan was carried out -- a heavy-handed onslaught that bankrupted ordinary families and snared a dead person and other obvious innocents -- generated feelings of disgust and resentment toward the music industry, and, by extension, its artists. The RIAA's legal team, and the management of the major labels that drive its policies (the RIAA board is dominated by executives from the four largest companies -- Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, and EMI) came off looking incompetent and greedy.

More than anything, the campaign revealed that the recording industry didn't know how to handle the digital revolution. The major labels (and many smaller ones, too) couldn't let go of the old model -- one that leveraged people's love of music into sales of plastic discs.

But the RIAA's incompetence and the music industry's recalcitrance doesn't mean the music business is dying. As The Standard reported earlier this year, kids are embracing social networks and other tools to get their music fix. The iTunes/iPod juggernaut has proven how successful a digital sales model can be. However, that innovation came from Steve Jobs and other creative minds in Cupertino who recognized an opportunity -- and acted upon it. Likewise, other money-making businesses for digital music have been pioneered by the video game and mobile phone companies, who performed most of the heavy lifting in terms of R&D and bringing products to market. Ringtones, Rock Band, and other licensing deals have become a billion-dollar revenue stream for labels. Collectively, these new models will probably end up saving the music industry, despite the best efforts of its executives to drive it into the ground.

Sources cited, referenced, or consulted: blogs.wired.com, Wall Street Journal, Slashdot.org, RIAA.com.

Image: tpholland/Flickr (Creative Commons)