Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

Free music, that's the future

Youtube is filled with music videos -- some official, some uploaded by fans.

Virtually all of these videos come with ads and all of those ads generate revenues for Google which it then shares with the owners of the music content involved. So far that has amounted to payments of over a billion dollars.

Now a billion dollars is a *lot* of money.

That's a million dollars each for a thousand content owners.

How could anyone grizzle about that sort of money coming their way for what is effectively no extra effort on their part?

Ah well, when it comes to grizzling about the power and utility of the internet, the music industry is a hardened professional and an expert.

So, despite this massive chunk of money being thrown at the recording industry as a result of their vids appearing on YouTube, these folk are still grumpy.

Now they're bitching that YouTube should be doing more to stop folk from downloading those videos -- thus effectively depriving them of revenues from subsequent views.

I guess that if they realised how ad-blocking software worked they'd also be whining about that too.

Is this just greed or is it a fair and reasonable complaint?

Does the music industry remember the days when music videos were freely given to broadcasters as a way of promoting an artist and their work?

Back in those days, every man and his dog would record those videos on their VCR and even strip out the audio and dump it onto tape or burn a CD from it -- yet the industry has survived and there are still plenty of gansta rappers driving gilded Bentley limos and having diamonds implanted in their teeth.

In fact, every time a bit of technology comes along which threatens to empower consumers to copy their product, the recording industry throws up its hands and screams "woe are we... the end is nigh, we're doomed -- unless someone changes the law".

Sorry guys -- you've cried wolf far too often to be taken seriously.

If these dim-bulbs had half a brain between them they'd wake up to the fact that "the music is free" and there's not much they can do to change that.

A smart businessman would use the widespread downloading and copying of their product to create a new business model which leveraged that massive, 100% free distribution channel to their advantage.

In the case of music vids -- get right into product-placement. Charge the Coca Cola, Starbucks, Burger-King, Adidas and other big-brand companies a small fortune for prominent placement in those videos then set them free online.

Many recording artists already make more from endorsements than they do from their music -- so why not just accept this and consider the music to be a promotional channel to boost the musician's celeb-status so they can command greater fees for those endorsements?

I'm picking that within a decade or so, the concept of actually *paying* for music or music vids will be just a memory.

Instead of trying to nail jelly to a tree, in the way the music industry is with its attempt to stem the copying and download of its wares, let the folks share the jelly for free -- and make a fortune selling damp cloths so they can clean themselves up afterwards!

Please visit the sponsor!

(Sorry, forums are stuffed at present)

PERMALINK to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font