How to fix the music industry

Lets start with some principles:

• Musicians and song-writers have a right to be paid for their work.

• Record companies have a right to try to make money from selling music but not to gouge either the customers or the artists.

• We all like free music, right?

• Cocaine is bad.

OK. So what is the problem?:

• The major record labels form a pseudo-cartel, hereafter known as a "pigopoly", which offers customers poor value and passes very little money on to the artists.

• The record industry spend too much money on unnecessary things like manufacturing bands, bribes and cocaine.

• People don't want to pay for music when it is bad value for money.

• People are so angry with the pigopoly that they think this justifies stealing music.

• Methods for preventing music theft only annoy legitimate users. They do not deter the pirates.

So what is the solution?:

• The music industry needs to dramatically reduce it's costs:
  • Try to make better records. That way they won't have to pay bribes to make media people pretend to like them.

  • Try to get more real bands. Real bands are more likely to stay together and be profitable in the long term than manufactured bands. They also write their own songs and don't need session musicians to prop them up when playing live. This all saves money.

  • No more big advances to no-hopers. The good bands can live off their royalties and the losers can get a job in McDonalds.

  • Abolish loss making products like CD singles. See format changes bellow.

  • General cost cutting. Lose the losers. Sell the plush offices.

  • If people insist on taking cocaine then they should do it on their own time and money. It is NOT part of the job!

• The music industry needs to be fair to all involved:
  • Artists to retain their copyright like book authors do.

  • No more copy protection which interferes with legitimate use.

  • Artists to receive a fair cut of the royalties.

  • Music to be sold at sensible prices and some music to be available for free.

  • Piracy prevention work to target large scale commercial pirates, not kids.

  • End the pigopoly and have genuine fair competition between large and small record labels.

  • DVDs not to be regioned.

• Reform the formats to remove loss makers and make enough music free to create a viral marketing system:
  • CD singles to be phased out. They hardly make any money. Already the record companies are making more out of ring-tones than out of singles!

  • Singles and their (medium quality) videos to be available as free downloads without DRM. File sharing of singles to be allowed so long as it is not for profit. Remember. The single/video is not the product. It is an advert for the product. The product is the album! File sharing of the album tracks to be stomped on.

  • For the benefit of those without broadband, singles would be collected onto CDs given away with music magazines and newspapers. The magazines and papers would pay a small fee for the right to do this. Magazine sales improve as a result too.

  • DVDs containing videos, live performances as well as the album itself to become a major format. People will pay more for this because they are getting more for their money.

  • File sharing networks and music download sites to be monitored to produce a replacement for the singles chart.

OK. That is a lot of suggestions but the ideas behind them are simple. By cutting costs music can be sold cheaper. The cost of failed bands does not hit the record companies so hard as they are not spending so much on them in the first place.

Singles cease to be products and become instruments of viral marketing for the albums and DVDs. Viral marketing of singles is cheap, efficient and popular. We all like free stuff, right?

So are there any downsides? Yes.

• The pigopoly does not want to dissolve itself and submit to fair competition. It will have to be forced in some way.

• Making singles free pretty much destroys the market for compilation albums.

• Piracy will still be a problem, even if the pirates profit margins are reduced.

• Giving up cocaine is hard. Rehab will have to be ready for an influx.

Last updated: 03/12/2003