Blair Space: Music piracy, why the RIAA will fail

This article was published on Blair Space at:
http://music.blairspace.com/features/131.html

Music piracy, why the RIAA will fail

The RIAA are continuing their efforts to stop illegal music trading. Guess what though – it isn’t going to work. And the sooner they learn that, the sooner they can stop losing so much money.

Microsoft recently announced that it was going to make Windows cheaper by allowing people to buy the cheaper OEM version (which used to come only with new computers) with any piece of hardware. So say if you got a new hard drive you could get a legal copy of Windows cheaper.

Why? Because they know that they can’t really stop piracy. It has always existed, people have been recording music off the radio, etc since before the internet was anywhere near peoples homes. It’s simply more prevalent now.

What Microsoft finally understands is what they really need to do is compete with piracy and it’s what the RIAA need to realise now. People would rather have a legal copy than an illegal copy. But $1 a song is not a price structure that is going to compete with $0 a song.

Once they accept it as competition, they can stop worrying about how money they are losing and start working out how to get it back. Use the internet music trading to your advantage.

For example, I have American Popular’s debut album, Sold Out (The American Way). I had to get it imported from America as they don’t sell it in the UK. So how did I hear about them? One of their songs appeared on my Launch Cast player. A sale was generated by music being made freely available on the internet.

What the RIAA need is a new approach to music piracy. They need to accept that file sharing is going to happen on the internet and start thinking up strategies to complete with it rather than just ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away with a few lawsuits.