This Rolling Stone article looks at the many record industry mistakes which have resulted in the current dire straights (ahem) of all the major players. It’s not rocket science, after all their greed, lack of vision and short term stupidity were pretty obvious to most right thinking people five years ago (hint: any business strategy which relies on suing your customers is destined to fail spectacularly) but it’s interesting to hear them actually come out and admit that they should have done a deal with Napster instead of shutting it down. Well duh!!
This is the first part of a two-part series on the decline of the record industry. Today we’re including Brian Hiatt and Evan Serpick’s report on where the music business went wrong, from the current issue of Rolling Stone, as well as an interactive graphic illustrating the industry’s slide. Tomorrow, check back with RollingStone.com for interviews with industry leaders on the future of the music business.
The greed of the record companies has always been beyond my comprehension. Then came the age of the digital download, and they could not have handled the transition more poorly.
When the record companies did finally offered their DRM laden crap for download, it was offered at a low bitrate, sounding just a bit better than the old cassette tapes. Anything less than 320K is a rip off.
When some download music illegally, these greedy companies claim it’s the artist that’s being hurt by this. The irony is that most musicians make little to nothing from the sale of recorded music.
Yep, know what you mean.