Sony Forces The Offspring To Back Down On Music Downloads
from the bad-corporations dept
Well, this one is just upsetting. After praising the Offspring for their decision to release their music as MP3s prior to the actual album release, they have now been pressured into not doing so by Sony. This is just stupid. Here was a great chance for the record industry to see how offering songs for free downloads could improve record sales. I think the music industry simply does not think about this at all. They just react and assume that anything different must be bad. If Sony had done the smart thing and supported this (or even encouraged it), and saw how well it worked (or didn’t work, for that matter) they would have gained the respect of a lot of people. Instead, they’ve shown (again) how short sighted they really are.
Comments on “Sony Forces The Offspring To Back Down On Music Downloads”
Bad artist, bad!
If Sony doesn’t understand that two hours after this album hits the store shelves it’ll be on Napster and GnutellaNet then they’re more blind to the dire straits they’re in than anyone could have imagined.
I don’t believe this is about them preventing file sharing. This move can only be about keeping the artist in their place and preventing a precedent of circumvention by those who create the works.
The Offspring had a good idea but I suspect it will only be fully realised either by an artist large enough to be able to dump their old-school distributor entirely and go it on their own or by a minor label with some cajones (Alternative Tentacles, Epitath are you listening?)
Re: Bad artist, bad!
I smell money, who wants to set up an independent record label that will allow large artists to market themselves and retain the majority of their profits? 😉
Re: Re: Bad artist, bad!
Actually, I’ve been looking at two very cool ideas that may help artists (including musicians) come up with a better system. Idealive and OpenCulture.org. Both are based on the idea of getting people to put money upfront to support artists who will then release their work. It’s a great idea. I don’t fully understand the differences between the two ideas (though the guy from OpenCulture has been trying to explain it to me.
Re: Re: Re: Bad artist, bad!
After briefly looking at the Idealive site, I think the glaring difference is that *anyone* can contribute to OpenCulture, but you need to be a HNW indiviual (as defined by the SEC) to become part of Idealive! That’s probably the reason why I’d heard of OpenCulture but not Idealive…