Business Insight Zone

I’ve held off from commenting on the asinine litigation strategy of the RIAA. Sure, protect your intellectual property, but . . . can’t you figure out a way to do it that doesn’t alienate and embitter your customer base while also losing you money? Cue this Ars Technica story by Eric Bangeman:

RIAA anti-P2P campaign a real money pit, according to testimony

… One of the biggest bombshells from the cross-examination was Pariser’s admission that the RIAA’s legal campaign isn’t making the labels any money, and that, furthermore, the industry has no idea of the actual damages it suffers due to file-sharing.

So, let’s be clear: this strategy loses you money. It’s punitive against music consumers. It’s obviously ineffective as a means of checking pirated music downloads. It fails to address the fundamentally shifted realities of the digital music world. Does that about sum it up?

No wonder Radiohead’s going it alone.*

Earth to the RIAA: Why not wise up and switch to an approach that’s constructive?

~

* Mind you that Bob Lefsetz has a mouth on him, so there’s R-rated language at that link. But his analysis is sound.

One more note: Bangeman must be having a fun time — or else grinding his teeth to powder — in covering the RIAA trial. Witness this:

Sony BMG’s chief anti-piracy lawyer: “Copying” music you own is “stealing”

Again, let me just sigh at the cluelessness of the big labels.

By no means am I advocating actual theft, but there is a sea change underway in the music industry, and these labels seem dead-set on doing the impossible by keeping it from happening. (Lefsetz is a great source for chronicling and analyzing this sea change as it unfolds.) They’d be much better served to figure out how to profit from the conditions that prevail in today’s world of ubiquitous digital technology.