Music and Software

Music. This is a whole new can of worms. The music industry is killing itself. MTV, VH1, Top 40 radio stations all take big bucks to run. They all require big bucks to play your songs. This means that if you want to sell records you need money. This means you have to sell millions just to recoup your capital. Not a good business model. Artists such as TLC who are repeatedly in the Top 40 can count on going Platinum multiple time with each release so why do they go bankrupt. They spend way too much. Not just the artists but the labels as well. If you only put 10k-40k into an album you can turn a really good profit even if you only sell 50k albums. This can be done. People do it all the time but no one wants to give it air play if you aren't wiling to pay them. So now we have a music industry spending millions just to get us to pay them millions but they do this by releasing safe artists. Artists who have their songs written and recorded for them, lip sync their concerts, and release albums that are generally good for only one or two songs. WNow you increase the price of a CD to $18 and up. Well who would have imagined that people would start looking to steal the stuff. The answer it seems for some companies was to add security measures to CDs, some of which were illegal, but that is another blog. When you offer an inferior product, charge more money, and treat customers with dwindling respect it should come as no surprise when they look for alternate ways to get your product. It is almost like a music prohibition period.

Software is by far the most interesting when it comes to piracy. Downloading applications is definitely wrong and much like digital entertainment only benefits the copyright violator. Lets face it, we all pay extra to make up for what people steal. Like I said if it is worth stealing it is worth buying. You hate Microsoft. We all do. I run Windows on my PC(a legal copy BTW). If you hate them I'll bet it is because you use their products. So pay them. You aren't sticking it to them buy stealing, you are just raising the prices for the rest of us and I hope you get caught. There is a major twist when it comes to authoring software. I would argue that the distribution or illegal downloading of this type of software helps certain industries. As you know I am a big fan of Adobe(Macromedia) Flash. I do have a legal copy. I didn't learn on one though even though they make a 30 day trial available free. I frequent a lot of Flash sites whose forums are full of skilled and knowledgeable Flash amateurs and enthusiasts. Most of them are young. As low as 12 but I'll bet most of them are between 16 and 30. I am gonna go out on a limb here and bet that most of these guys didn't go out and plunk down $999 for a full legal copy. The Flash player now ships installed on all Windows PCs and Macromedia claims that 98% of desktop computers worldwide can view Flash media over the net. That is pretty amazing. I am positive that getting Flash into the hands of these enthusiasts helped move the software along in a major way. There are amateur Flash cartoon and game sites up all over. This gets the software in the hands of those who will someday make money with it. When they want to do this they buy a copy. This helps Macromedia stay in business and helps spread the gospel of Flash. To reiterate, free distribution of software is, for the most part bad. But when it is authoring software it can have a positive outcome. I should note that most companies do offer free or greatly reduced (around 70%) educational versions of their software. Alias, Macromedia, Autodesk(3ds Max), and Adobe offer either learning versions or free trials.

One more post on this subject still to come. You will find out what I downloaded. I think.