In yet another stroke of being brilliantly out of touch with reality, the RIAA announced today that they would provide amnesty for users sharing files:
The RIAA’s offer would require Internet users to complete a notarized amnesty form that includes promises to delete any illegally downloaded music and not participate in illegal file-trading in the future. In exchange, the RIAA would agree not to file a potentially expensive infringement lawsuit.
I mean, good grief, who do they think is going to take them up on this besides the uber-paranoid? Yeah, those are the customers you want to cultivate. They probably only listen to the Collected Spoken Word Recordings of Oliver Stone.
In related news, Universal appears to be about to slash audio CD prices, potentially lowering retail CD prices into the $10-$12 range. Of course, it still only takes less than a buck fifty to produce the CD’s.
What we’re seeing here folks is the death of music retail. Tim Oren wrote about this [link via Scripting News]:
Remember there were once software specialty stores? For a variety of reasons, but particularly including Internet ordering and downloading as an alternate channel, those stores first consolidated, then vanished, followed by most of the broad line computer stores. Now software is smallish section at Office Depot or Best Buys, a pale shadow of the old channel. Today, the music business may have taken its first overt step down that same path.
Like we said auf wiedersehen to the Software Etc. and Egghead Software shops at the mall, it’s now time to bid au revoir to our pal Sam Goody, say sayanora to good ol’ Kemp Mill (only DC locals get that reference), and adios to aisles of music at the Barnes & Noble.
I’m not going to predict how long it will take, but I will predict that eventually music retail will consist of two channels:
1. Downloading music via the Internet onto your own computer for a per song fee.
2. Kiosks in retail locations that download (via the Internet or a private network) and burn CDs (and print cover art) on the spot.
The latter is a necessary transitional technology because many people, particularly outside the first world, still don’t have sufficient connectivity to support a robust music habit.
Once the margin dips below a certain point, record industry distributors will cease to pay the physical distribution costs (burning, printing, shipping, etc.), and retailers won’t be able to afford their own costs (rent, employees, etc.). Then we can dispense with all this physical distribution and retail infrastructure just to move digital bits around.
Of course, even with the two retail channels above, there will still continue to be a robust back-channel of consumer-to-consumer file-sharing.
Amnesty or not.
Intellectual Property
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