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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Making Criminals of your Customers Works

The record companies and in turn their proxy, the Recording Industry of Singapore (RIAS), thinks so anyway.

Declining record sales, higher marketing dollars needed to promote our new artistes, ROI tanking. There's got to be only one reason for all of this, it has to be those darn teenagers and their rampant piracy. I digress, lots of ranting has already been spewed on the internet already, i'm not here to say how stupid they are (that fact has already been established).

The Straits Times today reported that the police raided some people's homes, confiscated their computers and recordable media. It seems every once in a while, the fat cats have to flex a bit of muscle. Like the saying goes, kill one person and you scare a hundred more. In Singapore, this tactic is definately a proven one.

Let's see what we have had to put up with so far, copy protected cds that have problems playing on certain players, wonky DRM that hobbled where i can listen to my music, rootkits that compromised my computer... and the list goes on.

Instead of coming up with stupid and alienating ideas to further discourage sales, how about introducing some of the good ones over to Singapore. Where is my itunes music store?!! Playnow and Soundbuzz don't count, their catalogues are miniscule and its not half as slick as Apple's rendition.

You would think that in the digital age, borders would be meaningless. I mean how difficult is it to allow people in Singapore to get their music from the itunes store in the US. Its not like we don't have the bandwidth. Well, greed is more powerful than technology it seems. Nothing like wanting to line your pockets to put consumer interest on the back burner.

As consumers, the most powerful weapon in out arsenal is to vote with our dollars. Refuse to buy CDs from artistes that are published by the major recording labels. We have to get it into their thick skulls that we are the consumers here, its your job to make us happy not ours to jump through hoops to prove we are not criminals. Until they get their act together and start making the process of purchasing music simple again, i say we spit on their faces.

Indeed, do you want to be no. 11? :)

Update: Looks like some of them are getting the big idea after all, albeit in the US. Disney/ABC and Fox to my knowledge are embracing the internet finally. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061010-7946.html

Dan