The Music Biz

Gilliard covers iTunes vs. Paleolithic Record Companies.

I don't get why record companies would go after iTunes.
I mean I understand the impulse....they want everything to stay the way it was in the 80's, when digital technology was their friend and everyone was re-buying music they already owned at twice the price of a vinyl LP.

Halcyon days, to be sure.
Pools filled with champagne, gold dust snorted off the asses of former prom queens, slave wages for the majority of artists and massive profits for the corporate overlords.
What executive wouldn't want that to go on forever?

Well, head's up bean counters.
The Golden Age of corporate plutocracy is over, the time of the 15 year old who won't blow $19 on a shitty album when they can download the only decent track for free is upon you.

99 cents a track is the ceiling of what people are willing to pay for musical crippleware when they can get the same music with no strings attached for free.
Or, for those desirous of a legal fig leaf, from Russian purveyor allofmp3 for five cents a track .

I'm not sure how the music biz is going to shake out in the long run, but I do know the days of music executives supping on lark's tongue salad and swilling Aqua Vitae while music consumers labor in the vinyards under the melting sun is as dead as Jacob Marley.

They need to find common ground between their own Olympian pricing dreams and the reality of a generation of music consumers who view downloading as an inalienable right.