Emmy Advanced Media – Television Business News: Who Are The Real Pirates? Shelly Palmer has an insightful post out about who the real pirates are with regards to digital music and makes the point that selling you the same content over and over and over again might not be the best approach. If Big Media has their way, you’ll pay for the iTunes download, then you’ll pay again for the ringtone, then you pay for an image of the artist to use as wallpaper, then you pay for the DVD, then maybe the CD when your download file from Apple won’t work on your windows device, then the VOD of the concert, etc. etc. You get the idea.
“How many times will you buy the same master file? That question is being answered every day on P2P networks, via email and podcasts. Obviously, some consumers are willing to pay for the convenience of not having to bother converting their own files to be used in all of their devices. But there are far more consumers who would rather not pay for the same thing over and over again. Is there a middle ground? I doubt it…”
What the media companies need to understand is that for years and years they gouged us over and over again. And now they are still trying to gouge us and at a certain point the anomosity that they have deservedly heaped upon themselves turns into outright hatred. So when the RIAA sues their customers, pouring even more gasoline on the fire, it’s amazing that they cry foul when people shun them altogether and pursue the free and illegal routes.
Now that consumers are empowered with the tools to bypass them they expect us to have some kind of moral imperative to “save the artist” that they also have been screwing over for the past 20 years.
You got away with reselling me my music once when I had to convert from LPs to CDS, you won’t get away with it again. Sorry Hollywood, payback’s a bitch.