“Million-Dollar Playlist”
(or, if you prefer, ‘what have you done for me since 1954?’ - a random pagemonkey rant)

Jammie Thomas has sinned and must be punished, but the really irksome thing about this whole mess is that the only people who have received any relief from the proceedings so far is the team of lawyers working for the good old RIAA.

For them, and their lawyers, Gentle Reader, I have no love whatsoever. That’s because they haven’t done anything to make my world better since 1954, when RIAA engineers set forth a standard curve allowing the best frequency response and fidelity to be acheived from vinyl records.

There is no doubt that record labels and the RIAA will continue to wail and moan about limp sales and waning profits, and sales are indeed limp and profits do indeed wane, but I’d like to take a moment and point out that this sad situation is not completely due to piracy, as the RIAA and record labels would have you believe.

Part of the problem is that their business model doesn’t accomodate technology or fans.

I’m olde enough to remember when buying an album was an event. I won’t even try to guess how many fine evenings my friends and I enjoyed when I was a teenager, holing up together clustered around a reasonably good stereo. One of us would carefully slit the plastic film of a brand-new album, gently dust it, and place it on the turntable. As the music bathed us, we would take turns looking at the goodies which came with the album - posters, lyrics, photos, musician’s biographies. It was a rich experience, one that had Verve (he he) and one which felt that much better when shared with buddies.

That “user experience” is gone, long gone. I won’t get into the debate of which sounds better at this point. Compact discs are certainly more convenient, but there is less engagement in coaxing the music off them; drop it in, hit a button on the remote. Then turn on the big screen and mute the audio. About 19 out of 20 compact discs I’ve purchased in my life totally lack all the niceties - the “musical condiments,” if you will. They don’t come with fun stuff anymore - there is nothing for my eyes to enjoy while my ears chew on the tunes.

Sometimes, I get lucky and discover that once I’ve pryed out the inside cover, there are a few sheets with a few words on them and maybe some Barbie’s Playhouse-sized photos. All I have to do is power up the 1,000 watt halogen worklight, dust off the magnifying glass, and I’m in album-trivia heaven for a few minutes.

I will mention as a contrast the 12 3/16″ size of vinyl packaging, most examples of which could comfortably be read by the gentle glow of a lava lamp and sometimes took as long to browse as the music on the album took to play.

And let’s not forget some of that sweet old album art which looked one way in regular light and a whole ‘nother way under blacklight…

…whew! Felt a flashback coming on there for a moment, but I’m okay. Did I just see a flying pig? Is there anybody out there?

Anyway, back on track for a moment.

In my opinion, sales and profit were doomed from the day that record labels adopted the jewel case format for distribution. Instead of the traditional user experience, we now have something more appealing to stamp collectors than album collectors.

That the user experience is the same whether you have the original media and packaging or not is merely one reason why many people simply pirate tracks and skip the purchase exercise altogether. Ironically, DVDs - a media which doesn’t need ancillary visual support for richness - are packaged in a size which would allow at least some of the old-timey goodies.

Another reason is cost. Vinyl albums, in their heyday, typically cost a record label about $3 a slug to press and package. Mass-produced compact discs literally cost pennies to make, including the packaging. Most discs are made not by the record label itself but by a factory working under contract, using a completely automated process.

This reduced cost has yet to be passed on to the consumer, nor does it show up as increased revenue for the artists. Most of the money you spend on a new disc is divvied up between folks on the top floor - the executives, the stockholders, and the lawyers, none of whom had a damn thing to do with quality of the product.

Yet another reason can be found lurking in the channel lineup of your cable or satellite provider. All those genre-specific music channels which come with basic cable are a definite detriment to music sales and it is my understanding that the licensing and royalties situation is ludicrous from a profit perspective.

I have a particular bone to pick with music delivered this way, because it has done a very good job of nearly killing FM radio; there are virtually no indy FM stations left because they simply cannot compete. For them, it’s a two-front war: companies like ClearChannel kill them in the advertising realm, and Music Choice kills them in the convenience realm.

But probably the most important reason the industry is losing its ass is the sheer folly of the its hostile attitude regarding electronic distribution. It’s like they missed the whole lesson back in 1954 - until the RIAA developed a standard for vinyl albums, the quality was hit-and-miss and sales were limited; once the standard was enacted, sales boomed because all albums sounded good and weren’t specific to a certain playback machine.

Rather than embrace the technology which allows someone to download music and play it with reasonable quality, the industry has treated this technology like the proverbial red-haired stepchild: Don’t mention its name, don’t help it grow, and beat it whenever the mood strikes.

There are a plethora of legitimate MP3 download sites, but the industry has yet to come up with standard which allows a customer to purchase a cd-quality image for download and burning on their home computer. Such a product could be competitively priced with in-store items and still do well, marketed correctly. Merely stressing the convenience and environmental friendliness of doing so would generate a lot of sales.

Clearly, the $1,920,000 verdict against Jammie Thomas was intended to send a message to pirates: Don’t even think about sharing music.

Unfortunately, it also sends a negative message to music fans: We’re too busy making examples out of small-timers to really address the big-time piracy issues in Russia, Europe, China, and Mexico, and frankly, we really don’t give a shit what you fanboys think.

~ pagemonkey