What is Eminem thinking

My disdain for the music industry knows no bounds. It is an antiquated beast that is now facing an uncertain future due to its own short sightedness. It's a commodity that is increasingly overpriced, overcontrolled, overproduced, and overmarketed. There are of course bright spots, bands like Nine Inch Nails and the BareNaked Ladies that “get” the future. I just assumed that Eminiem was one of these types of folks. How wrong we all are.

First off, why do I hate the music industry? The blinders that the industry wears is one reason. Rather than focusing on the facts such as the death of independant radio, the dumbing down of music to fit into tiny genres, the overproduction of music, and the formulaic nonsense that has become mainstream music, they think that all of their woes are because people download music. So rather than creating a competing service that does what the free services do, and figuring out ways to monetize it, the recording industry first tries to put the genie back in the bottle, and later decides to sue the very people who helped make them their billions of dollars in the first place.

The fact that music increases in price, despite the fact that ALL of the costs associated with producing music have decreased is another reason. You require fewer engineers, equipment is cheaper, studio space is less expensive, the physical media is at an all time low, etc etc, however CD's still cost about $16.99 for a new one.

OR I could get a DRM crippled digital download for the low low price of 9.99 (oh, but with no physical media, all of the liner notes etc gone, and only able to play it on 3 physical devices).

Now, Eminem is suing Apple because they allowed his music to be put onto iPods. Seriously. Eminem Sues Apple for Music Rights.

If the entire recording industry imploded tomorrow I wouldn't care one bit. Fortunately music would survive even if the industry didn't.

Published in
Categorised as General

By Brian Garside
