Stephen Fry's Thoughts on Digital Piracy

At the iTunes festival in the UK last month, author/actor/comedian Stephen Fry took the stage. While many in the audience were probably prepared to be amused, instead Fry spoke passionately about the conflict and the questionable tactics of organizations like the RIAA to vilify individuals who download songs illegally. In short, Fry calls for common sense to prevail, painting a picture of the history of shared communication/information as the basis for the belief that piracy today does not negatively affect sales to the extent record companies would have you believe, and that alienating the biggest fans of music isn't good business.

It seems to me, a subscription service, or free ad-supported service is the only long-term solution to satisfy the studios and our appetite for music. Yet subscription services just aren't catching on...

You can listen below. (Caution, occasional NSFW language.)

How the Music Industry Just Killed Itself. Again.

Yes, iTunes changed its pricing on April 7th, and no, no one's very happy about it. Now as other music retailers like Amazon have followed suit, it's becoming clear(er) that the labels are behind this latest pricing change.

Music is their product, and they are free to price it as they wish. Consumers are then also free to weigh whether a 30% increase in a product's price is worth it, or whether their time is better spent searching for the song by other means.

Ironically though, it seems like having tiered pricing may have created a new headache, especially for the artists. Billboard has done some preliminary research, and it looks like in general, tracks on the top 100 chart priced at $1.29 have fallen in rank, while a majority of $.99 tracks have moved up. 

What does it tell us? It means beyond musical sensibility, beyond the art behind the music, consumers are looking at the cold hard cost of buying a track. No artist should have to wonder whether it was a lack of public interest, or the pricing decision of the record label that led a track to fail or succeed. Just look at the app store to see how the price of apps has been driven lower, potentially at the cost of losing quality apps at a higher price point.

The industry has created a slippery slope, in which in six months time, we could see the charts dominated by those (now rare) $.69 cent tracks. When getting to #1 is more about the price of the track than the viability of the music, the industry loses. The end game is free tracks, and while that will be great for consumers, the record label execs can start packing their boxes now.