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| From | Michael Coxe <audities@gmail.com> |
| Subject | Dumbest Record Industry Action of the Week |
| Date | Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:26:13 -0800 |
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http://techdirt.com/articles/20080109/032038.shtml
Sometimes You Wonder If The Recording Industry Is Purposely Destroying
Itself
from the no-more-pandora-in-the-UK dept
Back in May, we noted that the recording industry, in a
shooting-itself-in-the-foot method, was demanding that music discovery
site Pandora block all non-US listeners, over an argument concerning the
exact licensing terms of the music that Pandora streams. The recording
industry has been demanding that Pandora sign separate licensing
agreements in every country, or it must block them. Now, for anyone who
has actually used Pandora, it takes all of about three seconds to
recognize that it's the type of service that should be the recording
industry's best friend. You put in songs, musicians or even styles of
music that you like, and Pandora finds you new music that it plays in a
stream, like a personalized radio station. Pandora makes it incredibly
easy to both discover and buy new music. If I worked for a record label,
I'd be running around the world heavily promoting Pandora, and working
with it to promote new artists. Yet, instead, in true RIAA fashion, it's
demanding a tithe instead. While Pandora has been blocked in many
countries since back in July, it kept going in the UK, believing that it
would work out a reasonable solution there. Apparently not. As countless
UK-based Pandora fans have been submitting over and over again, Pandora
is now shutting off access to UK listeners. What does this accomplish?
As far as I can tell, all it does is take away a wonderful music
discovery service that helped push people to actually buy music. Only in
the minds of recording industry execs would a company doing free
advertising for you be seen as something that needs to be shut down.
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