Recording Industry Finally Willing To Admit That File Sharers Are Big Music Fans

from the took-'em-long-enough dept

Wed, Oct 18th 2006 7:33pm — Mike Masnick

Since Napster first hit the scene in about 1999 just about everyone outside of the record labels immediately realized that it was a great place to market to music fans. After all, music's biggest fans would all be found there. However, for the past seven years, the recording industry has tried to deny this. While they may have known it, and even used the data from file sharing networks as market research, they continued to insist that actually using file sharing networks for marketing purposes would somehow "legitimize" file sharing. What they missed, by a long, long, long way, however, was that ignoring file sharing (or suing it!) doesn't make it go away. So it's almost funny to see the Wall Street Journal with an article about how record labels are finally admitting that file sharing is a way to market to the biggest music fans (found via Broadband Reports). While it's laughable that it would take the industry this long to even venture to admit what was obvious to most everyone else, it is a tiny step in the right direction. Combined with the recent admissions that DRM can be annoying, that you can make money without DRM and that you have to compete with free content, it seems like the entertainment industry is finally starting to put together all the little pieces that lots of other folks tried to tell them seven years ago. Of course, they're still not willing to make the big leap forward of embracing all of this, but perhaps it's at least time for them to acknowledge that many of the people who have been suggesting these things all along aren't just a bunch of kids who want free music, but people who had the industry's strategic best interests in mind.

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18 Comments

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cb, 18 Oct 2006 @ 7:46pm

beware
BEWARE OF THE BIG BAD WOLF. !!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2006 @ 8:19pm

fuck the riaa
vive le revelution
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fiasco, 18 Oct 2006 @ 9:15pm

Best interests in mind? Personally, I see it as a really easy way to get extremely hard-to-find music. That is, if you're not one of those online-shoppers, as I know a few that aren't.
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Michael Haney, 18 Oct 2006 @ 9:59pm

About Time!
Maybe we can start to finally put this whole mess behind us.

A suggestion to the RIAA, build your own P2P service and put ALL of your music on it including a lot of the hard to find stuff. Offer a low monthly subscription fee and let others on the network also share music files. You'd have the largest online library of musc in existance which is what you had when Napster was still around. Look at the opportunity you lost. Now you have a second chance to make it right.
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Stalin, 18 Oct 2006 @ 10:00pm

woo
Sharing is Caring.
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- Wizard Prang, 19 Oct 2006 @ 8:08am
  
  How true...
  Stalin was well-known for his caring ways :)
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W01F M4N, 18 Oct 2006 @ 10:18pm

About Time!!!!
Relazation is HALF THE BATTLE!!! now if they use it to there advantage, Well my Fiends that's just another story for time to tell
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2006 @ 11:04pm

if they realized this years ago they would have been ahead of the business world.
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shrikestah, 19 Oct 2006 @ 3:14am

helping the industry... hrm... i doubt it.
Honestly... I just want the free music... I don't think that a majority of people are actually trying to "keep the recording industry in mind." They just want some cheap music and only get the songs that are decent. I have no problem paying $.99 for a song if I can't find it through some torrent searches or through allofmp3.com or mp3search.ru. I really find it hard to believe that people are "getting free music" to "help" the industry. Sounds like a load of crap to me.
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- The infamous Joe, 19 Oct 2006 @ 3:54am
  
  Re: helping the industry... hrm... i doubt it.
  That's because it *is* a load of crap.
  
  Yarrr...
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- Mike (profile), 19 Oct 2006 @ 12:16pm
  
  Re: helping the industry... hrm... i doubt it.
  I don't think that a majority of people are actually trying to "keep the recording industry in mind." They just want some cheap music and only get the songs that are decent.
  
  Not saying that everyone who downloads music is trying to help the industry. Not saying that at all. Saying that the people who have been *telling* the industry to embrace it are the ones trying to help them.
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mike, 19 Oct 2006 @ 6:15am

We have all lost sight of things that were right under our noses before, and some people are very resistant to change no matter what anyone tells them or what the evidence suggests. Just ask any religious institution.
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SailorAlphaCentauri, 19 Oct 2006 @ 9:57am

On the right track...
but what are they going to do now that they've realized this? I would love it if they did what Michael Haney suggests, but I highly doubt that it will happen. I am one of those people who uses p2p simply to find music that I can't find anywhere else (which for me is a lot of music), so anything that would make my search less of a hassle would be welcome.

Let's just hope it doesn't take another seven years for the music industry to do something about it.
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MIXLPLIX, 19 Oct 2006 @ 12:01pm

Mr.Ed called from the grave. He said "stop".
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Mr Freebies, 19 Oct 2006 @ 4:02pm

Very Funny
Very Funny
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SuburbanCaveman, 8 Nov 2006 @ 4:00pm

What is going on???
Free Music...Where is that? Next you will tell me that I don't need to worry about recouping the label's advance on that free music...
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- j willace, 3 Jun 2007 @ 1:00am
  
  Re: What is going on???
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Leslie Brown, 22 Feb 2007 @ 9:24pm

Genre
I applaud your success....... You have provided with an escape for me.
However, there are at least 15 additional common Genre's that you have not addressed and or touched.
I would be more than willing to provide your company.
Have your Marketing Division, if you have one.
You are not using the DATA efficiently. You can remain
a Private Company .................more profits bonus for the
individuals that created your company.

PS>>>>>>>>>>>>PS>>>>>>>>> >PS>>>>>>>>>>

YOU HAVE A LOT OF PROGAMMING ISSUES WITH LIME PRO!!!!! I WORK IN A COMPANY OF 6000 PEOPLE . MY
BLOG IS PISSED OF........YOU SIMPLY PUT SCREW UP OUR SYSTEM AT WORK AND HOME, THUS WE CAN AFFORD LOSING OUR JOBS ON THIS PRIMUS. WE ARE COMMON PEOPLE WHOM MAKE A MIN. OF 45K TO 120K WITH BONUS. HOWEVER, WE DO NOT WANT TO LISTEN TO SAME NATIONAL NETWORKS @!&% . BELIEVE ME WE ARE NOT THE PASSIVE.
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