Will Investors Pressure RIAA To Change Its Ways?
from the we-can-hope dept
The Motley Fool had an article last week predicting that the RIAA will soon be forced to abandon its lawsuit-happy business strategy, as a number of lawsuit targets have not only been winning in court but also getting their legal fees covered by the recording industry. The article makes a lot of points that Techdirt has been making for years, but a couple of things are particularly interesting about the article. First, the Motley Fool is a mainstream investment site that's read by a ton of people on Wall Street. If the financial press starts writing stories about how the lawsuits are a waste of money, these companies could start to feel increased pressure from their shareholders to find a new strategy. Secondly, the article makes an important point about the effects of file-sharing on musicians: file-sharing can hurt artists by reducing their sales, but it can also help them by getting the word out about their music. The former effect is more important to the superstars, who are already famous. But for up-and-coming artists, the benefits of greater exposure greatly outweigh any losses from their (already small) sales. Since most musicians aren't superstars, the rise of file-sharing may actually help the average artist, by flattening out the distribution of music revenues: Justin Timberlake won't be as rich, but up-and-coming bands will find it easier to reach new fans.
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Filed Under: riaa, wall street
Companies: riaa
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broken record
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Re: broken record
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The Offspring
I think that's brilliant
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If Radio Head's attempt to remake the music profit paradigm is successful then all these RIAA terror tactics are moot. Many musicians are beginning to understand they can make a decent living by performing and related merchandising. The music is simply 'advertising' to invite people to the performance.
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RIAA Trafficks In Confusion and Sleight of Hand
And Congress will buy the entire nonsensical Chewbacca-defense argument because they don't know what the heck anyone is talking about with this stuff, and don't read things like bills and security assessments or articles-pointed-out-to-them-as-evidence.
Confused? Don't worry, so is your Congressman.
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9/24/07?
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The Chewbacca defense strategy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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