Massive Layoffs Hit The RIAA: Maybe Focus On Building Business Rather Than Suing Customers Next Time?

from the just-a-thought dept

Details have been spilling out over the last few days that the RIAA has been making pretty massive cuts to staff. We already knew that EMI was cutting back on its support of the RIAA/IFPI, and it seems that with the rest of the RIAA's major label supporters also having economic troubles, the writing is on the wall that the RIAA is about to go through a major transformation. I'm sure some will somehow "blame piracy" for this turn of events, but it's hard to see how that's even remotely the issue. The real issue is that the RIAA has basically managed to run one of the dumbest, most self-defeating strategies over the last decade. Rather than helping major record labels adjust to the changing market, it continually, repeatedly and publicly destroyed its own reputation and the reputation of the labels -- each time shrinking their potential market by blaming the very people they should have been working to turn into customers. They may claim that they "had" to take this strategy because it's what the labels wanted (and, indeed, that was Hilary Rosen's excuse), but that's ridiculous. It was evident to pretty much anyone who took the time to understand the issues back in the mid- to late-90s, that the internet represented an opportunity to those who embraced it. The RIAA's decision to fight progress and its own customers at every turn has been nothing short of a complete disaster. That the group is now being gutted is the inevitable result of a poor strategy that could have easily been avoided.

Filed Under: layoffs, riaa, strategy
Companies: ifpi, riaa

Man Sues Newspaper For Laying Off Reporters

from the everything-must-stay-the-same,-always dept

It's no secret that plenty of newspapers have been cutting staff and even the size of their papers in recent months. It's really a reaction to the fact that newspapers spent way too many years in denial that they were no longer the only news sources in town. So now they finally have to adjust, and one first step is shedding some overhead. However, one newspaper subscriber to the News & Observer in North Carolina is suing the paper over its recent cuts. It sounds like it's mostly just a publicity stunt, but Keith Hempstead, a lawyer (and former reporter), says he renewed his subscription in May, just before the paper announced cuts. Thus, he claims, he's getting less than what he was promised when he subscribed -- and that's somehow fraud. It's doubtful this lawsuit will go anywhere and the "point" Hempstead is making actually seems backwards. Marketplaces change and companies in those marketplaces need to change to keep up with the market. Suing them for changing is hardly going to encourage newspapers to embrace necessary change.

Filed Under: fraud, lawsuits, layoffs, newspapers

LA Times Just Realized That Print And Online Newsrooms Should Be The Same?

from the a-bit-slow-on-the-uptake,-huh? dept

Nearly three years ago, we were surprised to hear the NY Times proudly announce that it was going to merge its online and offline newsrooms. What we couldn't believe was that in 2005 a newspaper actually still had thought it made sense to treat the two separately. However, apparently the Times was way ahead of some other newspapers. Buried in the ho-hum news about massive LA Times layoffs is the news that, as part of this reorganization, it's finally going to merge its web and print operations as well. When you're sitting around wondering where newspapers went wrong, the fact that they wanted to keep web and print operations separate is probably a good place to start.

Filed Under: layoffs, newspapers, print, web
Companies: la times, tribune company

Zango Tries To Reinvent Itself (Again); Lays Off A Bunch Of Employees

from the like-anyone-trusts-them dept

If you've heard of the company Zango, it's probably for bad reasons. Zango is a company that was created when some separate adware firms merged and took a new name. The company kept insisting that it had reformed and wasn't using surreptitious installs any more -- but every time it said that, it didn't take long to find evidence proving that wrong. This happened time after time after time after time after time. Many of these happened after the FTC got the company to agree to stop these practices.

Well, now the company is trying to reinvent itself yet again -- claiming that it's going to focus on the "casual gaming" market -- and due to this, it's laying off 68 people. One would hope that these layoffs are for the folks responsible for building the malware part of their business. Of course, it was just a few weeks ago that security researcher Ben Edelman was demonstrating more problems with Zango's new business model.

Filed Under: adware, casual gaming, layoffs
Companies: zango