If The RIAA Was Innovative: An Alternate Universe Timeline
from the an-alternate-history dept
1999: Realizing the inevitable, the RIAA convinces member labels to set up all-you-can eat buffets. All music available as DRM-free downloads, $5/mo. 100M of storage, additionally available for increased monthly fee. The RIAA uses superior marketing muscle to "drown out" competing "free" alternatives, insists people should only download from "legitimate" sources to ensure data integrity and security. It recommends the gradual reduction in the production, marketing, storage and sales of CDs, vinyl and tape, keeping only a small reserve capacity*.
2000: RIAA negotiates a small increase in financial support from labels' substantial savings from physical media reductions to create the Online Strategy Group (OSG), hiring engineers, programmers, technologists, musicologists and a futurist or two. The OSG's first suggestion is FoM, Future of Music, which the RIAA incorporates, initially to handle the growing subscription business.
2001: On OSG's advice, the RIAA convinces member labels to cross-offer artists by genre in sites with fun names like, "soultology.com", "hitsnmisses.com", "netrockstar.com", "eargasm.com", etc. A marginally increased monthly fee ($1 more for each sub-site) gets download access and membership in forums, discounts on t-shirts, tickets, posters, etc. FoM takes over all revenue-generating ventures and negotiates equitable profit-sharing deals with the labels and reaches out to independent artists. FoM buys Creative and, with help from the OSG brain-trust, designs and sells a fantastically popular line of MP3 players.
2002: Capitalizing on the psychology of "sharers", OSG introduces memberships that encourage people to find and upload obscure and out-of-print audio. Uploaders compete for discounted memberships, back-stage passes, artist access and the most important prizes: minor fame, street-cred and a custom avatar. The RIAA creates work-arounds for copyright issues removing limits on fan's abilities to upload, modify and share work.
2003 - 2005: Recognizing the growth of social media, the OSG introduces groups and messaging. Higher-access users get expanded pages on OSG sites and are encouraged to rate and critique music. OSG makes available interaction with music journalists, holds contests for album & t-shirt art, gives prizes for mashups with highest votes by the communities. The OSG makes "Locker" space available, 1G free, $1/mo for each additional gigabyte. OSG introduces "Rip Me" - user puts a factory CD in the computer drive tray, and is given the option to rip/upload tracks or have recording company copies put in his/her locker. (Subsequent attempts to upload the same CD from another computer is allowed with a minimum new subscription)
2006 - 2010: FoM buys Pandora, iTunes, YouTube, RIM, Turntable.fm, Facebook and a controlling interest in Sirius. OSG helps FoM branch the Blackberry, creating the "Rockberry", a consumer-oriented "mobile media sharing device". OSG solicits auditions from all musicians everywhere, showcasing the best on YouTube. FoM makes record profits from tours, downloads, streams, hardware, music licensing and merchandise. Cary Sherman becomes fifth richest man in the US.
2011: *FoM introduces choice "retro" vinyl, CD and tape catalogue for hipsters worldwide. OSG and RIAA move into "palatial" FoM office campus in Los Angeles, work begins on 30-story FoM tower in Manhattan.
Cross-posted from botaday.com
Mwah Ha Ha!
Bright Side
The good news I suppose: the "smarter" our products get, the bigger the market is for "dumb" products that just sit there and do what they're supposed to do, whether that's a television that just displays the damn signal sent to it or utterly insentient dolls that just shut up, smile and drink their fake tea.
Idly looking at big screen TVs lately, I realized the non-smart versions sell for about $200 less. That's $200 you could use to put together a simple HTTPC (Home Theater PC) with Linux and avoid all the app nonsense from Roku, Samsung etc./div>
Christmas Wish
God bless us, every one/div>
Minor Correction
Shoes to Fill
Re: Yet another red flag word
WAH! Love it!/div>
Wow
The Real Reason Guiliani is Defending Activision
Next Stop
Phew!
Had to click on that link to make sure it wasn't uh, someone I know./div>
Notice
Use of the word mine in all-caps and scare quotes is copyright Pixar from the movie Finding Nemo/div>
Not Having a Good HTML Day
Re: Wimps
Wimps
Nevertheless, other print-on-delivery sites, Red Bubble, Society6 are not nearly as skittish/div>
OSS FTW
Open source, free to use and modify.
Botaday
MnD/div>
Permissions Clause
Likely Sequel
How long until she sues Google to remove the links?/div>
Tough Question
Crazy Muslim Movie Trailer?
or
US Congress?
Can I get back to you on that?/div>
Core Competency
Fluke knows this and just wants to make sure that electrical/electronic engineers need some way to make sure they're using genuine Fluke equipment other than, say, printing the name all over the thing./div>
About Frickin' Time
Glad to see he's finally listening to me./div>
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