As the world’s largest information technology (IT) company in the world and the world leader in patents for the 11th straight year, IBM offers a world of opportunity for imaginative and innovative individuals [THE WORLD OVER.]
Okay, I added that last little bit.
While getting the kids ready for school this morning, we were watching “The Proud Family”. Penny Proud had a new boyfriend who was into Napster, except in the cartoon it was “EZ-Jackster.”
Penny was convinced no-one was getting hurt and that the world deserved free music. As a birthright no less.
The cartoon showed the big record moguls with gold adorning their bodies and dripping from their walls. Then they showed.. damn I cant recall the rapsters name– Sir Jack Alot or something silly like that. Anyway they showed the repoman taking his 100″ big screen TV out of this ridiculously large mansion. His royalty checks had dipped to only a nickel.
It took Penny being fired from her job at the local record store by a crying, bankrupt store owner to see the err of her ways. It was only then that she realized what a horrible thing she had been doing.
Or was it? I wish that I was able to sue and put corporate executives in jail who wont keep my pay rate up where it was before the internet began to change everything. Even spending a lot of money and time on retraining, I will likely still be making almost half as much as I was in 2001. And that’s if I can get a decent paying job without any “real-life” experience in the tools I’ve retrained in.
To stay viable the recording industry must face the music and get on to the internet in a big way. And I don’t mean selling CD’s over the internet. As I’ve said before, on more than one occasion, suing your customers is not a good long term strategy. Personally, I think the era of the RIAA is over. New age production techniques loosens the stranglehold that the record producers have on the industry.
Isn’t that a good thing? I think it is.
The big question that musicians and record execs have to answer is will the public buy their music if all the Napster’s suddenly become unavailable. Downloading music is a market issue; not criminal issue.
Is this whole issue really about fairness, or about who controls a multi-billion dollar industry?
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