[March 07, 2007]

OPINION: Tomorrow, the music dies

(Comtex Community Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar 07, 2007 (The Orion - McClatchy-Tribune Business News via COMTEX) --Music didn't really die in 1958 when the Big Bopper, Richie Valens and Buddy Holly took their fateful flight, but it sure is on life support today.

The soul of innovation has been sucked out of music by the four major recording companies and the technology that allegedly protects most music.

At the center of this battle is "Thoughts on Music," an open letter to the recording companies from Apple CEO Steve Jobs. He calls for the removal of digital rights management technology on music sold through the iTunes Store.

You can think of DRM like a safe for your music. The only problem is that the company that sold it to you owns that safe and decides if and when you can listen to your music.

The majority of music sold online has some kind of protection software on it. The iTunes Store uses FairPlay, which lets a user play the music only on up to five computers. However, this protection doesn't stick with the music when it's burned to an audio CD.

Being able to play music anywhere and any time you want sounds like a great idea. I can count the opposition to DRM-free music on one hand -- Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, EMI and the Recording Industry Association of America.

The reason recording companies want DRM technology is simple: money.

Music sales have recently been on a steady decline, and the easy place to point blame is at file sharing.

The RIAA recently went on a sweep of 13 college campuses and sent letters to students threatening a lawsuit. As has been the case with most of the association's lawsuits, these students are being made examples of and have been offered out-of-court settlements.

This childish bullying plan is designed to scare people away from peer-to-peer sites and slow illegal song trading. While I don't support file sharing, I'm also not a fan of the inevitable solution that's being pushed -- making sure all music sold online has some form of DRM attached.

For some reason, none of the major music companies has realized that making it harder for a customer to use its product makes no sense at all and will actually push people away.

Buying music online is convenient and allows customers to shop at their leisure. Nobody wants to get in a car, drive to the store and wait in line to pay more for the same music.

By slapping 10 different forms of DRM software that work in 10 different ways, the companies create more chaos and confusion than it's worth to buy music. From there, people either swing by BitTorrent or simply don't bother with the music.

I follow the latter example. I don't dig through LimeWire to find music partly because I'm a paranoid goody-two-shoes. I don't find music worth the risk of record companies slamming lawsuits on me.

While what I said might make it sound like the RIAA's decision to sue the pants off people is working, it's actually something else about the music industry that's got my knickers in a twist.

Today's music sucks.

There's no sense of innovation, originality or artistic ability. Music today boils down to coming up with a good hook, copying and pasting it throughout a piece, and calling it a song.

The rest of why today's music sucks can be found on The Orion's blog.

By removing DRM from the lousy music coming out today, the big four companies and the RIAA might be able to salvage some of the market. These wouldn't be the first tracks sold without some sort of software to protect them.

Ever heard of CDs?

Kyle Buis can be reached at opinioneditor@theorion.com

Copyright (c) 2007, The Orion, Chico, Calif.

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