Salocin

South Korean downloaders deal death blow to music retailers

Reuters reports that South Korean music retailing is being pushed to the brink of extinction. Slashdot.org's reference to the article suggests it's just "natural progression", and perhaps not a problem, although it actually more to do with how it happened and the slowness of legal procedures to protect copyrights. At least now the downloaders are no longer in a position to say that they're hurting nobody.

The South Korean retailers interviewed in the article are fairly resigned to the fact that their industry is in terminal decline. It's clear that new companies that focus on retailing are far more likely to succeed than historical bricks and mortar establishments.

South Korea is a good example of what happens when this downloading goes unchecked. Websites appear that give music made by others away for free. Artists, shops and pretty much everyone else in the supply chain are knocked into touch by a youth culture that cares little about the legality of the act, especially when the courts are extremely slow to do anything about it, and are unwilling (for reasons I don't understand) to sigfn injunctions preventing the damage while they consider the question.

I personally enjoy browsing the shelves at my local music store, and so am happy that the RIAA and others have managed to at least slow down the transition process here in the west, otherwise we might have the same kind of abrupt decline in physical music retailing as they've seen in South Korea.

It's also quite interesting that these downloaders are willing to shift to whatever end of the political spectrum provides them with what they want. They rationalise their downloading behaviour using political arguments from the left when it suits them (information should be free, liberalism for all) and then from the right, in the same breath (they should have adapted and changed the business model). The irritating thing from a business point of view is that there is no business model that can compete with a delivery channel that lets people get their music for free. The only "business model" they'll accept, now that they're used to downloading their music with Gnutella, Shareaza, Grokster, Emule and the rest is one that costs them nothing, and they don't seem to understand the deeper ramifications on music production that this implies.

It's useless to try to explain all this to the downloaders from a business point of view, because their cognitive dissonance refuses to acknowledge the possibility that without revenues, there would be very little music (some, I'll grant you, but not the way they have it today). When you start this argument, you have to listen to people with everything from Sting to Bon Jovi, Metallica to the Dixie Chicks in their collections claim that they would be happy with "local artists" that had never benefited from the recording facilities, loans and marketing help of the recording industry. That this music is somehow "better". They point to one or two acceptable artists as examples and claim everything mainstream is rubbish.

Surely if it was rubbish, there wouldn't be so many people downloading it? Such simple arguments just don't seem to get through.

Not that the industry shouldn't adjust, but it has - check out Rhapsody or ITunes. But to justify their continued downloading, these same people who clamoured for such services 3 years ago now claim that they are "too complicated", "don't have enough choice" and "cost too much". I use them, they're not complicated at all, 99 cents per song, or 25 dollars per month for unlimited playing is not too much, and if they don't have enough choice, then why don't you at least use them for the choice they do provide, and only download those tracks unavailable through legitimate means? At least that would encourage the hold-out artists to relax the limitations they've placed on the distribution of their music.

The truth is, downloaders are allergic to paying for anything they can get for free. They are the free-riders will be subsidised by those who are willing to be good citizens. Their arguments will shift and change every time the industry moves to respond, because if it's not free, it's not good enough, and any argument will do, repeated often enough, to allow them to claim they are guiltless.

Posted by nlvp at October 11, 2004 05:25 PM