This Will Get a Reaction: “Why Does the Music Industry Seem to Hate Fairness?”
The war between the music industry, artists and fans shows no signs up letting up. Check out this salvo from SlashGear:
Is it just me or does the music industry really, really hate fairness? For years now, we’ve been hearing about labels trying to limit what we can access on digital stores and musicians holding out on offering their tracks because of the so-called “unfairness” across the Web.
You remember it, right? Apple for years was trying to bring certain record labels into the iTunes fold, but they continued to fight it. And when The Beatles finally (finally!) came to iTunes, it was as if the prior several years spent waiting for the band’s catalog wasn’t necessary.
Now, we’re dealing with a similar issue. Musicians and record labels are teaming up to battle music-streaming providers, like Pandora and Spotify, that want to see their royalty rates cut to match those offered to radio stations. Sounds fair, right? Both industries are playing the same music, and yet, the companies that are online are paying more for the right to offer the tracks to customers. Pandora, among others, wants to level the playing field.
Of course, musicians and the record labels disagree. Rather than cut Pandora’s pricing, they say, all prices should be brought up to those charged to music-streaming companies. That way, the music industry makes out and those of us who want to consumer content are forced to deal with whining music providers that will in some way try to past that cost on to us.
