Re: Who's and Two's Missing

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

> > I'm certain they don't do customized work like that.
>
>I'm certain of it too, but that's irrelevent to the point I'm making.
>
>My point is that they don't do it because they are greedy.  They are
>not interested in any market that doesn't get them gigantic profits.
>They are addicted to greed.

This is one of the standard complaints about capitalism.  It's not generally 
a social service that pioneers new technologies or finances studies for new 
and better business models.  Those things actually threaten established 
business models, and rather than change their way of doing business, 
companies will try hard to limit competition and protect their own turf.  
This is what Bill Gates is in trouble for.


>Further, if any business comes along and tries to negotiate a position with 
>the artists to be able to serve these smaller markets, the record companies 
>go out of their way to sabotage them and kill them off in the name that 
>they are "competing" with them.  Once they kill off your competition, they 
>go back to their greed and leave the niche market unserved.
>
>I know because I have friends who did the technology work on a
>business model that let you walk into a store and burn a CD of songs
>of your choosing, along with CD booklets printed on the spot with
>artwork and information of your choosing.  (Credits were mandatory,
>but you had a choice of pictures for use with the booklet.)  The whole 
>thing was ready to go -- artists were in favor of it, stores were in favor 
>of it, there was enough profit in the business model to make it work for 
>all involved, but guess who was reluctant and finally killed it off?  The 
>record labels.  The very same people who are supposed to "help" an artist 
>get sold.

How did they kill it off?  By refusing to buy it?  In that case, your 
friends should go direct to unsigned artists.  If it was by some underhanded 
means, then they should complain to their congress persons.  There is a move 
afoot to investigate the stranglehold that a few big companies have on the 
industry.  They seem to have a strong lobby that's getting laws passed in 
their favor and against the public interest.  That does need to stop.


>They are bastards, pure and simple.  They want a stranglehold of
>control over every possible avenue through which you and I could hear
>new music and even listen to music that we ALREADY OWN!  If they had
>their way, we'd all be paying an additional fee every time we listen
>to any song on CDs we PURCHASED.  They want us to pay monthly fees on
>our internet service accounts because other people might be copying
>music without paying for it.  Since they can't get the people who are
>doing the copying, their reasoning is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON should
>pay them an "artists copyright fee"!  Like I said... bastards, pure
>and simple.

It's not just the record industry that gets this kind of protection from the 
government.  Several large economic entities (car industry, gas and oil 
industry, etc.) get protections when other technology would be more in the 
public interest.  It's something that's to be expected considering the large 
sums of money available for campaign donation.


>For many years now they have done their best to stifle any innovation
>or competition in delivering music to customers except for THEIR way,
>their mass-marketed shoot a shotgun in your face approach.  Anything
>that might have satisfied the niche demands that already exist was
>killed as soon as they could kill it.  Since they are largely ignorant of 
>computers and the internet -- because they are backwards looking control 
>freaks wanting to "manage" the customer, not forwards looking people with a 
>desire to serve the customer -- the MP3 stuff got out of the bag before 
>they could kill it.  Now they are in a desperate maneuver to control all of 
>us through lobbying Washington for more government "fees" (i.e. taxes) and 
>regulation.  Business that succor the favor of Government are business that 
>know that they cannot
>survive in any other way except through the compulsory force of
>government intervention.  They are business that should be allowed to
>die, not businesses that we should all be forced to prop up.

The most recent model of technology undercutting a monopoly is the telephone 
industry.  Not that far in the past, there was only one telephone company, 
and they brought out a limited number of the the same phone model out for 
you to choose from, and then connected up the wires.  Then a small company 
out West called MCI got this geat idea to supply isolated ranchers with 
short wave radio service.  It was a small regional idea, and it sort of took 
off.  Ma Bell didn't even notice what was happening until MCI applied for an 
FCC license to expand their business into the greater USA.  They tried to 
block it, but MCI got the license, and that was all she wrote.  Let's see a 
show of hands--how many folks here have a cell phone now?

The record companies are trying their best to block the new technology, or 
to get control of it themselves.  I expect that what will break them is 
losing control of new artists.  If new artists desert the old system, then 
they're done.  In the meanwhile, write your congressperson and complain 
about laws that are limiting competition.


keets

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