Save Our Salaries! The business model is jacked

Via Instapundit.

IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.

- The Economist reports on the decline and fall of the music studios.

OK, now for the fun bit. The Instapundit was linking to this on Samizdata.

So the “thieves” who copy music didn’t want free goods?

Maybe the thieves aren’t.

Maybe the goods aren’t either.

The State should force those youngsters to go back to EMI, take some CDs and feel grateful. Otherwise no music will ever be written again.

Or EMI’s new owners could try to find a different business model, which would be little less silly than having people jailed for backing up their CDs to an iPod.

Just so we’re clear. I will never buy a CD, DVD or similar technology until the RIAA stops treating the entire enternment industry’s customer base as criminals. That means not listening to new material except non the radio. That’s a couple of hundred dollars a year “lost” right there.

Too bad.

I hope everyone either rips everything or boycotts. Recording executives will have to fuel their cocaine addictions and run up tabs for “flowers” [prostitutes] at someone else’s expense. The musicians will be fine: touring, merchandising, donations and people wanting the genuine article.