What fortuitous times we live in. EMI announced yesterday that they're cutting loads of underperforming acts and chopping staff across the board. The reason? Internet piracy. What dross.
As Silicon.com recently pointed out, file sharing has had absolutely no tangible impact on CD sales. For one thing a lot of the material downloaded simply wouldn't have been purchased by the downloader to begin with, so where's the lost income?
I can remember back in the heady days of Napster playing the game of "Download the cheesiest song from the 80s". This is potentially a P2P-only game as I would never have forked over even 1p to buy a copy of Spagna's 'Call Me' or any of the other groan-inducers we used to while away the quiet times in the office.
Not to hark on again, but these labels really only have themselves to blame. The MP3 format has been around for almost a decade, PCs capable of sound have been around almost as long and the forces of alternate media (i.e. alternative places to spend your money) have been around as long as music. Books, the cinema, console gaimg, increasingly Sky packages and (recently) DVDs.
You can only cut the pie so many ways and to make it sweet enough to eat. The music industry seems to be sitting on their laurels, releasing utter crap and not really appealing to the music fans, and their slice of the cake justifiably seems to taste more bitter these days.
EMI, your days may be numbered, but you saw the writing on the wall and refused to act. Don't blame the general public for your lack of foresight.
