Broadband Penetration Page 2
Copy protection at mtv.com. Isn't it interesting there's no copy protection at comedycentral.com, another Viacom property that DOESN'T rely on the music business? If ONLY people would steal and send videos to other people. We call this viral marketing when it's in the physical world, how come it's CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR in the online world?
The hardest thing to do is get someone EXPOSED to an act's music. To hold them back from it, to limit the possibility of exposure, makes no sense. Certainly not for companies like NBC. Whose "Lazy Sunday" SNL skit injected new life into a tired show via ubiquitous distribution on the Web. NBC reacted by sending a cease and desist letter to youtube and then putting the video on THEIR SITE ONLY! As if nbc.com was a regular stop on the surfer's rounds. No, you've got to put the product where people AGGREGATE IT, presently youtube and google video.
The product was originally at Napster. ALL of it. But then the labels parceled it out to many sites, none of which have any significant traction other than iTunes. The key is to create BEHEMOTHS, one-stop shopping, not a bunch of out-of-the-way loser 7-11s. Maybe there's only room for one online store, but by insisting on copy protection and sale at a high price the labels have given the power to Apple, Apple hasn't taken it. The end run would be to authorize another way of acquisition, one without copy protection, that would allow people to have a lot of material at a low price.
And they must do this quickly. Before their businesses are decimated. The longer they refuse to play by Net rules, and allow consumption of mass quantities by everybody, the more they fall behind the curve, ceding the territory to all-in-one bands who DON'T MIND giving their music away for free. THAT'S what the major labels are doing, marginalizing THEMSELVES!
Then again, the clips NBC should be distributing for free are only ads for their shows, whereas the tunes ARE the major label's product. Maybe that's not such a good business anymore. Maybe an act shouldn't separate its rights out and give a label the lion's share of the money. Especially when said label is PREVENTING them from breaking by holding back their material from the masses.
Just know that the seeds of revolution are not sexy. People are abandoning the 20th century in droves. They don't want CDs and they don't want videos on MTV. It's a new world. One where a hammer of change doesn't fall in a day but you wake up suddenly and find, like the camera companies, that your old bread-and-butter business, in their case film cameras, is dead.
All the indicators are that the labels, with one foot in the past, if not both, are not prepared for the revolution about to silently overtake them. I'd say I feel sorry for them, but it's hard to sympathize with companies living their lives according to the George Costanza loser philosophy. Then again, maybe someone in the executive suite saw that episode of Seinfeld wherein George decides to become a winner by doing the OPPOSITE of what he usually does. That's the only thing that would work for the record labels at this point. Good luck!
Bob Lefsetz's column, "Lefsetz," will debut in S&V's May 2006 issue. If you'd like to subscribe to The Lefsetz Letter, go to www.lefsetz.com.
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