The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
As if the music business has not been beat up enough lately by every company from Napster to Limewire, things just get worse and worse. Lets begin with Canadian copyright laws. For the past two years, it really has not been clear in this country whether it is actually legal or not to download music from peer to peer networks such as Limewire. It has been murky water. Now the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has come out publicly to say that they believe the surtax that Canadians pay on blank media such as CDs and DVDs should cover any losses incurred by artists caused by downloading music. Lets be clear. This is the official organization of the Canadian music industry. This is basically the same organization as the RIAA in the U.S. which has been attempting to sue everyone for downloading music from fourteen year olds to senior citizens who don't even own a computer. Now they are saying that the surtax that we pay on everything from iPods to blanks CDs should make up this difference. Over the last few weeks there has suddenly been a small group of artists who are breaking away from traditional music industry contracts and methods of distributing their music. First was Prince. This summer that just past he gave away free copies of his ten track CD in Sunday newspapers. While consumers were overjoyed, music industry retailers were shocked and insulted, considering it a direct attack on their business. Next up was Radiohead. Their new CD "In Rainbows" is available as a download for whatever consumers want to pay; including nothing. Their website simply has a box in it that consumers can enter any value in and then download all of the music. While no word has been released yet about how this experiment has been going, Radiohead has promised they will let everyone know what happened. Now it is Madonna. This artist, who has been with Warner Brothers for 25 years, is separating from her label. While she still has one album left to make, after that is completed, she has signed a contract with concert promoter Live Nation who will now be responsible for all of her marketing, merchandise, music, and live appearances. While Warner will still own all of her back catalogue music, anything new will come from this new label. In the first interview with her since this deal was signed, Madonna is adamant that she will get paid no matter how her music is distributed or even if it is all given away for free. She insists it is a changed world and that artists must evolve with the times. Actually, while this deal is completely different for an artist in Canada or Europe, its actually quite common in places like Japan and China. In these nations, artists often will give their music away completely for free. Recording companies hand out CDs filled with music and make entire catalogues available to fans for free downloads. Instead, artists make their living from concert ticket sales and from selling all of the different kinds of merchandise. No business can afford to stand still. This is especially true for businesses that create products that can be easily moved over international computer networks. The fall out remains to be seen. ([email protected])
