All the trouble is due to copyrights lasting too long
The effect of everlasting copyright on the music industry is showing. They have a virtual monopoly and consequently they don't feel they have to compete like all other businesses do. As a result they sell crap all the time, expecting that customers will just buy whatever they put out. There is no incentive anymore to come up with good products that people will actually want to pay for.
Their mentality has become like that of utility companies, selling water, gas or electricity. Usually, utilities are the only ones in the territory, so the customers can't easily go elsewhere and the utility they sell is generally essential, so people will buy it no matter how lousy the service. As a result utility companies think they get paid for reading meters and they also think they deserve it, no matter how bad their service may be.
The trouble with the recording industry is however that their customers don't have to buy the music if it gets too bad. You can't easily do without water, gas and electricity, but you can do without music, especially if you have already got a large collection of music. You just stop buying new stuff. Or you buy second hand. Either way, the recording industry's business will decline.
The worst thing about recording companies is that they don't even want to sell the stuff they have. They want to sell you what they think we should buy, they don't want to sell what we want to buy, even if they are sitting on it. For that alone they deserve to go out of business. Before the change from vinyl to CDs I had a very large collection of music from the 60s, 70s and early 80s which I have sought to replace over time with CDs. It took a long time for many of the LPs I had to be released on CD in the first place and when they finally appeared, many didn't last all that long, they are now "out of print".
Half of the music I would like to buy I can't buy, they are not selling it. If they don't want to make CDs, why don't they release it online at least? Well, they think that this will stop us from buying their new crap that they put out these days. But I am not going to buy that crap. I might have bought a total of 10 new CDs with new music over the last 10 years. I had almost a thousand LPs though, half of which I was unable to get on CD. I know many others my age who have a similar story to tell. The recording industry lost us as customers. We ain't buying unless they release the music we want. We have more money to spend on music than those kids who buy the modern crap and they don't seem to like to pay anyway.
Where I live I found several large second hand CD stores which are far better stocked than any store which sells new music. So, I guess, the recording companies will continue to not earn any money from my generation. I wonder how their shareholders can be so stupid as to letting them get away with such a silly business policy. I guess those shareholders deserve to lose their shirts, just as much as the recording companies deserve to go out of business.
On the other hand, if somebody had the guts to change copyright duration and give 10 or 20 years copyright without any possibility to extend (like it is with patents), it would revive the industry. They would need to rerecord all the oldies/classics in order to get a new copyright term on the new recording, or at least they'd have to remaster and rerelease as that may also count as a new release which would again get a new copyright term. It would cause them to actually have to compete. The law would say: "You have ten years to earn a return on your investment, the clock is ticking NOW, don't waste your time, go to work!" They would no longer be sitting on their laurels. With new attention to their customers, illegal downloads and piracy would still be a nuisance but not a serious problem. But, that's not going to happen. Oh well.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
