Put a penny in the slot

Not that I would know anything about it at all, but a popular file-sharing network was shut down last week. Of course, the world record industry chooses to continue to try in vain to shoehorn digital music into their old business model instead of learning a lesson and taking away valuable insight into what these file-sharing networks are telling them about demand.

So here are my suggestions for how the music industry can improve in their digital delivery for people like me (and most of the people I know) who have gone all-digital. Conveniently, this doubles as a list of things that the music industry will never do.

1. Put the albums out AS SOON AS THEY'RE DONE!!
I can't web-yell this enough. I know that the delayed releases usually have to do with picking out a marketing-friendly release date, but it's obvious even to the brain-dead (a step up from music industry folks) that so much of the popularity of file-sharing is because music fans are sick of waiting until a precise date before we get to hear it, and if they can't get it through normal channels, they'll look to other places for it. I'm going to use a word I don't often use, but it's too appropriate here: DUH!

A sub-point of this point directed at the online digital music stores like emusic and Amazon: there is NO REASON that you shouldn't have the files available to download at 12:01 AM on the day of its release. Especially you, emusic. It's ridiculous to not find an album on your site until a week or two after it's been released. Ever heard the expression "strike while the iron's hot"? Apparently not.

2. Give users a variety of file types and quality.
I'm sure that the (shitty) counter-argument to this would be that the record companies and artists don't want the music so easy to pass around; that if people can get lossless files, it'll just be that much easier to share perfect-quality audio. Well, news flash: the easiest way for a person to make perfect-quality, sharable audio is to buy the CD. In other words, the ability to do that already exists. Go ahead and offer people 192, 256 and FLAC. Hell, you could even charge more while you're at it.

3. Globalize.
I know that there's all sorts of wacky, nutty, cuckoo-bananas copyright laws around the world that prevent record companies from spreading their releases over borders without hassle. But logically speaking (which is, of course, the opposite of legally speaking), there's no reason that every album shouldn't be released in every country on the same day. And now that we can go to any website in the world and hear what that country has to offer, it's endless amounts of frustrating that we still have albums being released in the US as long as a year after their home country release. Idiotic.

So of course, the international music industry won't do these things, instead letting the music fans of the world innovate ways to get around whatever barriers they try to put in place. The time when music makers around the world could have created a new business model is running out fast, and soon, record labels and companies will collapse, and it will take another decade or so before someone figures out a way to make recorded music profitable again. In the meantime, music will go local again, and we'll have lots of free music, so really, we win.

Parishioners may add their views in the comments.