Oink, Oink, Oink

Remember when the Music Industry was zealously going about the business of suing individuals for the online sharing of ripped CD tracks? That feels like a long time ago, but it wasn’t. I guess it feels like a long time to me because technology has so drastically changed how consumers get their music. Itunes sells millions of tracks a year. At a $1 a pop, their profits must linger not far behind. Rock Band and Guitar Hero have also dramatically changed the landscape. I don’t know what their sales figures are, but they must be strong.

I find all the recent innovations not just interesting, but downright hilarious because the Music Industry, just a few short years ago, wailed so earnestly that consumers should be forced to buy entire CDs. Sales of singles, especially online, would minimize their current business model and likely cripple their sales they cried to anyone who would listen.

Which it did. Of CD sales.

Online sales, of course, took off spectacularly. As more and more Americans bought Ipods, more and more of them wanted their songs delivered straight to that device, in digital form. That bode ill for the Music Industry. They had long fought such a format, to the point of suing their very own customers. If they wielded the same kind of power as the American oil companies, I’m sure they would have done all they could to sabotage the technical development of Ipod devices and the online services that streamed to them.

Which brings me to the free market and the force it can exert on both business and consumers. In the case of online music, both business and consumers won. A business created a device that masses of people love, a market developed to serve that device, and a facet of the larger model was rendered obsolete. In Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum’s chaos-theorist says, “Life always finds a way.” So does innovation.

The Music Industry didn’t anticipate the Ipod and online sales of music. Neither could they predict Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In the midst of their whining and complaining, they were so consumed with holding on to CD sales, they never pursued the future of music sales. In other words, they were lazy. Like piglets at the teats, they didn’t want to move themselves past the sure and easy sales of CDs. It was much easier to immobilize the teats, get them to stay put, so the suckling could continue indefinitely.

Which would have been a great plan except Mama Pig decided to get up and wander away.

Games like Rock Band prove that innovation can create an entirely new revenue source for music sales. And I’m not just talking about the initial sale of the game. Rock Band offers weekly downloads of new music. The sweetest part of the deal for the Music Industry and the artists? A consumer can only play a song if they pay for the song. Piracy almost completely disappears as thousands of fans buy those tracks they most want to play in the Rock Band store. Once upon a time the Music Industry quivered and wet itself before the might of technological innovation, gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair out when CD tracks morphed into MP3 files and then traveled seamlessly via all kinds of gadgets. Now, however, the Music Industry rejoices and celebrates that same technology.

It’s amazing what can happen when you don’t cram a failed business model down the throats of consumers who have already moved on.