The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is known for their uncanny ability to crush the souls of men and their insatiable appetite for the blood of infant children, is proposing that all mobile phones sold in the USA should come with an FM radio, and that because every mobile phone has an FM radio, they should get a kickback. The deal is far from final, but it shows the type of thinking that goes on behind the scenes at obsolete corporations trying to survive the often painful transition that technological advancements foster.
Gary Shapiro, Head of the Consumers Electronics Association, the folks who host the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that I’ve officially sworn off for the rest of my life after catching some Asian variant of the common cold that nearly killed me, is a bit ticked off at the RIAA for dragging them into this. “This is a battle that doesn’t involve us,” he said, later adding: “We don’t think Congress should accept a back-room deal on how an iPhone should be designed, we think consumers should choose and companies should choose.”
All of this hullabaloo stems from an age old argument between the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the music industry. The NAB flat out refuses to pay artists to play their songs on the radio, citing that all that free promotion drives album and ticket sales. Radio broadcasters currently pay songwriters, and that’s it.
If the legislation that the RIAA is proposing passes, then they can look forward to an extra $100 million in their bank account every year. Quite a pretty penny, but do we, the people, really want to keep these dinosaurs alive? When will Apple finally launch a Spotify clone and save the day?
I haven’t purchased music since the turn of this century, yet this summer I coughed up 60 EUR to buy a 6 month subscription to Spotify Premium. Give people the music they want, the way they want it, and stop being such sleaze-balls.