Bravo BIS!

[ahinton]

It's an intriguing decision, isn't it? But as you say, I'm sure there must be a "cunning plan" behind it. I have wondered for twenty years now why record companies, mainly the multinationals, have seemed not to realise, or not to want to realise, that with digitisation the whole world of music distribution has changed, and to do nothing about it.

You have desperate rearguard actions by droves of lawyers trying to enforce analogue/hardware-based copyright laws in a situation where it simply cannot be done because the material concerned is not material, but intangible and pretty well untraceable. You have a few wretched teenagers dragged up before the courts for sharing horrible here-today-gone-tomorrow commercial ditties and movies, while organised criminals are distributing material on a huge scale with little risk of being brought to book. Trying to police this really is like trying to hold back an invisible tsunami.

I imagine the record companies decided to try and make money in the traditional way while the going was good, but at last they are being forced either to get out of the business or to come up with something new.

I have no wish to defraud anyone, particularly the best of the independent record labels not motivated entirely by corporate greed, and I've probably spent far more on records than is conscionable, but these days I could, if I wanted to, build a huge collection of classical music for absolutely nothing, and no doubt many do, and will. Whether it's right or wrong becomes almost irrelevant in such a situation.

What do you think BIS, for example, is up to? And what should the record companies be doing? And what is the future for them and us?

Thanks, by the way, for the tip re Ullen. I will get to it!

I don't know what BIS's motive or intention is in doing this, nor do I have any knowledge of what their commercial anticipation of the consequences may be; I do, however, know that many record companies' products are simply nicked and put up on the internet for free download and, as a consequence of that and similar theft of illicitly uploaded scores, some record companies and many composers get to do even worse financially than otherwise they would. That said, someone has to pay for the recordings to be made, edited and produced in the first place just as the cost of composing is not zero, so if everyone simply makes free with everything that they can just because they can and because they harbour a convenient belief that they have some kind of divine right to do so, no one gets paid. What message does that kind of scenario convey to composers or to record companies wanting to invest money in making and issuing recordings of their music?

[Uncle Monty]

someone has to pay for the recordings to be made, edited and produced in the first place just as the cost of composing is not zero, so if everyone simply makes free with everything that they can just because they can and because they harbour a convenient belief that they have some kind of divine right to do so, no one gets paid. What message does that kind of scenario convey to composers or to record companies wanting to invest money in making and issuing recordings of their music?

Yes, quite, my point exactly. If someone so puzzled can be said to have a point! I just don't know what the future of the "industry" will be, but it's clear that everything's changing or has already changed. How are musicians and "good" record companies to make a living?