Monday, November 27, 2006
Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group, is a wanker
Fridgemagnet helpfully brings this review of the Microsoft Zune to my attention. Less important is the actual device (I'm actually happy with my iPod and, heaven knows, I may well buy a new one when my old one wears out) but rather another example of how the big companies don't understand that the way to deal with piracy is to not act like dicks about it.
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," said Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group. "So it's time to get paid for it."
See, there's around one percent of the music on my iPod which, I'll admit, I don't own the CDs, so out of 8.5 days worth of music, two or three hours of music I shouldn't have. Two or three hours that I should have gone round car boot sales rooting through bins for, because UMG and their ilk certainly didn't want to sell me the albums any more. But comments like that make me want to up that percentage. If those of us who actually, Mr Morris, aren't crooks, worked over the next five years to make sure that 80, 90% of the music on our MP3 players is stolen, will you then stop treating us like scum? Is the only way to get you to stop treating us like thieves is to act like thieves until your bottom line is so damaged that you are forced to come out of your castle and make nice?
And don't even get my started on how every time I sit down to watch my Boston Legal season one DVDs that I received for my birthday I have to sit through warnings telling me not to steal them.
On that mention of DVD box-sets I'll also point you towards two very interesting essays on the subject: Binge Watching contemporary TV from City of Sound, and the essay by Mark Lawson it refers to.
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," said Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group. "So it's time to get paid for it."
See, there's around one percent of the music on my iPod which, I'll admit, I don't own the CDs, so out of 8.5 days worth of music, two or three hours of music I shouldn't have. Two or three hours that I should have gone round car boot sales rooting through bins for, because UMG and their ilk certainly didn't want to sell me the albums any more. But comments like that make me want to up that percentage. If those of us who actually, Mr Morris, aren't crooks, worked over the next five years to make sure that 80, 90% of the music on our MP3 players is stolen, will you then stop treating us like scum? Is the only way to get you to stop treating us like thieves is to act like thieves until your bottom line is so damaged that you are forced to come out of your castle and make nice?
And don't even get my started on how every time I sit down to watch my Boston Legal season one DVDs that I received for my birthday I have to sit through warnings telling me not to steal them.
On that mention of DVD box-sets I'll also point you towards two very interesting essays on the subject: Binge Watching contemporary TV from City of Sound, and the essay by Mark Lawson it refers to.
Labels: iPods, music, piracy, Television
