Financial genius: US record industry turns $16M in legal spending into $391K cash

In their defense (and I can't believe I'm defending the RIAA), recovering legal expenses from the defendants was never the overall goal with these lawsuits. The idea was to reduce piracy through fear of litigation, thereby increasing profits.

 

So... that worked well, right? All of us deleted all our pirated music from our PCs, didn't we?

 

Well, of course! I never pirated in the first place. :grin:

 

that's very true... all that money they wasted though.. they should have invested some of that $$$ into technologies that would prevent piracy... they're barely making a dent in the piracy war, if any at all

 

I think it has worked. I know a lot of people use itunes now who would have previously just downloaded it for free.

 

It didn't get rid of piracy, but even if it reduced it a little bit, it probably was worth the investment for them.

It would be like a store installing $10,000 worth of security cameras, but they only catch thieves stealing $500 worth of stuff in a year. They only recover 500 actual dollars, but if word gets out that its easy to get caught in that store, theft overall might be reduced by $20,000 a year, making it fully worth the installation.

 

RIAA is full of thinkers, that's for sure.

 

See, my opinion, which to be fair is still being crafted, is that the current recording industry is so outdated. There's no problem with a company trying to protect their business, but when the model is outdated, that's an issue.

I just feel that, perhaps independent labels is where everything is shifting toward, and these mega labels would be wise to buy them out as subsidiaries. That, however, I can't fully explain or comprehend myself.

This might be the best way to express my sentiments: a record label or producer had been a niche position, available to only the highly skilled or trained (or those with $$). Nowadays, with affordable technology, just about anyone can be a big time musician. That might mean less payment for musicians in the industry overall, but with the stranglehold over, this should bring down the compensation down from their inflated valuations to the "true" values.

It should also mean the end to full-length albums and more focus on quality singles, no?

Okay, how wrong am I and how does anyone perceive the "future" of the industry differently?