As I sit here in my comfy couch with my "The Register" white polo shirt on
today I read Andrew Orlowski's
article about Apple
and iTunes.
And I basically disagree with almost everything in it. Which isn't
surprising, I usually disagree on such matters mainly because I'm a greedy
bastard capitalist while he's more in touch with feelings of an almost human
nature. 
His article basically makes three points:
- Apple's iTunes isn't netting Apple any money. It's a loss leader used to
help sell iPods.
- Most of the money goes to the RIAA who we all agree are a bunch of total
bastards.
- Apple is, in essence, helping those total bastards when in reality the
best solution would be to have some sort of "tax" (be it on CDs or income
tax or something) that would then go to the artists.
It is point #3 I have a problem with. How is forcing everyone out there to
pay the music industry a good thing? Who decides which artists should get paid
and how much?
Paying taxes on roads we don't use may bug some people but there's a natural
limit on the number of roads and that limit shows up pretty quickly. But on
music? Half the guys in my high school class were hoping to "make it big" in the
music biz. Taxes being used on health care or roads (or any forced fee) is more
tolerable than being used on music. Music is a luxury. They have no practical
value.
And the music industry isn't the only ones experiencing mass piracy. I don't
know if anyone's noticed but software developers have been dealing with piracy
on a mass scale for decades. You don't see us suggesting that tax dollars go to
pay us for our efforts making video games and computer software. Who do
you think loses more to piracy each year? The "artists" at Metallica or the
"artists" at Microsoft? Should we start sending checks to Microsoft?
Once you start creating slush funds for musicians to pay for some unspecified
amount of electronic piracy you're opening Pandora's box.
I don't see the problem with Digital Rights Management. Sure, right now it's
a pain because so many players don't yet support it. But in a year, it's going
to get increasingly seamless. I've already bought $30+ in songs electronically
which is $30 more than I spent in the past year before at the store.
I much prefer systems in which users pay the cost when possible. I'd happily
pay for roads directly if there was a seamless way to pay my share every time I
used it. Right now, toll booths are still quite cumbersome for most people (but
getting better). Electronic music purchasing, by contrast, is quite seamless and
getting more seamless all the time.