Here's my new Business Model: Assume my Customer is a Thief

David Heath
Thursday, 08 May 2008 18:21

Business IT - Networking

How many companies survive using a long-term strategy that assumes their customers will steal their product?  Only one group I know of seems to have turned this into their primary business model.  But can they actually make money from it?

A recent case in the UK highlighted an interesting problem.  If you play a radio for your own benefit and someone else can hear it, you may-well be breaking the law.

The nub of the problem is this – the people at the centre of the issue are mechanics – they play the radio loud enough to hear above their work noise.

Unfortunately, this means that others (customers, passers-by) can also hear it.  This according to the Performing Rights Society (PRS) constitutes “broadcast.” 

Never mind that royalties are already paid by the broadcaster, never mind that the listeners are probably of two minds: either they can’t stand the doof… doof… doof… or they’re ready to go to the nearest music store and buy it. 

Never mind that the workers are playing their radios *just* loud enough to be able to hear for themselves.

Indeed, this leaves a simple question unanswered.  How many people are permitted to listen to a single radio before it constitutes re-broadcast?  And following on from this, why aren’t illicit listeners the guilty party?

This whole thing is crazy.  I have yet to hear a cogent argument that explains how the Music Industry expects to build a long-term business model from the prosecution of its customers.  Nevermind whether the activities of those customers are within or without the law, nevermind that the majority of those customers are simply adding music to their day-to-day lives.

When the punishment for unlawfully obtaining music is far greater than any possible measure of the value of that music (Lessig, for instance) there is something seriously wrong.  People get less for murder than for downloading a single song.

Music publishers are complaining that they’re losing income.  There are, as I see it, only a few possible scenarios to explain this.

1. Every man (and his dog) is copying everything they can find via the file-sharing networks (this  for example)

2. Musicians are departing the ‘corporate’ system and either self or peer publishing.

3. The music being published by the Big Publishers is garbage and no-one wants to buy it any more.

4. People are scared of the publishers and don’t want anything to do with their product, whether legally obtained or not.

Choose any combination that suits you; just don’t sing the tune in your head out loud!