Media Companies Fight Back Against Piracy, But Don't Address Core Issues
As noted by CNN and other major outlets, the Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuit against 261 people accused of illegal downloading of music files swung into action today, with many more suits expected and an amnesty program hoped to bring others in line for legal action under control. As the article notes, there are at least an estimated 60 million people who use file sharing networks. While a companion article in The New York Times notes that the media industry's dedication to technology may have turned on them finally and forced consolidation and bottom-line focus, it's really rather the opposite. Media companies held on to the CD format and its price points for more than twenty years, years in which technology's ability to deliver content inexpensively and efficiently was changing rapidly. By ignoring the top line of value that could be delivered to audiences using rapidly changing technology and concentrating far too much on milking content catalogs that mostly ran dry in true value years ago, many media-oriented content companies have paid a steep price.