An interesting post about this whole RIAA thing from Jonathan over at The Final Analysis, who links to a Wired article about how the music industry is benefiting from data gathered by a company called BigChampagne which monitors P2P downloads.
In a nutshell, BigChampagne tracks downloads then sells – yes, that’s right, sells for actual money – the data to the record companies so that they can see exactly how popular a given single is with downloaders in a given area and push it to the relevant radio stations if they feel it’s not getting the plays it obviously deserves.
Hm, might there possibly be a touch of hypocrisy here, considering that the RIAA are suing the pants of a bunch of downloaders (from MSN news) and that the individual record companies are positively apoplectic with rage over downloading ?pirates?? Yes, I think I do smell that rank, bottom-feeding pond-scum smell. But hell, who cares about hypocrisy when the scent of litigation in the air masks the normal day-to-day stench of industry bullshit?
Personally, I think BigChampagne are on to something. If they can provide a legitimate use for download data which benefits the record industry as a whole and helps to increase record sales, then maybe, just maybe the industry will start to recognise that this new technology could be good for them. Maybe then they’ll embrace it, instead of trying to smother it.
Or maybe pigs might become aerodynamically enhanced.
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