wtf, traditional media distribution channels?

[cimorene]

Dear record industry,

Over the past year there have been a number of times when I heard a song and liked it so much that I thought, "I would like to give people money in exchange for this music!"

50% of those times, this has resulted in the simple enough procedure of ordering it from a CD store or digital music store.

The other 50% of those times, when I have searched these sources for music, it hasn't been available to me because I live in Europe.

Now, let me explain something to you, record industry. The fact that you haven't released a single to the radio in Europe? Doesn't mean that people in Europe don't know about it. There's something called the I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T and, thanks to the fact that artists (and also your companies) like to use it for promo, people all over the world can stumble over clips, advertisements, even full streams of this music over Internet radio, official websites, last.fm, etc.

So when my local music supplier can't give me my desired goods in exchange for the money I earmarked for them, I'm not putting it in a jar and marking the six-months-away date when said music is slated for European release on my calendar. No, I'm putting the money back in my wallet, and then I'm looking around the Internet for the music. It's not hard to find. In fact, finding the music for free is a much simpler process than paying for it. So you're not doing yourself any favors here. You're just ensuring that people get tired of listening to it and probably forget about it by the time the opportunity to pay you for it arrives.

Love,
Cim

Comments

[pensnest]

They move as dinosaurs, don't they? Really, it's high time the record industry figured out that they've been through this sort of thing before, when R-A-D-I-O started playing music, for people to listen to *free*. And it should not take the record industry this long to realise that the internet is global.

Sigh.

[renne]

This is so much like me with the music from Treme. HBO posts the links for each song on their website and I keep on trying to give them money for it, but they keep on having it on the US iTunes and not the Australian one.

It's like... seriously, we're going to see this show on television here within maybe 18 months (and that is being the absolute in generosity). In 18 months, I hope to be well into the second season screening on US television. I'm not going to come back to play catch up on what's screening here.

[cimorene]

Right? All the Internet hype is dead and nobody will want to talk about it anymore, including me, by the time it comes out here. This is doubly true with movies, because the movie blogosphere is always on NEW movies, but here they regularly come out 3-9 months late.

[torachan]

Yeah, if they really want people to pay for stuff, they need to get rid of the stupid region-locking, etc. and sell to everyone at the same time regardless of location.

And speaking of ridiculously delayed release dates, apparently I Love You Phillip Morris is now slated for OCTOBER. I gave up and downloaded a copy.

[used_songs]

I hate region locking! I wanted to send a friend some DVDs but was stymied by the stupid region restrictions.

[cimorene]

Slightly different (but still stupid) face of the issue. Although region-locking on DVDs is fairly easy to circumvent - computer DVD drives are only software locked. Run Linux and you can easily read both, which I do. (Even before the switch, Wax & I just used one computer for Region 1 and the other for Region 2.) Staggered release dates are much more personally enraging. For music you can always find whatever it is on Youtube if nowhere else, but for movies that you're itching to see it's much harder.

[cimorene]

OCTOBER? What. This movie was finished filming LITERALLY YEARS AGO.

And that's not just greed-based regionality, it's the fucking evil US movie distribution industry combined with homophobia. What a delicious cocktail, right?

The Runaways came out a couple of months ago there, and I personally am fairly excited for a) Joan Jett biopic and b) girlkissing, and it's not due here till I think September. *RAGE*

[wembley]

And speaking of ridiculously delayed release dates, apparently I Love You Phillip Morris is now slated for OCTOBER. I gave up and downloaded a copy.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Jesus Christ, COVER YOUR EYES, THERE ARE HOMOSEXUALS IN THIS MOVIE. It's 20motherfucking10 oh my God. /off-topic

[used_songs]

That's exactly what I do with Doctor Who (and used to do with Torchwood). I don't understand why media companies don't get this. At what point are they going to realize that most piracy happens because they aren't making their products available to willing consumers?

[cimorene]

Steve Jobs still seems to be the only person remotely connected with the situation who got the memo, and since he's actually a computer person and not from the entertainment industry, I'm not sure it counts.

And grateful as I am for iTunes, it still has fucking built-in regionality. It detects what country you're in and won't let you buy stuff from the US site.

[calime]

WORD.
Ditto on ebooks, and shows, and movies.
Honestly, every time I get the response "this product is not available in your geographical location" I feel like they've said "well, your money stinks, we don't really want it".

[cimorene]

Inorite? How is "We don't want your money" compatible with any non-crazy marketing strategy at all?