RIAA Goes After Lip-Synchers
Oh my. I just do not know where to begin with this one. RIAA has decided that people who post videos of them lip-synching to songs is a copyright violation. There has been some incredibly heated comment about this around the place -and rightly so.
What has caused this moronic action? According to Stephen Abbot, it is the fact that RIAA has worked out music videos can be sold for $1.99 on iTunes. In their twisted estimation, this means teenagers lip-synching to Britney in their room is some kind of competition.
The posting on Project Opus I linked to in the first paragraph has some interesting comments regarding copyright. I for one would find the court case hilarious. Credibly proving financial loss as a result of some teenage homo in invercargill mincing away to Madonna (Hi Dan!) would be the kind of televised court proceedings I would want to watch.
Of course, the real tradegy here is the wider picture. This lumbering institution is so far behind the media trend that is doesn't offer much hope for the short term future of content delivery. Not only are they just waking up to the fact that people have been doing this sort of thing online for years, but rather than capitalising on it, they are trying to stop it. This is like trying to melt the iceberg with a hairdryer after the Titanic has started sinking.
Here's a thought. Why not try and capitalise on the trend. I'm going to use the 'V' word again. Yep. Viral. Find the most hilarious attempt at lip-synching (perhaps even a competition?) and watch it fly around the world dozens of times a day, ending up in millions of inboxes.
Do you think people will opt to keep the crappy lip-synch version rather than buy your flashy video from iTunes? Well... they might if your music video sucks.
But then we get back to the whole 'Golden Age of Content' thing. If the content is good, I will want it. If a teenager in Alaska does a better job, don't try and sue her, improve your content.
What has caused this moronic action? According to Stephen Abbot, it is the fact that RIAA has worked out music videos can be sold for $1.99 on iTunes. In their twisted estimation, this means teenagers lip-synching to Britney in their room is some kind of competition.
The posting on Project Opus I linked to in the first paragraph has some interesting comments regarding copyright. I for one would find the court case hilarious. Credibly proving financial loss as a result of some teenage homo in invercargill mincing away to Madonna (Hi Dan!) would be the kind of televised court proceedings I would want to watch.
Of course, the real tradegy here is the wider picture. This lumbering institution is so far behind the media trend that is doesn't offer much hope for the short term future of content delivery. Not only are they just waking up to the fact that people have been doing this sort of thing online for years, but rather than capitalising on it, they are trying to stop it. This is like trying to melt the iceberg with a hairdryer after the Titanic has started sinking.
Here's a thought. Why not try and capitalise on the trend. I'm going to use the 'V' word again. Yep. Viral. Find the most hilarious attempt at lip-synching (perhaps even a competition?) and watch it fly around the world dozens of times a day, ending up in millions of inboxes.
Do you think people will opt to keep the crappy lip-synch version rather than buy your flashy video from iTunes? Well... they might if your music video sucks.
But then we get back to the whole 'Golden Age of Content' thing. If the content is good, I will want it. If a teenager in Alaska does a better job, don't try and sue her, improve your content.
posted by Gordon White at 10:09 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home