"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. "So it's time to get paid for it."
Well Mr. Morris, I'm and iPod owner and now you can kiss my business away and not just from music, but from anything I can find out Universal Group is into, that includes DVD's, movies at the theatre, etc. Before you write me off, you might want to know that I own approximately 2000 CD's which I've bought over the years since 1985, I have about 200 DVD's, my son and I go to the movies almost every weekend, sometimes we'll even see two movies. We are the demographic your industry loves. But you can be sure that I will from now on not be contributing to your company or from any company that is part of your group or any artist that is part of your group.
You see Mr. Morris, you and your record industry might also be considered thieves, especially after all the lies you've told the consumer over the years. And lies you still tell, like those about iPod users.
I'm old enough and close enough to the music industry to remember all the industry's talk about CD's being cheaper to produce than vinyl, so that consumers should expect prices to come down. I remember many of the other lies your industry told. I remember paying $16 to $25 dollars per CD. I remember when your industry quit selling CD singles because they cut into the full album sales. I remember that your industry sold those singles for $3.99 each when a vinyl 45 or cassette single could be had for less than half that. Your industry used that to get rid of all singles sales. Leaving consumers to only buy full albums. I remember your industry lobbing for laws to make it illegal for someone to record songs off the radio for the own listening later.
I also know that your industry doesn't like people knowing how much your corporate profits went up dramatically from the 70's till now. You don't like people knowing about all the money you sucked from the coffers, the coffers which were filled by the boom of music in the 80's and 90's and brought along by MTV. You don't like the artists to know it and you don't like consumers to know it! And yet you call us thieves. You steal from your artist and from the consumer.
Capitalism allows all these things to happened, but when you call me a thief because I own an iPod, you've gone to far! That's liable to all the honest consumers of music. People stole music before the iPod came out and copied it to the early MP3 players. I did not own one of those, I waited till the iPod came out and I've bought songs from the Apple store. And I bought songs legally on iTunes.
You are upset now because your not making as big a profit as you want! You can't keep the growth factor going up much, you have competition from independent labels and the vast new sources of other music. Instead of being competitive with that, you call me a thief!
I can tell you this Mr. Morris. I will continue not to steal music, but you won't make any more money off me either. So your net result is that you'll still be losing money. Your arrogant Mr. Morris! You insult me and other honest consumers. Your customer service sucks Mr. Morris!
So now I won't steal the songs Mr. Morris, nor will I buy them. I'll record them off the radio as per my legal rights and then copy them to my iPod and still hear them in a legal way. Or better yet, I'll listen to other artists who are independent. You see Mr. Morris there is plenty of great music out there now. And it's in channels you don't control. That's the real thing that irks you and your industry!
I'll get the satisfaction of knowing that you Mr. Morris won't get a dime from me directly, I'll get the satisfaction that your big mouth has cause an artist to be a little ticked off with you because the won't get my dime either. Maybe just maybe those artists will move to a more progressive consumer friendly media giant or giants. Maybe they'll fire you after their contract is over with you. And then, maybe they will get more of there share of the vast profits that your industry has been getting since the advent of the CD. They'll get back what you and your industry has been stealing from them.
You and your industry can be considered thieves and thugs. You bully consumers and artist Mr. Morris! You do it both in the way you've marketed, scammed and played the system and now in your words and legal fights. You hate the biggest audience for your product, because they don't consume it in the way you want and others are empowering them to do so. It's called "freedom" Mr. Morris! Your industries monopoly on how, when and to whom product was delivered is over
The iPod and the revolution around it have forced your industry to wake up and have to be responsive to the consumer again. How have you responded to those consumers? Your threatening and suing children, teenagers and people who don't even have a computers. Your industry has put virus's on the consumers computers (and then said that destruction of a consumers property was not your fault - how two faced is that?). Your industry has colluded with radio in payola. The iPod and it's brethren has given back the option for consumers to buy the music they want to hear! The MP3 and iPod has given many other acts more distribution options things you don't like.
I have no problem with artist making profits from their songs and hard work! M vast collection of CD's will attest to that as I've paid for my music. But you know as well as I do that most artists make less than 5% of any song sold. You and your industry eat the other 95%. Your like the charity organizations that take in $1 and then give $0.10 cents to the needy and list the other $0.95 on the books as salaries, overhead, etc.
You tell me I'm a thief! Well you can kiss my a$$ goodbye Mr. Morris! You see, now I can listen to lots of artists who create great music and I can get to it because of the net, the iPod and the revolution that they brought about. I don't need you Mr. Morris! I'm no longer limited to what you and your group think I should buy. I can make sure the artists gets all the money.
Price fought for this and he was right. Artists take note!
With quotes like yours and others, we all see the greed and hatred you have for the consumer. We're just a profit number to you and if not that, then we're thieves. Your colors and your industry's colors are showing brightly Mr. Morris!
Here's hoping you are hit further by results of your disdain for the consumer. I hope that artists and consumers are further empowered by the revolution in media that is happening with iPods, video sites, more content creation by individuals and independent studios. Here's hoping they break you guys and make you realize the harm your doing to the very consumers you seem to want to sell too! To the artists and the consumers. It's a sad day when the middle-men get 95% of the profits and then alienate your very audience. Watch the company you keep... I hope new artists think twice before signing with a company that has a leader like you, a person who alienates a large part of the audience. Think twice and maybe three times...
As I was editing this post, I found this other blogger who shares some similar thoughts. Read it here: Universal Calls MP3 Users Thieves. In it I found out that Steve Balmer thinks I'm a thief also! Also, make sure you read the post referred too in here about Zune Pricing also. What a screw for the consumer! At least Apple is fair with it's users and tries to respect both parties. When you deal with the Microsoft and the music guys like Mr. Morris you always feel like your playing some kind of shell game and looking for how they are going to get one over on you. Good to see someone opened up that box. Lets just hope consumers get the information and don't fall for the shell-game.
Viva La iPod Revolution!
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