Chair of RIAA positive about the future, sees a world with ubiquitous music

The music industry is positive about the future again. After years of declining sales, industry representative RIAA sees a light at the end of the tunnel.

“We are halfway through a rough age, a transition from a world dominated by physical units to a world that will be dominated by enjoying music through listening models. It's a tricky time, and we're probably at our low point,” says RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol in an interview with the Tennesean.

In 1999, the year in which Napster put piracy squarely on the map, the American music industry had a turnover of about 15 billion dollar. Now, says Bainwol, the figure has almost halved to 8 billion.

Bainwol says to be ready to embrace the digital era. “Music is ubiquitous. We used to view music as a simple business exercise. You hear it on the radio (and then) you buy a piece of plastic. That was the music business. In today's world, the music business is everywhere and it is so accessible. The trick will be to monetize the ubiquity of music.”

The strategy to make the branch successful again in the online environment consists of two parts.

First, the sector wants to convey the message to a large audience that piracy is seriously uncool. In previous years, it chose to use the courtroom as a stage to get the message across. However, they now prefer to switch to the less heavy-handed approach of graduated response. The RIAA sends messages to file-sharers through ISP’s. In these messages, they are requested to stop. When file-sharers cast the letter aside and continue, more stringent requests follow with letters that state the possible sanctions.

Second, the industry is working on online distribution models. Bainwol: “I happen to believe access models that are either tied to devices or tied to ISP accounts or in some other fashion will become very significant down the road. The ability to access all the music in the world that is not much more than a few Starbucks coffees is just a phenomenal economic deal. It's my view that (among) a new generation of consumers, that model is going to do extraordinarily well.

Source: Tenessean