Now you see it, now you don't

Well I guess there are a few things to bring up for this weeks business.
1) Warner pulls all content from YouTube
2) RIAA promises to stop suing
3) Myspace blocks project playlist

I think first and foremost the fact that the RIAA has finally decided to stop pulling lawsuits out of their butts is a huge positive note. Everywhere you turn the news articles are saying "now what?". Well, maybe the labels can start to regain some of their dignity back. A large part of me wonders if all the irrational legal action that the RIAA took on young kids, people that didn't even own computers, and others that were not even living only fed the fire for angry bitter "damn the man" teens to keep sticking it to 'em. There is always an air of carelessness when you're a teenager. You don't care if you risk cancer smoking a cigarette, risking your job when you get a tattoo, you most certainly don't care about risking getting sued by the record industry for illegally downloading music, especially when you're one of 20% of the country that does it. But you can't hide. As much as I believe the RIAA should have taken action on serious offenders, they were stupid about it. Almost every case looked like a joke to the onlookers and it was humiliating. They only hurt themselves, throwing fuel on an already unwieldy fire. The culture most certainly aids a generation of kids who are ready and willing to take that risk all to feel like they're setting themselves apart and doing their part to screw over big money making record execs.
The funny thing is, those big money making execs are suffering so bad now since you all decided to damn them, that they have to make sure that they are get every penny that they should out of all the other exploitations that are out there. And there are many, such as the YouTube and the Project Playlist. YouTube has been dealing with these kinds of issues since it started up. At least this time they are not being sued. Universal reported great results from their negotiations with YouTube, but Warner can not seem to settle for agreements that are not completely fair to the label, the artists, songwriters and publishers, which I agree with. They have every right to fight for what they feel is appropriate for everyone involved. If the agreement is rational and fair then everyone benefits, even YouTube. It is discussed that YouTube structured agreements with all four major labels to share advertising revenue, which is a good break for the labels and a concept that has been talked about in the past. With so much pressure to keep their heads above water, labels are in a position to create and fight for these kinds of deals in order to make the best profit for each and every available outlet. Warner will lose out of the great exposure for the time being, and the fans won't be too thrilled, but eventually a contract will be settled on that, we hope, will be appropriate and fair.
Project Playlist was also blocked on Myspace. Myspace has decided to "take sides" with the labels, pulling the widget at the request of rights holders. The labels have argued that Project Playlist's structure of their widget and the streaming encourages infringement. There have been other sites that have crumpled under pressure from the labels, in fear of legal action. There are a lot of programs that they could also make this claim about, but the disadvantage the labels give themselves is not stepping into a modern generations mind set to "seek and destroy" these third parties. Of course, the way things are moving at this point, for every site you close another will blossom and guaranteed it'll be better than the last. You'll never be able to fight the young generation, made up of tech savvy, opinions, and intelligence against a bunch of obsolete industry ideals that labels created 40 years ago. And the more the labels fight, the more society fights back harder and with better resources. We all know this to be true with most things. Project Playlist competes with the functionality of MySpace itself and Facebook has also made the decision to not block Project Playlist. So whether or not booting the widget is a good idea? probably a bad idea. But that's what we get for burning out CDs for everyone and their cousins. Losing the widget doesn't really benefit anyone, the labels lose exposure, and the fans are just going to keep getting pissed off without understanding why.

So good news and bad news for the industry. Glad to hear that there is no longer silly ego - trip lawsuits running around. Sad to hear that Warner and YouTube can't learn to get along. Truthfully, the RIAA will probably find another way to blatantly embarrass themselves. Warner will come to some kind of agreement with YouTube, seeing as it's the best promotional tool for anyone and anything, and Project Playlist? It'll make it's home on other community sites for the time being and I'm sure the labels will find someone else to complain about tomorrow anyway.