The music industry majors have done their very best to scare away their customers in 2005. This included taking computer illiterates to court for filesharing and willfully exposing customer's computers to attacks (no, I'm not linking to any Sony Rootkit stories now. You can hardly go outside these days without one flying in your face.) Another measure taken to get rid of buyers was downgrading the value of the CDs on sale by riddling them with Digital Restrictions Management.

Still, the industry greats act surprised at a drop in sales for 2005. There is a nice opinion piece on The Register that points to a few corners where the problem might be hiding.

As it had me nodding my head after almost every paragraph, I'll quote a few:

Well, there aren't many sites left to shut down. In fact, without major media hubs to go after, 
the music publishers are now reaching to examine sites that post lyrics to songs. (We've 
bought many a song after lyric hunting, but that's surely because we're odd, totally unique, not
 mainstream creatures.) Along with the evil lyric mongers, consumers will likely be targeted by 
another 10,000 or so lawsuits in 2006. Then the RIAA can wait for the year-end data and say 
either that its war on piracy really boosted sales or that piracy continues to undermine the very
 fabric of the creative process, and this pattern will continue until the music industry enjoys a 
protracted boom.

Sadly, the RIAA's current line of thinking and method of operation prohibits such a boom.

Without question, the lawsuits against children, parents and grandparents don't help the 
music industry's public relations campaign. Nor do advertisements portraying download-happy 
consumers as criminals. It is wrong to grab this music without compensating artists. That's 
clear. What isn't clear is if suing thousands of people a year to prove a point is a punishment 
that fits the crime or a strategy worth pursuing.

The obvious motivation behind the music industry's fight against music trading on the internet 
is that it hoped to cash in on the new online music formats just as it had done with the move 
from records to tapes and then CDs. The pigopolists wanted you to buy entire music collections
 once again. The labels, however, didn't come up with online stores quick enough and have 
spent the last few years trying to stop companies that did create such stores.

It won't happen in 2006, but eventually the music labels will realize how wrong they've been. 
This cycle has run its course before, dating all the way back to the player piano and the first 
recordings of live performances. One day, a smarter than average pigopolist will realize that 
DRM-laced downloads, gimpy online services and lawsuits aren't the best means for winning 
consumers' hearts. That's when music sales will rise again.

Enjoy.

It is with sadness that I read that Cory Doctorow" has retired from his job as the European Coordinator of the EFF. It is with joy that I learn that he has done so in order to write full-time.

Until now, Cory has something like three novels and a decent supply of short-stories under his belt. I just finished reading "Someone comes to Town, someone leaves town", and it was the best read I've had in a while. Feel free to have a look at it: Fittingly, Cory has published all his books under a Creative Commons and keeps them available for download on his site.

Good luck with your new life, Cory!

And thanks to my friend Meike who gave Cory's book to me as a thank you for proofreading her master's thesis!

Update: Link to Meike fixed.