Buzznet gets hungrier and the whack iPod tax
Buzznet’s diet of blogs that it’s consumed now includes Idolator. Rest assured that BNet’s appetite isn’t going away- they’re still hungry and they still want more. They’re becoming the News Corp of new media, gobbling up everything it can as it makes a push for not just synergy but also as much hip cache as it can. It remains to be seen if BNet is going to let the old brands keep the format that made them so desirable in the first place or if it bends them all for its own means (like Uncle Rupert). If they’re smart, they’ll do the former but rest assured, they’re already thinking about the later. I wish the Idolator folks good luck.
And just in case you can’t get enough of new ways to punish all consumers to offset the music industry’s mistakes, you can lump the idea for the Internet tax with the idea of an iPod tax. The same idea here is that another industry is going to be forced to bilk its customers so that it can then pay off the music biz. So everyone’s happy then, right? Somehow I don’t think the BPI (aka the British RIAA) will stop with electronics manufacturers or Net providers (and don’t forget that they’re trying to squeeze money from radio too) but they’ll also branch out to other industries that are involved in music- any remaining manufacturing plants for CD’s, plus the graphic designers and print shops that make the photos and sleeves as well as the studio engineers, club owners, caterers, groupies and drug dealers will all get squeezed somewhere down the line for being involved in the music pipeline. And then the cost will get passed on to the consumers too, whether they pay for or want the goods or not. It reminds me of the old joke about an exclusive club. “I wanted to get in and they said ‘That’ll be 50 bucks.’ I said ‘Forget it- I’m going home!’ They said ‘OK, that’ll be 30 bucks!’”
This latest one with the iPod tax (ludicrous and yet disturbing), like you mention, is yet another in a long line of increasingly desperate attempts to yield profit from any line of the musical chain music companies either are or aren’t directly involved in. It’s quite funny, because they actually have no commercial claim to taxing digital players.
You see similar stuff with the 360-degree deals, and also here in Australia the PPCA (consider them something like the oz RIAA, too) has recently hiked license fees for clubs and hotels to play Australian music from something like 7 cents to AU$1.05 per person, worse for dance parties. All this does is stop venues from playing Australian music, which is bad for the state of the industry as a whole. Self-defeating and stupid.
They’ll run out of milking ideas, or what little legitimacy they have left, soon.
Comment by Lawson from Australia — April 15, 2008 @ 2:50 am