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Henry Jenkins: ‘Recording Industry Acted Like Jackasses And Don’t Deserve Any Sympathy.’

image from metaboston.typepad.com Everyone has an opinion about the plight of the record industry. Some are worth listening to, others not so much. Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture, is a renowned media scholar and cultural critic. Copy Grounds, a new media discussion form, had the chance to talk to Jenkins and he had some choice words about the record industry. He's in the midst of a new book and has been researching grassroots process of circulation. Asked his thoughts on the RIAA and whether or not fans have the right to actively participate in not only the production of culture but its distribution as well he had this to say:

"Our argument is that fans are helping to create value through their acts of spreading content and commentary through their social networks and that companies need to be more aware of value added through such processes…

I do think that what the industry labels as piracy is as often the result of market failure as it is of the moral failure of consumers, and that companies would do better to find ways to facilitate the kinds of sharing and access to content which leads people to step outside legal boundaries… I think people find themselves caught in such boxes more and more as they navigate a complex media landscape where the industry supply is not catching up with audience demand. As for the recording industry, they’ve acted like complete and total jackasses and don’t deserve any sympathy from anyone.

When Napster first appeared, they should have cut the same deal with its owners that they have historically cut with radio stations — technically stations are free to play whatever music they want and they pay into a fund which gets distributed to the various rights holders. There’s no reason to have made this such a moral battleground and in the process destroy your industry when you could follow historic precedence, embrace new technology, respond to audience demands, and tap into a system which had the potential to broaden markets for B-List content." (Read on.)

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3 Comments

  1. He cuts right to the point. A lot of the problems in the industry are caused by those suffering the most. Too bad.

  2. “When Napster first appeared, they should have cut the same deal with its owners that they have historically cut with radio stations — technically stations are free to play whatever music they want and they pay into a fund which gets distributed to the various rights holders.”
    This guy never sat in a negotiation with Napster back in the day and tried to “simply” do a deal with them. I love reading books by all these assholes who opine about historical subject matter they don’t bother to research – if he’s such a renowned scholar he should actually understand what the issues were by getting facts, or doesn’t MIT require scholars to do that anymore?
    Kyle, let’s try an experiment: get an e-copy of Mr. Jenkin’s book, and make it available for free download on Hypebot without his consent. Let’s see what his reaction is. Better yet, grab all of his papers and written work at MIT, and make it available for free download on Hypebot, on an ad supported page. Let’s see if Mr. Jenkins can practice what he preaches.
    His thoughts on where we should be now are spot on, but the 20/20 hindsight shit, without any apparent understanding of what happened at the time, is really pathetic for someone who is supposed to be a top notch educator. But then again, like Woody Allen said (and I’m paraphrasing), “those who can’t do, teach.”

  3. wow! dude, stop making sense! don’t you know when any jackass mentions how stupid the industry is or how it’s dead or dying through it’s own actions, hypebot will give it premium space?
    hey, hypebot, why don’t you ask old record guy to write an article. his one post is already better than 90% of what has been posted here in the last two years…

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