Fixing The Music Industry

While I'm not quite as dismissive as Coolfer on the inevitability of the recording industry's actions during the "rise of Napster," he hits the nail on the head when he talks about how the business has to adapt if it's to have a chance of surviving:

If they music industry truly wants to fix its problems, it needs to create a list of the impediments to new business models (and it needs to put piracy way down on the list). Then it needs fix each of those problems so it can quickly adjust to disruptive changes in technology. Without changing how the industry works, without changing the laws upon which it sits, without changing how its many stakeholders collaborate and compromise, the music industry will never be able to adapt fast enough to properly limit self-inflicted harm.

The part I disagree with is his take on Nicoli's quote, because I don't think it's inconsistent with exactly what he prescribes at the end of the post. The industry did find it "difficult or impossible to collaborate." Was it largely systemic? Sure. But it's still systemic now, and it's not out of the question that change is possible. Was it likely ten years ago that anyone would have been able to recognize the systemic problems in the industry and convince people they had to do something radically different? No, but if you remember one of my favorite soapboxes about digital music, EMusic had iTunes' business model way before Apple did, so had they (full disclosure, "we") somehow made a stronger case, who knows?