How the music business can get to be loved

I was reminded this morning of a speech the Register's Andrew Orlowski gave in September last year "How the music biz can live forever, get even richer, and be loved."

" Register San Francisco bureau chief Andrew Orlowski spoke at the In the City convention in the UK, telling the cream of the music industry it's never had it so good, that it's been swindled by the technologists, and that it should dump DRM and embrace freedom. As, to our knowledge, he got out alive, we think it's possible they listened just a little. What follows is the text of his speech. -Editors"

He basically told them they are sitting on a goldmine, that technologists are ripping them off, that drm is pointless and that they need to embrace the technologies that will facilitate Paul Goldstein's celestial jukebox. Also that the way to collect the cash is to charge a levy eg on the various communications services and technologies which act as distribution channels for the music, to continue their success with merchandising and perhaps diversify into complimentary markets (so called 'horizontal integration' in MBA textbooks).

I'm not so sure about some of his suggestions for diversification - insurance sales for instance - but sensible folk like William Fisher at Harvard's Berkman Center have been thinking deeply about the practicalities of levies and collection agencies; and moving forward from the polarised, unproductive copyright war situation we currently face.