Viet-Justice

The all mighty Taliban have told the Germans to get out or they will bomb Oktoberfest.  Obviously the Taliban are jealous of the Germans and their superior beer making capabilities.

We must stand with our German allies because when the Taliban came for Oktoberfest, I said nothing.  When the Taliban came for Budweiser, I said nothing.  When the Taliban came for Milwaukee’s Best, I said nothing and then the Taliban had the best beer in the world.

Now the music industry has shown their true colors.  They want to charge for those 30 second preview clips you hear at online music stores.  Techcrunch has a rather funny satirical view of the subject.  Let’s just ban music period to stop the music industry from embarrassing themselves.  Perhaps we can enlist the help of the Taliban to shut down the RIAA since music is forbidden.

On a more serious note the Tool that is head of the Songwriters Guild of America says,

“We make 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money,” said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters’ Guild of America. “Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I’m not kidding. People think we’re making a fortune off the Web, but it’s a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn’t going to work.”

It sounds like Rick has a serious problem.  They’re suffering from a pricing model that undermines their success.  This happens in many industries before they go under.  If Rick were Asian he might be figuring out a solution to the problem by coming up with a new business model.  Unfortunately he’s choosing to whine about needing multiple revenue streams rather than finding the home run revenue stream that will enable them to drop all the little ones.  Songwriters will find new ways to profit without the guild or the music industry will, god forbid, consist of people who enjoy writing music.  Maybe banning music is going too far, but making sure that the crap is off the shelves might be a nice side effect of this upset in the market.  Think of a world without Britney Spears or The Backstreet Boys.  Ok, we’ll have to figure out what to do with all the Top 40 radio stations, but surely some smart Asian will have an idea.