Scott to the RIAA: "Give your customers what they want!"

Of my two favorite music websites, Pandora and Muxtape, one has already been shut down and the other is just inches away. Both have been in the sights of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for some time now, and I guess that their demise has been virtually inevitable. Given the gentle, honest, user-focused values of the music sites and the wealthy, vinyl-and-8-track old-school mentality of Big Music, it's not hard to see why there's an inherent conflict.

I'm a steadfast supporter of capitalism, and firmly believe that consumer demand is the force that drives businesses. I tend to favor less regulation as opposed to more. I believe that businesses should be allowed to make mistakes because they will ultimately have to answer to the mob -- their customers (and potential customers) that demand (or don't demand) their products and services.

The internet challenges everything that our parents knew about procuring and listening to music. Thanks to digitital, downloadable audio, we can now instantly purchase songs and albums online and will someday no longer need CD players in our cars. But the internet changes other things about music -- not just how we buy it. Internet radio stations like Pandora let us discover new artists based on what we already like. Social music sites like Muxtape allow us to express ourselves with our musical tastes and keep tabs on what our friends are listening to. The internet enriches our melodic experiences in so many ways.

The demands of music consumers have evolved incredibly for the past ten years. We no longer want to walk into a record store and buy a CD to put on our shelves. We want to interact with each other based on the premise of song. We want to learn about new artists from our friends and not just Casey Kasem. We want to be musically enlightened. And we want to listen for free. But the RIAA is stuck on the old way of doing things. They have monopolized popular music and will do anything they can to keep our wallets feeding our ears, even though that is clearly the opposite of what we have demanded.

But it can't last forever. No matter how hard they try, the RIAA will fight an uphill battle against its customers. Without substantially changing their business model, they will fail. They do not understand that someone will always find a way to listen to songs for free on-demand. Unfortunately for them, because their product is digital and can be easily duplicated without variable costs, they will never develop a cost-effective solution to stop developers from coming up with increasingly clever back doors and untraceable workarounds. The RIAA's attempt to stop pirating is like trying to stop a swarm of bees with a .22 rifle -- sure they'll nab someone every now and then, but the stings will never stop unless they learn to embrace the swarm and give them what they want.

I believe that the internet has leveled the playing field for musicians. No longer is their success dependant on being discovered by a major record label. I believe that the days of the mega pop star are numbered. If super popular musicians continue to sign with record labels that are constantly at war with their customers, listeners will eventually start to follow the path of least resistance and explore the music produced by more forward-thinking labels.

I don't have a solution for the RIAA that details how they can survive, given the shifting demands of their customers. But I know that fighting isn't the answer.