Yes, The Record Industry Is Dead. Move On Already.

Rick Rubin, founder of Def Jam records and “career-transforming, chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning producer” was profiled in the latest issue of the New York Times Magazine. Rubin, much respect for everything you’ve done over the years, but dude, you’re way off with this one.

“You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”

No, seriously. A subscription model? Again? Haven’t we covered this ground already? You have to be kidding me.

As Gruber points out, that technology ship has sailed and no one was on board. No one wants DRM, which means no one wants to subscribe to a service for their music. You can’t have one without the other.

Too all the record executives out there, listen up. Music subscriptions (and the DRM that comes with it) are not the magic bullet that will solve your piracy problem. It won’t work. Give it up. Move on already.

Rubin goes on to say,

Until a new model is agreed upon and rolling, we can be the best at the existing paradigm, but until the paradigm shifts, it’s going to be a declining business.

The new model is already here. It’s called iTunes. Stop fighting the inevitable and just accept it. Take a deep breath. Take it all in.

Of course Universal isn’t going down without a fight. And NBC is doing the same with their video content, but seriously guys, you’re not going to do any better. And Microsoft isn’t going to help. Neither is MTV. Or Real (opps, same as MTV, right?). Or Sony.

Apple is the only player in town that got it right and as FSJ pointed out, the record labels just woke up and realized “all the power in the value chain resides in one player.” Oops.

Here’s the thing. These guys could have done what we did. In the early days of the Internet, everyone figured the majors would build digital distribution arms. But they didn’t do it, because they didn’t understand technology, and they didn’t want to invest in building this expertise, and they were freaked out about piracy and paralyzed with fear. So we stepped in. We made the big investment. We hired programmers. We developed software that’s easy to use and works flawlessly. (If you think that’s trivial, think again. It’s huge.) We ran the system. We promoted it, we marketed it, we haggled with all the majors and struck deals. We took all the risk, which was considerable. Now we’re reaping the reward. And the majors want a bigger slice. Um, for what? We did all the work. Ain’t gonna happen, slick.

Tower Records has been replaced by iTunes. MTV has been replaced by YouTube. MySpace has been replaced by Facebook (until something replaces it of course). I had hoped Pandora would replace radio, but, of course, the RIAA went and sued them. Bravo guys. Bravo.

Ladies and gentlemen of the record industry, may I have your attention please. This is the new playing field people. Kicking the corpse isn’t going to bring it back to life. Stop denying it. Stop fighting it. Just embrace it.