Digital Debauchery

News from overseas now, and a recent US study has supposedly found a link between increases in personal crime (ie. theft and muggings - an experience some of us here at WBDF are familiar with [on the wrong end i mean, we dont go out rolling people]) with the increase in sales of the iPod.

The studies have found that robberies of a personal nature, whilst gradually decreasing since the 90's have started to rise again since 2005, the year that the iPod garnered commercial success and have since risen exponentially with sales. You only need to walk down a crowded street to see people with white earphones in, completely oblivious to their surroundings, entirely succeptible to the risk of being mugged. iPods are worth alot of money, have a high resale value and are not locked to a subsciption service that can be cancelled by the owner to prevent usage. The perfect tool for those wankers in collared shirts, white hats and trackpants walking around shopping centres and train stations just looking for something to take.

At the same time, one can't help but notice the irony in the fact that the majority of users are listening to stolen music in the first place. Or is that just me? And with the fact that all labels big and small are shifting their catalogues online for digital sale iPods can only become more and more commonplace. At this rate everyone without an iPod in 5 years will be a thief.

Speaking of digital music the rumours wont die that online service Facebook will soon be targeting their massive network of people 'too cool for myspace' with their own online download service. They've been putting through the paperwork with the major labels and it wont be long before all the kids can start downloading songs with mum and dads credit card, unaware that you can get it for free all over the world wide web. Whilst Apple have done it with tact and grace (well, not really, but more than anyone else) - an industry standard in a still sketchy area, many are doing it unprofessionally, incorrectly and marketing it to people too stupid to know that:

1. The artists are not getting money for a song you pay 99c for. Recoupment costs are harder to cover and unless you do it yourself you arent going to see a cent for a long while. When you buy a CD you need to realise that sure, a 12-track CD WOULD probably be worth about $12-$15 but you pay extra for the packaging, the booklet, and sure a bit for shipping but at least you walk away with something solid. Albums are constructed, albums have a feel and if you love a band you dont have a problem paying for it.

2. The argument that digital audio is of a higher quality is flawed. Most of these labels are pandering low-quality files, which people without an ear for it wont realise. Alot of the market and costs involved is determined by geographic location and the songs are normally available at one bitrate and in one file format. It would suck to pay money for a song only to find out you dont have the application to play the file, no? Refunds are a bit harder to come by..

So if Facebook go through with it all, the target demographic and level of accessibility shifts from people with enough insight to make a conscious decision, to any kid who wants to book someones face or whatever it is people do on there. Hence the need for iPods increases. Hence easy targets for theft increase. Hence crime increases (apparently).

Are people not connecting the dots here?

Think about it.