Four (or Five!) Reasons Why

…The Major Music Labels Don’t Have A Clue

1. The Ringle. Seriously?! Does Sony and Universal really think that this going to revive the music industry? For those not in the know, a Ringle is a CD with three songs (one popular track, a remix and an older track from the same artist) and a ringtone. A ringtone? Seriously?! Techcrunch puts it beautifully: “Warning: this is so stupid you might want to be sitting down.” Screw the Ringle - got to Lifehacker to learn how to create you own ringtones for free.

2. Britney Spears. She represents everything that is wrong about the industry. Listless. Disengaged. Washed-up. Check out her embarrassing performance on the MTV music video awards. Is this what major labels are banking on?

3. The RIAA. What used to be the industry’s watchdog has turned into a pit bull. What use does it serve to terrorize students? The labels should really rethink the RIAA’s role in the future of music.

4. The uproar against Prince. The launch of his latest album, Planet Earth, as a free CD insert in United Kingdom’s The Mail put everyone’s panties in a bunch. Apparently the UK arm of Sony BMG withdrew from Prince’s global deal and decided not distribute the album to UK stores. Considering that Prince has sold millions upon millions of albums, this reeks of another case of the major labels losing sight of the big picture. Mmm…if you’re like Matthew Good, maybe you take after Prince’s lead and jump straight into distribution with iTunes.

5. Their approach to new technology. By trying to maintain their grasp on a dying business model, they didn’t see emergence of a new wave of innovation. They missed the concept of the long tail in music. They shut down Napster, which only spawned the birth of a series of copycats. They came to the show late with MySpace. They resisted iTunes and Steve Jobs’ 99 cent pricing structure. Stupid, stupid and more stupid. Bands like Freeflow need to get heard and now they have a way.

For more, check out Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music and PBS’s The Future of Music.

Update: As of 3:30pm on Monday (the day after the televised event), MTV.com had streamed over 7 million viewings of the Britney Spears debacle. Now that’s a spectacular failure!