Do the Majors Need To Ease Control?...

According to Billboard.biz, Warner Music Group and EMI Music Group are filing suit against SeeqPod, which is an Internet music search engine service. EMI went even further "by naming several SeeqPod employees and investors as defendants." EMI is also suing Favtape, a music-on-demand site that uses the technology from SeeqPod to run it. I tried to access Favtape but found that it had a slow response. I don't know much about these sites or their popularity but I could see a possible infringement of copyrights if they are not making any royalty payments to the copyright owners. Gerd Leonhard is working on a book detailing the "End of Control" and that companies can no longer try to control their stakeholders but involve them and ensure that they have their trust. This is definitely right on when it comes to consumers, however it may be a slightly different case when other businesses are profiting from your intellectual property. I think in this case the majors may have a right in litigating for the protection of their most valuable asset. Although, when consumers are loyal to services such as SeeqPod and Favtape and see them shut down due to the majors suing them, the perception of control comes forth. Therefore it is important that the majors engage these companies and evolve to a new era of music consumption while protecting their content. I will be looking further into this subject and will have more posts to come.