Apple unilaterally decided to increase the song preview time in iTunes from 30 seconds to up to 90 seconds. Here is a screencap of the notice they sent to the record labels. My favorite part is the “we are pleased to inform you” line.

I knew I could count on someone from some branch of the hopelessly clueless recording industry to pipe in with a take. That someone is Rick Carnes of the Songwriter’s Guild. Here is his reaction.

“It’s like giving away ice cream samples–someone has to pay the cost,” said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America. “I think it would be a good thing for consumers to go to 90 seconds. But they’re tripling the amount of time, and they want it for free. I think there ought to be compensation. I believe anytime you use music, you ought to reward the people making the music.”

Seriously?!?! How do you get from ice cream samples to song previews? I feel like I’m stating the obvious, but ice cream is a scarce good. Music is not. The two don’t compare. Anyone who has ever tried to sample a song on iTunes knows that 30 seconds can be too short. This extra preview time will help people buy more, because they will be confident in what they are buying. Surely Mr. Carnes knows this. In fact, I would suspect this is an attempted money grab.

Say what you want about Apple’s way of doing things, but I’ve got to side with them on this one. If the industry wants to start making money again, they need to start embracing the reality of how people purchase music. They should also keep folks like Mr. Carnes quiet.

They both enable you to watch online video, but in much different ways. Google aims to do it all. It will allow you to search tv listings, and will eventually have an App store. Google’s device is housed in a Logitech box, and costs around $300. Apple TV, on the other hand, merely aims to do a few things, but do those few things right. And, at $99, is priced right for most people. You’ll be able to stream all of those iTunes videos you’ve bought, as well as Netflix, YouTube and iTunes videos.

Personally, I find the Apple TV the most attractive device. It’s smaller, and just does what I need it to. For those fully invested in the iTunes ecosystem, this becomes a no-brainer.

With more and more users accessing their music on more and more devices, this could make sense. I access my music from an iPod, iPhone and Macbook Pro. I would enjoy being able to wirelessly sync my music to each device. The big caveat, however, is cost. I’m already paying $35 per month for my iPhone data and texting plan. I doubt I would pay any amount extra just to access my own music. What could really attract potential customers to such a service would be inclusion of a certain amount of downloads that would be included. Then people would have a reason to buy. There would be something tangible they would be getting for their monthly fee.

Who knows what will actually happen, but the hypothetical is interesting to discuss nonetheless.

One thing they all have in common has been an inability to adapt to new trends and new technology. The newspaper industry did not adapt to the move of it’s readership online. The music industry, long the darling of the association of the insipid, screamed bloody murder when the music buying public flocked to Napster. A similar reaction occurred when users used Pirate Bay to get free video.

Thus, there has been a rush to demonize the public as not wanting to pay for anything anymore. The problem with that is they aren’t giving the public a reason to buy. People only buy what has value. The prevalence of blogs, Twitter and other forms of  information has rendered newspapers obsolete. The music industry gouged people with ridiculously high prices on CD’s, and then didn’t provide a legal outlet like iTunes until it was too late. Same thing with the Film and TV industry.

They were all late to the game, and only have themselves to blame. Now, instead of pointing the finger at the public, they should actually innovate, and give us a reason to buy.