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Fortune favouring the brave

The glad news from the tragedy-hit regions of Sri Lanka is that people are beginning to pick up the pieces. The colour pictures on our Op-Ed page yesterday showing some of the ordinary people of these areas forging ahead with the task of getting back onto their feet, spoke louder than words.

Rather than beg or wait passively for State handouts, these persons have taken it on themselves to re-introduce a degree of independence and dignity into their lives.

This spirit of courage and independence is what is needed most at the moment. While it is true that Sri Lanka has been hit by one of the worst natural disasters in living memory, it just woudln't do for us to wallow in a sea of self-pity, overwhelmed by a sense that all is lost. In this direction lies perpetual defeat and backwardness.

On the contrary, what is needed is a spirit of daring coupled with vast reserves of inner energy and vitality. Sri Lanka should not only pick up the pieces but forge bravely ahead to a new, bright future, with self-help and cooperation as our guiding values.

Some heart could be taken from the fact that this is happening even to a degree. A prime task facing the State of Sri Lanka is to foster and sustain this resourcefulness and spirit of daring in the persons who have suffered grievously in the late December disaster.

Herein lies the most formidable challenge. Material sustenance and help, as could be gathered, is flowing in in abundance and there is nothing much to be concerned about on this score.

The response - both locally and internationally - to the need for material assistance by Sri Lanka, has been very satisfactory, although help on this score is not a bottomless well.

However, it is internal or spiritual empowerment which is proving most pressing and it is on this front that Sri Lanka has to prove itself.

In other words, the tragedy-struck must be enthused into carrying on with the challenge of living productively once again. The people must be taught to believe in themselves and live vibrantly, carrying on from where they left off, without looking back with dejection and sorrow.

We are receiving a measure of help on this front from international sources, but this is likely to prove inadequate, given the enormity of the challenge. Nor do we have sufficient local expertise for this all-important enterprise. After all, the appalling inadequacy of our psychiatric services is well known.

However, all is not lost because we have an abundance of religious institutions and clergymen and women who could easily be marshalled into meeting the emotional and spiritual needs of the people. The time's ripe to make effective use of this vast array of religious institutions and the clergy who serve them.

The State should look into the possibility of training these religious for counselling services. In fact, this policy would also enable the best to come out of our clergymen and women. In addition, teachers and welfare personnel could be used for the same purpose.

The future of music

Will physical music media such as CDs disappear in a couple of decades or even sooner ? This is a question facing the music recording industry in the wake of ever-increasing legal and illegal digital music downloads.

With customers preferring to stay at home and download the tunes of their choice to iPods and other digital music players, the future looks bleak for physical storage media. This is one of the main topics discussed at the global music industry's annual trade fair, MIDEM, in France this week. The recording industry initially feared the Internet onslaught, even going to the extent of taking legal action against Napster and its ilk.

At first it did not realise the massive potential of the online medium. Fortunately, common sense and economic realities have prevailed - Napster is now legal, Apple rocks the world with its iTunes service and even a reputed soft drinks manufacturer has a music downloads site.

Legal online music sales in Europe and the United States recorded a tenfold increase to more than 200 million tracks. But online sales are still not very profitable.

The fall in physical media sales is giving sleepless nights to recording company executives. Traditional storage media are the bread and butter of the industry and any slump in their sales does not do the balance sheets any good. Music pirates, both of the online and physical media varieties, have dented sales further.

The high cost of moving to digital, music licensing redtape and lack of compatibility between various systems is also slowing the growth of the industry.

However, the recording industry can do their bit to increase sales. Lowering CD prices is one option that could deter the purchase of pirated copies, especially in the poorer regions of the world.

Online music stores should also be regionalised. Signing on more local/world music artists will also broaden the audience. Innovative polyphonic mobile phone ringtones has proved to be another goldmine.

Over-enthusiastic protectionist measures by the music industry can ultimately lead to a negative result. The industry scrambled to adopt a copy restriction system with the advent of the Digital Audio Tape (DAT) format in the late 80s.

Consumers got fed up with the whole thing, DAT died and the industry lost a golden opportunity to increase sales via another format.

Likewise, Philips has warned CD producers that any attempt to introduce third-party copy protection measures into commercial CDs may violate the CD specifications.

The lesson is that the consumer has to come first, not the interests of the recording industry. The industry must provide a better deal to music fans in order to see its profits soar.

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