Record labels continue to flounder in the face of basic economics and 10 years of failed strategies. As part of their latest flip off to customers, Warner Music Group announced they will stop free streaming of music. While they haven’t clarified whether this means removing all current streaming deals, the idea is likely meant to remove a large portion of music from popular streaming sites like Spotify and Last.FM.

Warner Music claims there isn’t enough money being made from streaming, but once again, Warner Music is ignoring basic economics here and worse, ignoring a large market of customers who they can make money on selling true scarce goods.

First, if customers can’t find your music, then they’ll find someone else who’s willing to stream, share, and use all the marketing tools at their disposal. And for those who want Warner music, well, there are more than enough unauthorized sources that offer no direct revenue back to the labels. So Warner Music’s artists get less exposure and file-sharing still runs rampant. How is this suppose to increase revenue?

Warner Music could use streaming as a marketing tool to increase the value of scarce goods (not music files) like concert tickets, merchandise, or the many other new music business models we’ve seen.  And if they were really smart, they’d stop strangling music streaming services with onerous service charges that make it impossible to innovate and run a business.

Controversy swirled last week on allegations that Last.fm’s parent company CBS gave the RIAA user data for possible use in civil and criminal cases. All those involved in the story have denied these allegations, though Techcrunch stands by the story.

It’s impossible to filter the he-said she-said right now, so instead let’s look at all the good that can come from the RIAA looking at Last.fm’s data. First, it’ll be almost impossible to make any case based on the data – Last.fm shows what music people listen to, but not the source (whether its legal or pirated). Instead, the RIAA could use this massive amount of data on real listening behavior to find new revenue streams and marketing opportunities. The RIAA could see exactly who likes one thing and then listens to another, helping to plan concert schedules and other events (like they already do with piracy data).

What would be even better is if the music industry took this data and used it to find new musicians and bands that fit the listening tastes of music fans (the ones listening). Using actual user actions can be much more efficient than focus groups or other market testing, but rarely is that data available. Of course, this is another benefit of the internet’s cheap and easy distribution – easy market testing. Post a new song to Last.fm or YouTube and see what happens. Do a little self promotion and you might have the next Susan Boyle on your label.

Of course, the RIAA won’t do any this. They’d much rather claim they’ve stopped suing people then continuing on suing. More money there than actually finding new business models.