Would You Pay 5 Cents For a Song? 905
irikar writes "An academic at McGill University has a simple plan to stop the plague of unauthorized music downloads on the Internet. But it entails changing the entire music industry as we know it, and Apple Computers, which may have the power to make the change, is listening."
No matter what free will always win... (Score:3, Insightful)
And somehow this isn't a pie-in-the-sky idea? Oh give me a break! So what? Apple, Yahoo, Google, Foo buy up the companies and what happens? Their bean-counters decide that well if we can make billions selling songs for
Pearlman said that Pfohl misunderstood the idea. Then again, another record-industry type, casually speaking to Pearlman after the talk, had perhaps the most succinct counter suggestion. Why not charge 10 cents, instead of 5, and double the revenue?
Thank you so very much for proving my point.
It would also obliterate musicians' choices on how their music could be sold by conscripting them into a 5-cents-a-song system. And it would destroy record companies' incentive to invest in new acts, Pfohl said.
Somehow I doubt that most of the musicians that are under the current cartel's contracts care how their music is distributed as long as they get paid. Those that don't give a shit already allow their music to be distributed for free on the Internet.
Let's stop with the whining and bitching about the artists you sleazy fuckers and start talking from your own business perspective. Everyone and their grandmothers know that you don't give one iota of a shit about the musicians unless they are filling your ever greedier pockets with money that you can throw at more shitty musicians and sympathetic lawmakers that will kowtow to your bullshit. Someday you will lose but I'm certain that this plan won't do it to you...
It amazes me that no one looks at the successful bands that have been distributing their music for free for years and says, "hmm, why is this still working for them and we are continuing to put out class acts like Ashlee Lipsynchson and we are hemorrhaging money?"
Some of the more recent big bands that allow their music to be distributed include Wilco and Los Lonely Boys. Wilco won the best alternative album this year. Hmm and yet they allow me to download their shows. Guess what RIAA? I would buy their album ANY DAY over someone like Ashlee who lip synchs her live crap and refuses to let us hear it for nothing. I mean, it's not even her doing anything why shouldn't it be free?
Just a FYI Apple, no matter how cheap something is it is NEVER as cheap as free. Free will always win out.
Pay me 5c (Score:1, Insightful)
Way too optimistic article... (Score:2, Insightful)
I will stop downloading (Score:5, Insightful)
You can forget the "stealing tax" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same scheme that we have today on blank CDs and the like and it is total BS to apply it to computers. I have no idea why anyone outside the entertainment business thinks that it's OK to put a music-stealing tax on every computer, or DRM on every computer when not every computer is even considered for such use. What about the company that buys 10,000 computers per year and because some 12 year old is "stealing" music they have to pay an additional tax and further have to have their computers crippled with DRM?
Commodites (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is not what Apple is charging, but what the record companies are charging Apple. As I understand it, Apple Computer Inc. is making essentially nothing on the sale of each song, but rather are using song sales to drive sales of iPod and thus Macintosh computers and Apple software. I am sure that Apple would be more than happy to participate in a 5 cents/song pricing scheme, but it is the record industry that is going to be the hard ones to convince. I do not understand how the recording industry can say it would destroy record companies' incentive to invest in new acts when the potential for much greater revenues can be had with increased volume and lower prices. What they are missing is that new music is what is going to be transiently valuable, but that pre-existing libraries of music are a commodity and should economically be treated as such according to all economic theories I am aware of. This means low prices and high volume.
No matter what free will always win...dead end. (Score:5, Insightful)
Until there's nothing left to be free. Then free loses badly.
No, no and no! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no and fucking no! I refuse to finance any industry which I don't have anything to do with.
When I buy computers for my business, I don't buy them for anything music-related, so I see NO reason to pay a tax, or levy or whatever the fuck they want to call it to support any music-related thing.
I'm tired of corporations and government thinking society exists for the sole purpose of ensure their profit.
I stopped at this sentence: (Score:3, Insightful)
No thanks.
Laffer Curve of file sharing. (Score:5, Insightful)
To a certain extent, he's somewhat right. It would substantially lower the bar and you'd have far more impulse buys (and drunk song-buying binges wouldn't hurt as much. Fear the drunken one-click shopping spree!)
However, I am not such a big fan of his idea of taxing PCs. However, the last line of the article is THE MOST INFORMATIVE OF ALL:
These guys don't even get *OLD ESTABLISHED CONCEPTS* let alone "new fangled concepts." Pearlman's response is that if you double the price, you cut the sales by more than half, so you actually DECREASE your revenue.
They just don't get it. [I'm not saying Pearlman is necessarily right with the
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly doesn't understand IT costs (Score:4, Insightful)
Label(s): $0.55
Apple: $0.34
Artist(s): $0.10
Now, let's chop that down to $0.05 instead of $0.99. Let's break it down this way:
Label: $0.03
Apple: $0.02
Artist: $0.1
So, when a customer goes to ITunes, they'll surf through several (large)-database-driven webpages to find the songs they want. They'll make a purchase against their already-paid-for credit through ITunes (of probably $10 increments), then download the 5MB song.
So, Apple now has to run power-hungry servers with a large staff of IT guys making sure they're patched and running correctly. They gotta hit customers' credit cards and give probably 5-10% back to the credit card company.
All of this... for $0.02 per song?!?
His model makes sense, but maybe for $0.25 per song... there's no chance Apple would make money by giving up that much bandwidth.
just my $0.02.
End file swapping? (Score:2, Insightful)
File swapping isn't just music.
it's movies, TV series, software and ebooks too...
Would You Pay 5 Cents For a Song? (Score:1, Insightful)
You guys are retarded (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please look up the term "elasticity" in your friendly neighbourhood economics textbook.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well if you would take Marketing 101 you would learn a couple of other formulas too. You notice at Pizza hut that they sell pizza for $10 dollars for the first one and say $7 for the second one. There is a profit point during the transaction that you can maximize returns buy adding another one to a product that you are already going to buy. Now you have $10 for the 1st $7 for the 2nd and 5$ for the third. Well as you eat more and more pizza there becomes a point where you wont buy another no matter what the price is and then you have reached saturation at that price point. Therefore even though you have saturated the market you can still gather further funds from a fixed sale/profit point.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends on how it's distributed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
really now? (Score:4, Insightful)
*BLANK* CDs maybe.
i mean $.05 x 13 songs = $.65
factor in $.25 for a blank CD and voila, that's still under a dollar. Unless they plan on *severely* reducing the price of retail CDs, I don't quite see that working out.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not, but if what you're saying is right, we might end up with less career musicians.
Although, if you look at some of those old bands that are still touring (aerosmith, the stones etc.) and are just rehashing thier old stuff over and over that might not be so bad.
Canada's Laws favorable... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is a site that tries to give more information on our favorable laws
The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic [cippic.ca]
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:1, Insightful)
Free doesn't always win - Re:No matter what ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Much like the scheme presented in the article, please remember that the "free" file sharing networks requires a broad base of participants to make them run. The utility of the "free" networks improves or deteriorates based on the numbers of people engaged in the activity of sharing freely:
even at US$.99, I would bet there has been an affect on the quality/quantity/availability of music on the "free" sharing networks. Presumably, that would deteriorate further if "legitimate" online services appealed to an even broader audience (as some or all of that broader audience would likely participate less in the "free" networks).
Re:if the recording industry is agin' it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Typical Candian socialist crap (Score:1, Insightful)
yuck!
socialism! oh my god! that's like one shade away from Red isn't it!
you are a tool.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is always a sweet spot that maximizes profit.
And yet, when will Economists & corps finally realize that to turn the maximum profit now, means destroying future "brand loyalty" and ends up being detrimental to your product in the long run?
Yes, to maximumize profit is the goal, but that kind of single mindedness will eventually kill a company. Why don't they understand this??!?!?
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I the only one alarmed at giving the government the power to punish the law abiding to subsides those that steal? Even worse, the government now is directly responsible for subsidizing another industry. Who's next, the movie industry, the art industry, the book industry, the software industry? This is a terrible idea. Lets face it everyone is going to want a piece of the action. In a few year Bill Gates, the richest man, in the world will be getting government checks based on the potential someone pirated his software.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think many people would argue that fifteen minutes is worth $.99, hence iTMS [apple.com].
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
And I am pretty sure professional athletes are not in it for the money either.
Re:Clearly doesn't understand IT costs (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not trying to rip anybody off. (Score:2, Insightful)
Again, the music an movie industries are peddling inferior products compared to that of pirates, that is why they are losing this battle.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously you never took economics 101 either.
Now true the cheaper you go, the more a person will download. The trick, however is to maximize profits. They are in business to make money. Period.
They feel that 99 cents / song maximizes their reveues. Their choice - it's their product, and if you don't like it, move on and listen to the radio.
Re:I will stop downloading (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let see (Score:2, Insightful)
6) No DRM - can rip a CD to a format that is sure to work 10 computers later
7) Selection - iTunes doesn't have 95% of the bands I'm interested in
8) Still the same old RIAA model - why not let indie bands post their own music and get a 50-70% cut instead of having to go through a major label (maybe they already do this and I haven't heard about it?)
9) Liner notes, lyrics - offer full resolution liner notes and lyrics - and how about even setting the lyrics up to scroll by karaoke style as the music plays on an ipod
Re:Death of the CD (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'd rather spend $12.99 on a CD I can play anywhere I take it than spend 75 cents on songs that are DRM'd and can only be played on my computer or iPod.
But that's just my 2 cents -- there ya go, and don't blow it all on music, ok?
On-demand is what we want... (Score:2, Insightful)
The $.99 they charge now is pretty much the equivalent of a CD. I can go buy a CD with cover art and all for $12 bucks... if there are 15 tracks on it (some of the BETTER bands have that many), you win out by BUYING THE CD!!
That's why I subscribe to Yahoo's Launchcast service. I can listen to what I want, skip songs, and it's cheap ($35 a year). It learns my preferences and finds me new music.
If they could roll that into portalble devices as well as internet service (with better quality than Launch provides..) it would be a killer service.
Besides, artists don't make money from record sales unless they suck (ala nSync or Backdoor Boys), it's from prolonged touring.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:4, Insightful)
Same this morning about free academic publication. You have any idea how much time and cost it takes to produce an album? Not play and record it, but to produce the final product? You also know that the musicians themselves do not always do this?
You also know that it takes some rather expensive equipment to produce a professional album, equipment that is, in effect, shared by the people to are signed to a label?
I'm Deaf. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
The big mistake that the music industry is making, and the TV and movie industries are stumbling into, is to make their products less convenient on other grounds as well as more expensive -- region codes, release windows, DRM, etc. Once something is released to the public, it needs to be released to the public -- TV shows and movies need to be available for download on the day that they're first shown.
Re:I will stop downloading (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You can forget the "stealing tax" (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. The question is not "would you pay 5 cents for a song?", but "would you shell out money even if you never buy music just so that other people can buy music cheauper?"
According to his argument that it's OK because the industry has benefited, there should also be a tax to subsidize porn site subscriptions, any other subscription-based content, the movie and tv industry, and even sites that currently run annoying ads to pay the bills.
What's so special about the music industry?
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
With only 4 major labels, and all of them coordinating distribution and pricing to various degrees, we're basically at the monopoly point anyway.
The suggestion that it's a good idea that the computer companies buy up record companies and become media conglomerates fills me with dread.
Agreed!
P2P (Score:2, Insightful)
So I guess the answer is yes, Slashdotters would pay five cents for a song rather than pirate music. Unless they are either hypocrites, or extremely cheap. But it seems suddenly Slashdotters' positions have changed overnight on copyright infringement, all because instead of a faceless corporation that has contracts with starving artists who don't get paid when you rip off their music, it's some GPL project.
The hypocrisy here is sickening. Posting anon because I have a feeling this could get modded down for speaking out...but I just had to speak my mind. Thanks.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
With the $1 per song that Apple charges, I would be shocked if the musicians saw more than 10 cents of that money (which is still more than CD sales). At 5 cents a song that would leave them with half a penny.
1 million song sales at half a penny each = $5,000. Also with _most_ artists and athletes, they are only "in the money" for a small number of years.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
It can be done. It may be more work on the part of the musicians, but it's also cheaper. The only thing that would be prohibitively difficult would be in the distribution of physical CDs (but I guess that's where Amazon comes in, eh?). And when you get to the internet...shoo. It all comes together there.
Don't quit your day job (Score:3, Insightful)
But I wouldn't call the marketing machine a BFD. It's the difference between you doing this for kicks on evenings and weekends and becoming a multi-zillionaire, making videos, playing stadiums, getting a heroin habit, and eventually your own biography on E!.
Seriously, it's a matter of to-each-his-own. You wanna make music, go for it. You don't care about the RIAA, and they don't give a rat's ass about you. But it appears that an awful lot of people listen to the marketing, and buy the music. They get rich; you get to have a day job.
Yeah, most of 'em lose. I'm in the same boat: I'm a part-time actor and I don't want to participate in the Hollywood machine that could make me famous and give me all the parts I want (.0001%) or suck my soul and leave me waiting tables (99.9999%). But Vin Diesel gets to work with Judi Dench and I played a house with 4 people the other night.
So don't dis the marketing machine. It's not that they'll come down on you. They'll do worse: they'll ignore you. If you like it that way, more power to ya.
Me? I like club music in clubs. No matter how good a band is it doesn't have any energy on a stereo, no matter how much you spend on it. So if you make it to Nation in DC, I'll see ya. If not, keep on it.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
That they are wrong about their pricing, and people have moved on, but not to radio, to downloading the songs for free. The only way to win back these people downloading for free is to offer a price of nearly free. Most people downloading 1000 songs a month would never pay $1 a song. But would they pay $0.05 a song? Maybe. And more likley are the people downloading 100 songs a month. $100 is a lot of money.. but $5? Do you think there are 20x the number of people downloading 100 songs a month than buying 100 songs a month? Probably. Therefore, there is money to be made.
And any mention of artists not liking this sort of distribution system is crap. "Um.. no I don't want to sell my songs for cheaper so that everyone can hear them, only those spending lots get to hear my songs"
Someone mentioned above something about higher pricing to make it appear the CDs (and by association, the music) 'worth more'. Well it's obvious by the number of downloaders that the CD's are not 'worth more' because of their price...
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the why not 10 cents argument is valid, but I think its still basically a curve. Where 5 cents is the point at where almost everybody leagally downloads music, I think 10 cents might be the point at which half of the people leagally download music.
The music industry is being greedy, not logical when they determine their pricing right now. We we already burned on the change from cassettes to CD which were going to be much cheaper once they were adopted. So the real feeling allowing people to live with the fact that they're illegally downloading music is that the price for music is obscenely high. No CD is worth $ 16, most aren't even worth $ 13, some aren't even worth $ 2.
In real manufacturing, real market forces cut the margins down, but with the recording industry prices are artifically set by the RIAA.
If the recording idustry took an honest look at their options this 5 cents/download option would make them huge amounts of money and save them boatloads on legal fees and bribes for government officials.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm confused at your point. The "sweet spot" he was talking about was the maximum profit point. That is, selling 100 units at 1$ each earns you $100 whereas selling 10,000 units at 5 cents a piece earns you $500 dollars. The question is where is price*volume at a maximum and that requires understanding the volume that people will buy as a function of price.
"They feel that 99 cents / song maximizes their reveues. Their choice - it's their product, and if you don't like it, move on and listen to the radio."
That's true. Any company is allowed to do things less than best for themselves and even drive themself into the ground. It certainly doesn't mean 99 cents actually is the sweet spot to maximize their profits thought. They might make a lot more money at 5 cents per song if that entices more than a 20 fold increase in sales.
Let's Tax Cars Too... (Score:2, Insightful)
Although computers are used to illegaly download music doesn't mean that we need to tax them to help offset the loss to the music industry. By this reasoning, we should be charging a sales tax on vehicles because they may be used in robberies as a getaway car and send all the proceeds to banks. We should also tax copiers because they may be used to duplicate books.
We really do not need any taxes like this. The music industry does not need an automatic subsidy. What they need is a additude adjustment.
Re:Yep. And it is called.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The other points are that "free" downloads are not free. You need to spend time searching for songs, wading through the crap, learning new tools as the RIAA fight the old ones, and there is a risk of getting caught, etc.
The final point of the article is that legal music distributors can regain the advantage if they offer a cheap, quality service as a competition to the eDonkeys of the world.
Hence there is competition going on, and as long as the RIAA doesn't understand it at that level, the situation will not improve for them.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea's fine; $0.05 is insane (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know what the giants like Google and Apple pay for bandwidth, but assume it's way better than what you and I pay, and maybe it's 50 cents a gig. OK, a song is 50 megs ... do the math and just letting someone download it costs the company 5 cents. Bang goes your 5 cent model.
Assume their bandwith costs are half that. You're still paying out half your revenue before even starting to cover any of your other costs. Insane.
Now, if you built the model right into a peer-to-peer sharing network that would still collect the cash, you'd spread the cost of downloads onto a diffuse group of users/clients, and therefore maybe be a little more do-able. But then, of course, you introduce all kinds of new issues with security, payment, etc. etc.
Again, the model is not crazy. The price is.
John Koetsier
http://gilgamesh.ca/ [gilgamesh.ca]
Never Pay Forced Royalties on Hardware or Service (Score:2, Insightful)
We should be turning our attention instead to finding ways to reverse the legislative abuses placed by the industry. The greater issue is how the Industry is abusing society with unreasonable copyright and distribution dominance.
Not only are theoretical and applied research being destroyed in the name of profit, but also our creativity in art. This is not a legacy that will perpetuate society over the long term.
These laws are, quite simply unsustainable.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
Has the music industry taken Econ 101 though? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I don't know about you, but my perception is that the music industry is way over to the right of the "sweet spot" on the sales-against-price graph. I hardly ever buy CDs these days, because I hardly ever see them for a price I'm willing to pay.
When Mute Records released a sizeable chunk of their back-catalog for under $10, I sent in a $150 order--as opposed to a $0 order while the prices were $15 and up.
As I wrote to a record store owner who was wondering how he could stay in business: I could easily put together a list of ten CDs I'd buy tomorrow if they were $10 or less. But they're not, so I spend $0 and wait for a sale.
Re:Wrong question... (Score:2, Insightful)
Therefore, there's only one option open to me.
Do without?
Here's your 1 percent... right here... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care about downloaded music. I don't bother with it. I shouldn't have to pay a sales tax to the RIAA for product I am not using. My company has hundreds of computers and CERTAINLY shouldn't have to pay the F*ing music industry for their workstations!
Can you imagine telling Citibank, Exxon, Chase, IBM, etc. they have to pay the RIAA a tax for every desk?!
This is the stupidest idea since... well since paying a tax on every blank CD sold.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:3, Insightful)
The music industry brings nothing to the table except their machine - which is not about good music. The machine is about advertising and selling an image to the kids most likely to spend gobs of money on music. The kids don't have descriminating tastes - they're kids! They will acquire good taste in time, but probably not until their 20s at the earliest. BTW, I am not saying that any particular kind of music is better than another - but I would say that it takes time to learn the difference between pap and something solid.
Coming back to my point again, once you have good taste the music machine produced music doesn't appeal - it's crap. They know it's crap. It's supposed to be crap - designed to appeal until the next hit record takes its place. But no, it's not music for the ages. And sure, every now and again, some great music emerges from the machine system and gives it validation.
When you have good taste you will listen to only the best stuff, and then spend your time seeking independent alternatives - because your ears can't take the crap. And while not all independent produced music is great, you are more often than not at least dealing with people of extraordinary talent who are willing to put their own money into projects they deem worthwhile. I'd have to say the amount of good music produced independently is far greater than that produced by the music industry's machine.
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:5, Insightful)
So a 5 cent song will break before a 99 cent song?
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess if you don't give a damn about what you're listening to since it is probably for most people just background noise to fill the silence, then you will find CDs expensive because it doesn't mean much to you. If you actually actively listen and enjoy and care about music on more than just a "duhhhh silence sucks" level or give a damn about the people that make it instead of being just as bad as the RIAA you complain about because you somehow think you're entitled to free music due to other people's work... then chances are the cost of a CD is damn reasonable.
If you really can't afford a CD, then you have bigger problems to worry about than what you have to listen to. If you don't WANT to pay for it and think you have some kind of inherent right to it, please elaborate.
Please refrain from the moronic justification about how it only cost pennies to manufacture a CD and how you can get a spindle of 50 for $35.
There's a reason that the vast majority of albums are put out by large companies: it simply costs a lot to do it. With the exception of the do-it-all artists who take it upon themselves to not only write and perform their music but also record, produce, mix, master, duplicate, market, and distribute their albums, most people don't have the time, talent, or inclination to take all of that upon themselves, nor do they have the personal money to fund hiring all the people it would take for that, especially considering the risk that their album might not sell well at all. Fortunately, the state of music technology today is favoring those artists that do decide to wear so many hats and it's only going to continue that way. I certainly applaude those guys.
I say again, mod parent up.
What about songwriters' 6 cents? (Score:2, Insightful)
Do I still get my 6 cents every time my song is played commercially? Since this 5 cent price applies to "private" downloads, then I'm guessing it's probably just regular sales royalties that are "affected" (and by that I mean "wiped out").
Anybody know?
A better solution, Open Music Service (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe I have a better plan. It is a simple add-on to the Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] NC-license which says something like: "You may use this commercially if you pay X % in royalties to the copyright holder trough the Open Music Service". The Open Music Service collects royalties worldwide and gives it to the copyright owners.
The goal is that anyone may start their own online music store and sell music at whatever price they seem like (royalties always beeing in percentages). A completly free market for music distribution in which the artists gets paid. Likewise, artists would simply have to make a contract with the Open Music Service and "click" you are distributed world wide.
Q: Why would people pay for music they may download for free? (AKA "competing with free")
A: Because it is more convient to go to a site dedicated to music you like and pay 5 cents for a download than to search trough the p2p networks. The dedicated site may even help you find new music you like, something the p2p networks can't do on their own.
I also believe this to be more realistic than Pearlmans suggestion as you don't need the major labels to start with. Just get the self-distributing artists and some indie labels to sign on (they would definetly get more income with this system) and you have an established alternative.
That's the barebones. As I've been working on this idea for over a year, there is of course more.
Actually, I've been meaning to start a company based on the idea, but haven't gotten very far. If you want to get involved, please drop me a line.
Re:Of COURSE it would! (Score:2, Insightful)
And there are even more people that will refuse any price, no matter how low.
People who download music now are used to getting it for nothing. How do you propose to convince someone to pay for something that they are used to getting for free?
Still Fighting after the revolution (Score:2, Insightful)
The RIAA lost its Monopoly of its industry, they spend a good 4 years writing off music downloads saying it wouldn't work because not one of the idiots thought about inventing a new buisness model to adapt to the changing technology, their current buisness model didn't fit so they decided to write it off.
They were so blind in doing so I don't understand for how much those guys must pay their strategic planners they completley failed to miss the
Move ahead to now & they are still trying to work it out, their own stupidity in trying to maintain a monopoly they no longer have is effecting their music sales, not Illegal downloads.
People no longer care about particular songs, music is the new fast food, u listen to it, get bored of it, chuck it out & get something new. WHen will the RIAA realise that, if they make songs 5c each people would dowload many, constantly, thats what the P2P netoworks do, no one is downloading music going "hehe sucked into the RIAA", they are downlading it because its a service that gives them what they need.
The IPod is proving that theory with people not concerned about what songs they put on there just as long as they can fill it up & with the IPpod shuffle now out playing completley random tracks it just show's that people don't really care what they listen too, they just want a lot of music.
The RIAA needs to wake up to themselves, they have lost the battle, its time to accept defeat & start re-inventing themselves
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why I have a Macintosh
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:3, Insightful)
As TP put it:
Re:No matter what free will always win... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, no, no, no!
I am currently listening to an album from one of my favorite bands, which happens to be a local band signed to a local record label. After seeing them open for another band, I paid $12 (not $11.99, but $12 even) over paypal to the lead singer's gmail account, and I got a nice CD that looked as professional as it could be less than a week later.
However, I could have gotten the songs for free. There was a flash applet on their page which played their entire album. Using audio capturing software, it wouldn't have taken me very long at all to get a pristine digital copy. But I decided to pay these guys for a CD that is, in my opinion, one of the best CD's I've owned. In fact, I emailed the guys and told them how much I liked their album. In a little over a week (they are on tour), I got a response. You just don't see that from major recording artists.
It feels good to know that I am directly supporting a band that I enjoy. If I download the latest [insert random pop figure here] album, I know that I'm not really hurting the band. They're still going to get their massive signing bonus, and I'm not going to notice a difference when it's on my mp3 player.
Find your local bands! They are there, I promise you. Drift away from what the four labels say are popular; they don't control your music life.