Selling Music in the Future
275 words
Here
is a rather interesting speech given by Some Bozo — to actual record industry
bigwigs — about the futility
of trying to staunch P2P music sharing, and how he thinks the music industry
could continue to turn a profit in a world where sharing is ubiquitous.
However much one wishes to take the moral high ground, many of us find it
so easy to give 100MB of data (approximate size of an album in MP3)… and
more importantly so easy to receive that much data when it is handed
to us on a plate, that it’s almost impossible to avoid “stealing” music.
When this article projects the way we’ll share data/music in five years’ time,
it’s exhilarating. I think he’s probably right that we’ll have devices
that fill up with music — like a TiVo — wirelessly, without our intervention.
I think he’s right that this will end up in devices we buy for other reasons,
meaning we’ll own them despite not making a conscious decision to aquire them.
I’m not sure I can accept his suggestion of a music tax, however. The
counterargument “I don’t have a car or children, but I pay for your schools and
roads. Knowing roads and schools are there is an incentive to join you. It’s a
public good, [...]” doesn’t cut it with me. I already resent seeing
licence payers’ money pay for BBC kids’ TV programs which are all but adverts
for bands whos only reason to exist are to leech pocket money from children.
I don’t see that Westlife are a “public good”. I expect there are lots of
people who wouldn’t view Brain Donor as a “public good”. I know which one
gets Record Industry backing, and which one you can only buy from
one website
though.