quoted 8 lines For example, one idea being heard a lot recently is the idea of a>For example, one idea being heard a lot recently is the idea of a
>compulsory license, where everyone accessing the Web will have to pay a
>monthly fee [say a few dollars] and will then be able to freely download
>whatever music they want from wherever they want. An independent body
>would be in charge of measuring [probably by surveying/sampling]
>downloading activity and calculating payments, which could be made
>directly to artists. The RIAA may eventually come to accept this solution,
>but not without a fight...
See, I don't see how a blanket license would work, either. Certainly, not
everyone who uses the internet uses it to download music, even those with
high speed connections. Me, for example; I may say "I download something
I've heard some good things about but I'm not sure about buying it," but I
actually download very little music -- maybe a track a month or so. Never
an album. I tried downloading an album or two a while back and although I
got every track, I never listened to it. I had other CDs that I actually
spent money on that demanded more of my time, if for no other reason than
the money issue.
The thing that bugs me about that is that a blanket license would not be an
equal license. People who download very little music, akin to the radio or
radio taping, are not a problem to the record industry. And people who
download tons of stuff would be going above and beyond what the license
covers and use that as an excuse to certainly not buy anything.
What's really funny about "losing sales to piracy" is that there are
probably few sales actually *lost* to piracy, unless you're considering
people who buy something and then dislike it. If someone likes something,
they're usually very willing to buy it eventually. I mean, MP3's are akin
to borrowing a friend's CD for a while for those people -- they listen to
it a few times and decide to pick it up for themselves soon. But the
people who buy albums blindly, or based on a few songs (like most "popular"
albums that get radio play) are bought by people who like the one song, but
may very well dislike the album as a whole. Those are the people that are
turning down purchases thanks to p2p, and I see that more as quality
control than as "lost sales."
If I make a car that runs fine but falls apart after a month, some people
are going to be duped into buying it, but after a while the public will get
clued in that I make a crappy product overall. The record industry tries
to avoid that by releasing such a massive volume of music. Personally, I
think that's why p2p won't really affect the smaller labels, for the sole
reason that most albums that come from smaller labels are consistent
throughout the entire album. There aren't "hits" and there's rarely
filler, so there actually is incentive for album purchase. That rarely
exists in more "mainstream" albums.
But, of course, this has all been hashed through countless times before :D
derek
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