Will the music industry listen to a suggestion from academics?
Maybe they will listen this time:
The Globe and Mail: Would you pay 5 cents for a song?
What do you think? Flat fee even for those who do not listen/download music?
Anybody considering voluntary payments, a bit like shareware? There
once was an Ottawa company aiming to facilitate anonymous voluntary
payments to musicians. Of course the music industry would not support
this, because this would mean that they would accept being bypassed. So
it never came to fly. Maybe it’s time to dig out that concept again.
Maybe one day the music industry will also get the their part of this
world is changing. More people can become publishers these days, CDs
can be low-cost produced on demand and music can be downloaded. So we
do not need as many records, we do not need the management overhead. Of
course it’s always hard to lose money and jobs, but think about the
mindset being created at the moment.
Some people that download music think it should be for free. A lot of
them still buy albums. Had the music industry jumped onto the bandwagon
early enough, they might have been able to create more momentum,
supporting voluntary payments. Creating the willingliness to
voluntarily pay money, instead of the current expectation to be able to
download the music for free…
But I am just repeating myself…
In any case, I think portability is a must, so DRM should probably be bust 