Quote:
Originally Posted by Martian
What's interesting is the studies that show that the folks who download the most are the ones who typically spend the most on music, movies or other forms of entertainment. I'll see if I can dig some up, but the bottom line is that people who like to collect movies or music are going to do so through whatever avenues are available to them.
The problem with all the rhetoric about intellectual property and rights and theft and so on is that in my mind it fails to address reality. Saying that it will devalue the product is behind the times -- it already has devalued the product. The perceived value on all sorts of media is through the floor right now. When people can get stuff for free online in minutes and can carry a year's worth of music in their jacket pocket, the value of any one track drops to the point where it's virtually nonexistant.
What needs to be done, and what the smart content producers are already doing, is to find a way to exist in the new climate. Usually that involves adding value to the product in the form of things that can't be had elsewhere. Going to the cinema is a classic and still valid example, and 3D IMax theatres are even more so. At that point you're capitalizing on the experience as much if not more so than on the actual product.
Tangential revenue streams are another thing, and Charlatan has noted that a lot of independent musicians are making a decent living that way. Give the music away to increase the value of concert tickets, merchandise and so on.
These are not new ideas, by the way -- what we're talking about here is in essence what television has been doing for the last 60 years or so. Give away the content to attract an audience, then find a way to capitalize.
I'm confident these things will be resolved, and in the near future. Finding ways to make money are what these big corporations are good at.
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I think this is vaguely what I was trying to say in my above tired, drunken post (lets just say I have a really UGLY dislike for all things music business). Neither industry had done much to keep up with the times or what its customer base really wants. For example the music industry really dropped the ball, they all but ignored the idea of mp3's and downloading until the market pretty much forced them to deal with it all the while ignoring complaints about about terrible albums (filler) and continuing to raise prices on cd's regardless of its promises to lower them. When the tech begin to out pace the product, instead of adapting to it, they fought hammer and nail to suppress it.
If they had embraced the technology and listened to their customers I'm not sure filing sharing would have take off the way it did. As you and others point out a lot of people downloading music/movies do it because they want to sample before they buy, in other words not drop $20 on something that is probably complete trash. The value placed on the products from both industries has never really matched the value placed on it by the customers and until they realize this and find other ways to capitalize (which they're starting to do) illegal file sharing will continue.
I don't know maybe its a case of an industry and its customers just being on two completely different pages for two long.