Quote:
Originally posted by Prince
My perspective? David Bowie was the first well-known commercial artist to release a single on the Internet, back in '96-'97. He predicted at the time that the digital file-sharing community would grow significantly, and that it would be in the recording industry's best interest to grow with it...and not against it. I agree with this whole-heartedly.
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Maybe so, but file-SHARING isn't a business model - no money changes hands. Maybe you personally aren't claiming this, but I am tired of people saying stuff like this implying that Kazaa and Napster arose naturally to occupy the place of a digital distribution system and are therefore justified. They're not. I agree that record labels should have aggressively pursued online distribution at an earlier date - they'd probably be having fewer pr problems now. What will be interesting is to see if all of these people who claim that high prices or having to buy a whole album for one track justified file-sharing start paying for music online now that there are a few decent alternatives.
Also, Prince, no offense, but I am sure that the recording studio that U2 uses to record an album is more expensive than a home user setup. And although digital recording has simplified (and in some cases cheapened) the recording process, buying all new equipment every 4 or 5 years as technology changes isn't easy on smaller studios...