If you pirate music, you're downloading communism!

[Steve Pond]

On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:29:26 -0400, you sent through the ether:

>Very few  
>ever go to live concerts. Most download music illegally. Is it still a  
>mystery why I'm standing on this soapbox?


I think we're missing the big picture here, which is people do the
easiest thing.

Pre-Internet the easiest way to listen to music of your choice was to
buy a record. 2nd choice was to tape it off a friend, third choice was
to tape it from the radio.

The benefit of option 1) was that the quality was higher, but people
still went for the easiest option. Nobody wanted to pay, but they had
no choice so they did.

Now we can get a generation 1 copy for free on the Internet because
it's the easiest option, why buy it from itunes? the free option
involves the same amount of mouse clicks, but it's free. 

All that needs to happen is we make the easiest way to obtain music, 
the way that gets people paid..

And the only way I can think of is a "media licence" much like we in
the UK pay a TV licence, so when you "release" some music you register
it with the licensing body they then give you your slice of the pie,
as time goes on that could be based on downloads, or maybe media
players "phone home" & say what's being played the most... or most
likely the Internet will be so prevalent there will be no need to
download, you just "play" on demand, and thus know the true play stats
and the licence fee can be carved up accurately.

Complicated old world innit!

-S.