a couple of weeks ago i posted my reactions to some stuff that sam rosenthal was talking about on his projekt newsletter and facebook page. sam graciously took the opportunity to comment on my post, and one of his main points was this:
Just because *you* buy music after nabbing it illegally, you are mistaken to assume that other people do the same thing. According to many recent surveys, the majority of college students illegally download 100% of their music. That means they don’t decide to buy the records when they realize they enjoy the band. They are happy with the MP3.
well, it’s time to burst that bubble. according to this article in a uk digital media journal:
Adults who download music from unofficial channels also spend £30 per year more on physical and digital music than people who don’t, according to a survey by the Demos thinktank of 1,008 people aged 16 to 50.
The study – funded by Virgin Media – says a third of adults go illegal. But the additional money they spend contributes £200 million to the music economy each year.
now i’m sure you’re going to try to get me on the “the survey skirts over the vast cost of piracy to the industry” part, but the main point of the article — and what Virgin was studying — was that digital subscription sites — exactly like what i was proposing a week ago — are viable options as a deterrent to piracy, if the price is right. and honestly, it has been proposed for a while that this could be an option for college campuses where, as sam pointed out, piracy is rampant. it’s my opinion that if colleges were able to offer some kind of subscription service — maybe even bundled in tuition or room and board — students could download all they wanted, and not even realize that they were doing so legitimately. they’d be happy, sam would be happy, the riaa would be happy, and whoever developed the software infrastructure to cover the service would be very happy. this article just confirms what i’ve been saying for a while, so i just wanted to take this opportunity to say: nyah nyah, i told you so. what the music industry needs to realize is that you need geeks. you need us to tell you what is going on outside and how you should adapt to the changing times. because it’s obvious that you are way behind the times.
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