Andre, of course a major change in the marketing of music selections would not leave the industry looking as it does now. First of all, with all the good recording equipment available, and decent recording studios at least for small groups, the recording label becomes less important. Groups could sell directly to consumers, as there would be no CD's, no distribution of CD's to wholesalers or retailers, and no retail sales other than those direct to the consumer via the Internet.
So you are right that the recording industry (i.e., the record label companies like Sony and Polygram) probably aren't very interested in this scenario, unless they can somehow maintain a contractual relationship with their recording artists. The recording companies will end up receiving less per music selection, but then their own expenses, such as manufacturing and distribution, will also be down. There is, as you note, no way to make pirate proof recordings, but, as I noted, the real issue is whether one can make and presumably sell copies as good as the original, without paying any copyright fees. So a degraded copy, similar to what you would get on a casette from a CD or other original, is going to circulate no matter what. It's the ability to market a copy as good as the original that is at issue, and particularly if the marketing results in profits going to individuals, circumventing the fees that should have been paid to the recording company and/or the artists.
On the second issue of royalties going to SNDK, I believe the issue here is the portion of flash memory sales that DO NOT produce royalties for SNDK. It looks more and more like the proportion of sales subject to royalties as a percentage of total flash memory sales keeps going down. This situation leads one to wonder whether SNDK has just another commodity product, or whether its product designs will continue to generate royalties. If it is just a commodity, then SNDK will be replaced by the likes of Toshiba, Hitachi, Intel, AMD, and others as the dominant company. Put another way, has SNDK lost its proprietary technology through a myriad of cross licensing agreements that will result in fewer and fewer royalties being produced in the long run?
Art |
