Art,
This is a problem yet to be worked out. First are some of the issues to resolve:
Most people including myself are happy to pay artists for music I enjoy. But most of us have a real problem paying bloated prices for CD's which only have one or two songs we want and the rest is throw away junk. How many times has each of us heard a song, bought the CD and found the rest of the CD wasn't worth listening to. I don't mind spending the money for what I want, I resent having to spend money for what I don't want. But the RIAA wants it this way and has made no effort to improve the system.
That being said, I don't think the Secure Digital Memory Card is the answer and her is why:
If I pay for music, I do not want any restrictions on how I can play and transfer this music to all my music players. I want to be able to transfer this music to my home stereo, my car stereo, my walkman, my underwater music player, or ghetto blaster or whatever without a hassle. I don't want a car stereo that uses a digital memory card for obvious reasons. To easy to steal, to expensive to replace.
So if I am in the market for an MP3 player I am going to pick one that allows me the most flexibility and fewest restrictions. And I think most consumers think the same way.
Here is something else to consider. Downloading from Napster is time consuming and often it is hard to find particular pieces. Often, the recordings have flaws which are passed on and on so sometimes it is hard to find a particular piece without the same flaw. Also, if you are downloading and the other person logs off, your download is incomplete. And you can only download that piece if someone who has it is on line when you are. There are other problems as well.
My point here is that many including me would be more than willing to pay 25 to 50 cents a song to download something we know is not flawed from a site that has what we want, when we want it. That doesn't sound like much, but if the artist got just half of that, most musicians would make a hell of a lot more money than they make now! Of course RIAA would squeal like stuffed pigs! They would loose their piece of pie.
I think the solution will be closer to this scenario than to SD MMC. I could be wrong but I bet I'm getting close. The times they are a changing.
Steve 667 |
