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Microcap & Penny Stocks : TSIG.com TIGI (formerly TSIG) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom who wrote (33134)	8/2/1999 7:55:00 PM
From: johngmack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 44908

Tom, I purposely left piracy out of the discussion as it relates to the industry's future for a couple of reasons. 1. The average overall quality of pirated CD's and videos is inferior to those distributed by the original producers. One of the TV news magazine shows recently did a piece on how quickly copies of the new Star Wars movie showed up in Hong Kong and then other places. The viewing was less than stellar. Also, please remember that nowadays there is often as much work put into the audio production as the video side. It is doubtful that this level of quality would ever appeal to the mass consumer market. 2. Pirating is a bigger problem for the creative people and record companies than the consumers. When someone purchases a pirated CD and hears inferior quality, who are they most likely to blame? Plus, the companies lose revenue. 3. Today it is relatively easy and inexpensive to by to buy a CD-R drive ($150-300) and blank CD's at a little over $1 each. Install the software into your PC. Take a commercial CD and place it into your PC's internal CD-ROM. Place a blank CD into the CD-R drive. Try and figure out how to make it work. (This may or may not be easy - ever heard of "plug and pray?"). Swap commercial CD's. Eventually, create your own custom CD. What many people find is that it would have been much less effort to order the CD over the internet. 4. As for pirating MP3 music, I believe that the industry has the encryption routines already figured out. Will that preclude some hacker from figuring out a way around it? Probably not. If we make an assumption that MOST consumers are reasonably honest, then the authorized distribution network stays in business. Here are some similar situations: * How many unlicensed copies of Microsoft Office (or components) are currently installed in homes or offices? Bill Gates is not happy about it, but he isn't going out of business very soon. * How many illegal cable convertors are installed in homes throughout the USA? Could HBO and Showtime be almost ready to throw in the towel? * How many consumers have made unauthorized copies of Blockbuster video rentals? Blockbuster isn't ready to throw in the towel yet, but don't be surprised if small Starbucks Coffee shops start showing up as stores within the store. Some final thoughts. IMHO today is the greatest time in the history of mankind to be a consumer. And tomorrow will be even better. Our opportunities to make choices in what and how we buy is incredible. The USA is dominated by baby boomers and the children of baby boomers, most of whom have little interest in spending their money on inferior products and services. I really don't believe that piracy will derail the music and video consortium. Tom, regarding the end of your post: <<His opinion, which he did not further elaborate on (and I didn't press him), was that the record industry was going to win in the long run.>> The record industry has many components. IMO the power of the internet and MP3 technology MOST favors the content creators and LEAST favors the recording companies and distribution channels. The artists have already begun to form non-traditional alliances. We will probably see more of this in the press in the near future. For TSIG, being able to adapt and get in on the ground floor of this new paradigm over the next 6-18 months will be very important. John