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Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (1792)	5/24/2003 5:26:33 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4912

They are fighting a battle that can't be won. They need to figure out how they can still figure in the equation otherwise they will simply be cut out. This is true of anyone who makes anything but especially so of anyone who makes a business of something like music or art. Speaking from the artist side....there's a lot of good taking some of the leaches out of the middle. So little in terms of percentage went back to the artist in so many things, now the artist can choose a very low cost distribution on the Net and forgo the big corporate machine that tends to decide who and what will or will not be heard or seen based on the lowest common denominator. This is the greatest thing about the Net, that it can create a market out of a geographically diverse group so that someone who creates something that isn't mainstream can still find fans. When you don't have to justify a large up front cost, you can sell stuff that only a small percentage of the public would be interested in, a group that has never been particularly happy with listening to what the majority is listening to or looking at. Artist's have always self published but they've never had equal access to distribution on a wide scale. But they've also never lost control over distribution of their work to the customer as they have now. You are right, it is a development that will destroy a lot of jobs....but it might result in an explosion in artists and facilitators. If the artists only get a small portion of profit off that CD now, why not cut out those guys in the middle and sell at that low price? If that price is low enough people will pay it and not be tempted to steal. Software publishers found that sweet spot. At $300 people stole the software, at $99 a lot of people said it wasn't worth worrying about a fine (if they were buying a business program). I laughed when I heard APPL was selling songs for $.99. That's fine if all you want is a single song off a CD but if you want a CD its hardly less money to burn your own. They have to compete with Kazaa and free. That magic price that keeps people from stealing will have to be lower than $.99 a song. The average teenager is running around with 2000 mp3s on their hard drives and portable MP3 players. The parents think that it helps pay for the broadband to have them downloading music from each other for "free".