Predictions

Predictions

by Mike Masnick


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Pay Per Download, Subscriptions Or None Of The Above?

from the I'll-take-choice-C-please dept

The New York Times is asking whether people prefer to rent or buy their music -- which is a totally misleading question. The way the industry works right now you simply cannot buy music. You can only buy a somewhat limited license to listen to music in certain circumstances. That's quite different than buying, and seems much more akin to renting. The real question they're asking in the article is whether people will prefer to pay-per-download for music or to buy a subscription service for unlimited streams of music (with limited abilities to move songs to portable media devices). This is sort like asking what kind of horses you think will pull the next generation of buggies around, just as cars are starting to zip up and down the streets. Even the article just mentions in passing (and then drops entirely) the fact that more than 3 times the number of people who have ever paid to download a song accessed file sharing networks in July alone. While they're arguing over which business model will work most like what's worked in the past and ignoring where all the actual people are, the industry is pretty much guaranteeing that the real next music delivery platform won't involve them at all.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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  1. Simply the best article on this topic I've ever re

    by Anonymous Coward - Sep 27th, 2004 @ 5:51am


    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/23/orlowski_interactive_keynote/

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. You CAN BUY music online

    by Precision Blogger - Sep 27th, 2004 @ 6:16am

    At Music.com, I've already downloaded ten of my free tracks in mp3 format, near CD quality, with no DRM restrictions in the data. Check'em out.
    - The Precision Blogger
    http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Re: You CAN BUY music online

    by Anonymous Coward - Sep 27th, 2004 @ 10:35am

    What are the titles that you now own?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. I bought two CD's already

    by Magnatune Boy - Sep 27th, 2004 @ 4:10pm

    I bought two cd's already from Magnatune.com

    One jazz, the other classical. Plus you can listen for as long as you want in streaming format.

    I downloaded high bitrate mp3, plust the raw wav format as well.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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