"a subsidiary of Universal Music which has started going down a smarter path lately "
Should be "started doing down a path that I, Mike Masnick, think is smarter"
Comments: Mostly that while they are giving some music away, they are also aggressively marketing the music for sale. They are not following the Masnick theory of give the music away and make it up in Ticket sales (or miniputt games, I guess) but rather to promote their product. It also isn't clear to me that the music they are giving away is exactly the same music that is being pushed through the record label (no way to tell from the article). They are giving away "an album for free" but not "our album for free" so it makes me wonder if there is a difference.
The potential here is they are using a "free sample" to sell the meal, which wouldn't really be a new way to do things, music sampler discs are a pretty old concept.
A correction and comments:
"a subsidiary of Universal Music which has started going down a smarter path lately "
Should be "started doing down a path that I, Mike Masnick, think is smarter"
Comments: Mostly that while they are giving some music away, they are also aggressively marketing the music for sale. They are not following the Masnick theory of give the music away and make it up in Ticket sales (or miniputt games, I guess) but rather to promote their product. It also isn't clear to me that the music they are giving away is exactly the same music that is being pushed through the record label (no way to tell from the article). They are giving away "an album for free" but not "our album for free" so it makes me wonder if there is a difference.
The potential here is they are using a "free sample" to sell the meal, which wouldn't really be a new way to do things, music sampler discs are a pretty old concept.