03-05-2007, 05:28 AM
I want to be clear. I'm not one of those people that say that Music should be free for everyone to take and share. I think that entities such as the RIAA have a place, but the power balance has gone to hell. Their business model is an antique that belongs in a museum. The means to create a new business model is sitting there in front of them and they are trying to hide from it. Webcasting creates a bunch of new opportunities for targeted advertising. Imagine Googles AdWords tools turned on to radio or video broadcasting?!?! If you were a hiker, biker, musician, etc they could make it so that you only heard ads for those products. That makes the ads more valuable to the listener and the advertiser. The record industry only exists because back in the day the means to produce and distribute a record were beyond the means of Joe Average. Now, I can record an album in my basement that sounds reasonably professional (I'm sure Recording Engineers and audiophiles would debate that, but 95% of the population couldn't tell the difference). I can distribute the album via MP3 on the net using bitorrent so that my bandwidth costs are low. I can reach a world-wide audience using word-of-mouth advertisement...the best kind of advertisement. It isn't a perfect system, but at least the artist is in control instead of becoming an unwilling passenger on an out-of-control train.