

Even Free Can't Compete With Music Piracy - brett
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/17/even-free-cant-compete-with-music-piracy/

======
pg
This is a very interesting point. The music industry has now taken so long to
come up with a new business model that piracy has become the most convenient
way to get music. Their stupidity has generated a whole infrastructure for
music distribution that they now have to compete with.

They're in even worse trouble than I realized. And the movie business is next.

~~~
veritas
Do you think more bands/artists adopting Radiohead's model or at least selling
DRM free music at low prices (much lower than iTunes .99) will make a dent in
the piracy distribution model?

I suppose they'd have to be in a centralized web location for convenience and
variety.

Then again, if more and more artists move away from DRM/labels, maybe piracy
statistics will lose their significance altogether.

~~~
pg
Hard to say. The point is, way less of a dent now than if they'd started 5
years ago.

------
karzeem
Journalists too often declare trends based on isolated examples. Where's the
context? How do peer-to-peer downloads compare to legal sales for
traditionally marketed albums?

Also, a lot of the illegal downloaders may get their music that way simply
because it's how they've become accustomed to doing it the past few years.
Over time, high-quality legal options could sway many of them.

~~~
dcurtis
I think iTunes is your high quality, legal option. With the non-DRM stuff now
99 cents along with the DRMed versions, its becoming more of an ideal legal
alternative for illegal downloaders.

I highly doubt the music industry can create something better, but I'll
embrace it if they do.

------
cstejerean
The problem I believe is that people have become accustomed to downloading off
their favorite P2P service. Even if the music becomes free or extremly cheap
somewhere else it will take a while to break that habbit.

