Quote:
Originally Posted by Quexos
I remember how a decade or so ago they claimed that music was going to disappear or dwindle to such levels as to become insignificant if piracy was not stopped.
|
I don't know who this "they" is. Someone really said there would be hardly any new music?
The correct prediction would have been that the ratio of the live performance price to the recording price was going to skyrocket. Before recording compact tape cassettes became popular in the late 1960's, a broadway original cast album cost more than a broadway balcony ticket. Now -- mid-week -- the live performance costs maybe ten times more, pricing out the middle class.
The change in movie ticket vs. soundtrack album price ratios hasn't been that extreme, but it has gone in a similar direction. As has the concert ticket - album price ratio for popular music.
Because hardly anyone prefers attending a reading to reading the book, what I wrote above tells nothing about future publishing. My working hypothesis is that as book piracy really heats up, book prices will fall. As a result, authors will have to churn out books quickly. If you like quickly written formulaic novels, you will be happy. If you like books that took years to research, write, and edit, you won't. And I won't.