Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
An article from Forbes about whether large corporations' opinions are right or wrong naturally is going to lead to a predetermined answer....
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Fortunately, this is
not about a "large corporation." Radiohead walked away from their record label and essentially self-published
In Rainbows. I'd be shocked if Radiohead, as an entity, qualifies as a "large corporation."
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Worldwalker
....I don't think this counts as valid proof of anything, especially not a contention supported by someone who is firmly and immovably on the large publishers' side.
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I suggest you set aside your biases for a moment, and just concentrate on some basic and simple facts. The
In Rainbows download did the following:
- No DRM
- high quality (160kbps)
- put out directly by the band
- all revenues went directly to the band
- downloaders could pay whatever amount they wanted, including free
- no geographic restrictions (afaik)
- the only barrier was putting in your name, email, address (which, by the way, is necessary if you're going to use a credit card to give the band $1)
- people
still pirated it in large numbers
And of course, nowadays you have quite a bit of DRM-free and cheap music -- Amazon's MP3's, eMusic's MP3's, Apple's DRM-free tracks. It still does not appear to have made a significant dent in piracy rates.
Quibble as much as you like, these facts are pretty clear. Lots of other things are wildly unclear -- such as, how much of that piracy actually resulted in lost sales, and what percent of legit sales is cannibalizing CD sales.
But it's pretty clear that for
whatever reasons, it is essentially impossible thwart piracy even by giving people 95% of what they want via legit means.