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A File Trading License
Bob argues for a file trading license in this post which is a good idea and I know that many have tried this model but nobody has made it work yet. I personally think a $10/month subscription that gets me an "on demand" listening service like Rhapsody plus a license to trade on the p2p networks is a great model.
I think sampling music on the p2p networks sucks because it still takes time to download and with all the spoofing on the networks, it's a pain to deal with them. And you can't get all the music you want on the p2p networks so easily.
So sample on Rhapsody, or Napster, or Yahoo Music, or some other streaming service. And if you want the mp3, get it on the p2p.
All for the price of $10/month. I agree with Bob that this might be a very popular offering.
Comments (4) | Posted August 4, 2007 in My Music , Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
Why not just sample over the web (straight HTTP) no proprietary system?
Posted by: proales | Aug 4, 2007 2:46:44 AM
A file trading license is perfect for consumers. $10/mth is easily affordable. It gets rid of the DRM problem. The license removes the entire question of where the music is sourced from. It's basically a "don't sue me" fee. I'll sign up for it the day it becomes available. Multiply $10/mth times the number of file traders and you get revenue in the billions. This is an incredibly easy way to make billions of profit since the costs are so small is relation to the revenue.
The problem is, who administers the billions in revenue and passes it out? What's to keep the administrators from keeping 99% of the fee and letting the artists continue to starve? The labels would keep all of the fee and starve the indies. Once someone signs up for the $10 fee they're never going to pay multiple fees.
A simple solution would be to make matching payments to revenue from live acts. This would encourage bands to release music into the system without payment in order to drive up their popularity and receipts at the live performances. A fixed, declining payment could be made for pre-existing music without live acts. When this ultimately declines to zero we'd have our culture back.
Rhapsody almost works for me but the DRM with mobile devices ruins it.
Posted by: Jon Smirl | Aug 4, 2007 11:26:12 AM
I just signed up for rhapsody, and I was surprised at the limited selection of songs. Couldn't get Exile in Guyville, among others.
Any better service out there?
Posted by: Charlie Crystle | Aug 4, 2007 1:55:49 PM
I totally agree here. Some of my friends are reluctant to shell out $10/month for music, but when you consider the amount one spends on cable TV or a cellphone, $10/month is very reasonable.
The other argument against subscription services is their availability. Because of DRM compatibility, subscription services aren't available on a lot of platforms. Rhapsody is doing some pioneering work with portable devices, but there aren't many supported devices.
I'd love to see subscription services open up their platform a la Facebook. This would allow an ecosystem to thrive around music, and fill in the gaps of compatibility. Yottamusic is a great example of this (in fact, since i'm on Vista 64-bit, I can only access Rhapsody through Yottamusic!) Rhapsody published some stuff on Rhapsody DNA a while back, while Yahoo music has a plugin architecture; these are both steps in the right direction.
Posted by: monsur | Aug 6, 2007 12:40:18 PM
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