Most people don't download music simply because it's free. People download music because it is more convenient. Yes, price happens to be a major factor in determining convenience. What the labels needed to do was to provide a way for people to get their product that was MORE convenient than going online and getting it for free. This is not impossible. Higher speed downloads? Guaranteed availability of content? Extra content/privledges? Deals on concert tickets? The list goes on.
Downloading has two big things going for it: 1) It's free. 2) You can get it without having to leave your house or (usually) wait on line.
For you downloaders though, especially those with tastes in music as strange as us: How many times have you gone online looking for an album that you simply couldn't find? Now think about if you had seen that album in a store at a reasonable price... You would have bought it, right?
People who download music because it's free will only get their music for free. They are simply put, not customers. They are like the people who go to a bar that offers $1 drinks on an off night and for two hours only. They go there only on that night, get drunk and leave. These people are not ever going to do anything to help your business no matter what you do. Thankfully, these people are the extreme minority.
At this point, iTunes has proved that people are willing to purchase downloaded songs (we can save the DRM issues for another argument) if there is a convenient platform in place to support it. It is exactly what the record companies should have supported from the very beginning.
People who make it a point to only get music when they can get it for free are, simply put, thieves. They should not be considered in the business models whatsoever...and the music companies should have every right to go after these people (and it should be just these people) with every legal option available to them.
I may have to actually print and frame your posts! Finally someone gets it!
Okay, a few things...
The whole notion of the record industry being like the person who thinks they may have a cold but waits to call a doctor is valid - not everyone has perfect foresight. The comment that in this case the record industry waiting until they were terminally ill to call a doctor is ALSO valid here - enough occurred that the record industry should have been able to see what was really happening.
The problem with this metaphor is that we are using a DOCTOR as the person to call on for aid. Everyone knows what a doctor is, how to contact one, what to expect from them, etc. File sharing and online music were not a longstanding medium, they popped up overnight - and worse, suddenly EVERYONE had access! Finding the right people to address a completely new situation like that is less like needing to find a doctor than needing to find an exorcist. Something strange is happening to you - it's totally unfamiliar so for a while you try to write it off. Then after a while you sigh and go, 'dear god, I can't believe this shit - I'm actually possessed!'. But how are you going to find a GOOD exorcist? Are they listed in the yellow pages? Is there some source of common knowledge distinguishing between a good and a bad exorcist? Can you tell the difference between a real exorcist and the thousands of frauds out there sprinkling tap water for a few bucks? That's the situation the music industry was in - they needed to hire tech people at a time that 'internet/computer tech people' was as random a job as 'fortune teller'. The internet changed things very fast - don't forget it was not too many years ago this thing we use every day of our lives for every imaginable application didn't even EXIST!
Could the music industry have gotten ahead of it? Yes... IF they had some major unbelievable visionaries who somehow managed to figure it all out... BUT not figuring it out in time was the more likely scenario... and it is far from the complete ball drop 'bunch of idiots' scenario people seem to think. Even NASA blows up billion dollar space ships now and then because someone forgot to carry the 1. We expect so much of people - don't forget the people who run labels, etc, are not so different from you and I.
Fiddler:
Your idea interests me, but be careful. Relying on people to 'do the right thing' is always certain doom. Everyone is out for his own self interest, and it is ALWAYS in the individual's interest to set up rules for the group, and then shirk those rules secretly for his own maximum advantage.
At a baseball game, it would be in the best interest of everyone to remain seated during a critical play so EVERYONE can see. But then there is always ONE person who stands up to maximize his own advantage, starting a domino effect, and soon enough, the whole crowd is standing, all of them in the same situation they were to begin with - only less comfortable having abandoned their seats.
The reason we have taxes to support public parks and the military is because if support for these entities were OPTIONAL, no one would - each person saying 'I'll save my money, someone else will certainly take care of it'
You're wandering down a very Marxian path - don't give people that much credit for their righteousness and altruism - you'll find yourself constantly disappointed.
I was merely stating that the average consumer is a lazy ass who's not as tech-literate as they'd like to think they are. That's not the profile of the average illegal downloader - which I think you nailed to a certain degree in you previous post - but I do think it characterizes the mass market a little better.
