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It is becoming more and more difficult for the music industry to ignore the basic economics of the their industry: unenforceable property rights (you can’t sue everyone) and zero marginal production costs (file sharing is ridiculously easy). All the big labels have now given up on DRM. They haven’t yet given up on trying to charge for their music, but it’s becoming more and more clear that as long as there is a free alternative (file sharing), the price of music will have to fall towards free.
You can disagree as to whether it’s “fair” that the price of recorded music will be zero or near zero, but you can’t disagree that it’s going to happen. I presented my arguments here last October. Subsequently, we noted that even offering the new RadioHead album for free didn’t stop massive file sharing on BitTorrent. More recently, NIN’s Trent Reznor was disheartened to see that, when offered a choice between downloading a new album for free and paying $5 (and, thereby “feel good about supporting the artist directly”), only 18.3%, or less than 1 in 5, chose to pay the $5.
Personally, I think a new era of free recorded music and paid live performances is a very good thing. Recorded music will become a marketing tool to get people to pay for concerts and merchandise. Overall the music industry will be smaller in terms of revenue. But the artists who are driven to create their art will continue to do so, and many will make a very good living from it.
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http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/10...e-a-music-tax/
Prices for music CDs have already dropped alot and the money is now mostly made with concert deals.
Do you think the porn industry will eventually also go this route of diminishing signup prices?