SJ Mercury: Andreessen: Copy protection efforts are doomed. As film studios and recording studios urge Congress to extend copy protection to every home entertainment device, Andreessen said the entertainment industry need look no further than the software industry's own expensive, failed attempts at encryption to realize it is ineffective at stopping piracy. [Tomalak's Realm]
Mark Andreessen is right on. But let me take Mark's comments a little further. Extremely high volume and very low cost is where the music industry is heading. This is a big paradigm shift for music industry executives. As the article mentions: "Within five years, that same $600 PC would have the capacity to hold 12,800 hours of music -- a veritable Tower Records available at the click of a mouse." Music lovers have an insatiable appetite for music. They don't want to listen to the same tunes over and over, and they get bored very quickly with music. There is a never ending search for new music. Contrast that with the music industry's thinking: release a song and continue to reap revenue from that song for decades. Also, contrast that with the new legitimate digital music services, MusicNet and PressPlay, offered by the major labels. Heck, for $10/month you get a whopping 100 songs! (sarcasm intended). When the music industry starts to realize that music lovers are always wanting more new music, they will be able to start making piles of money. As long as they continue thinking interms of $20 CDs that continue bringing in revenue for four decades, they'll just have to keep whining about piracy.
Posted by Doug Sauder at April 10, 2002 09:11 PM