[N3WBI3]

While the article gives fear of breaking the law most of the credit I wonder how much goes to the fact that the music industry has finally started to adjust its business model. The availability of iTunes and other services with a wide variety of songs from which to pick and choose has had to have had a serious impact..

[Mind-numbed Robot]

A fair percentage of those who download "free" music would not otherwise have it. They are not potential customers so no money is really lost to the artist, production company, etc. Music piracy became chic for awhile among the young folks but that is dying down. Unless there is money to be made there will be no music to buy.

[zeugma]

This is wonderful and all that, but we still need some common sense to come from the recording industry.

I have a subscription to the Coast to Coast radio program so I can download the programs because I can rarely listen from midnight to 5AM, which is when it is live. For the MP3 streams of the broadcast, they have to cut all of the 'bumper' music, which seriously impacts the show adversely. Apparently if they included the bumpers, the costs would be astronomical. For the streamed broadcast they have no such issues, because a 'stream' is considered more ephemeral than the MP3 download.

I'd like to know why the music industry is worried enough about an audio file that is cut at a 48kbps bitrate???? This is fairly insane IMO. If they were sending a 192kbps I could see how they might have a point. I really hope that the unreasonableness of the music industry will eventually kill the beast.

[The Great RJ]

I have purchased more music from I-tunes in the past year than the number of CDs I have purchased in the last 5 years. It's time the recording industry wake up and get into the 21st century with their business plan. I could never find the music I wanted in any CD retail stores and ordering CDs online was expensive with the shipping. I like being able to download exactly the music I want at a reasonable price.

Another approach to marketing music is the "creative commons". Check out Magnatune.

[Mad Dawgg]

Two things I really love about digital media, cheap and fast.

I can pay for and download books and music cheap and can get it virtually 24/7 and in a matter of minutes.

I hope movies become leglly available as well.

[rwfromkansas]

Is this survey for Britain or the US, considering it mentions the British Phonographic Association?

In any event, this is true: "emerging, with fear of prosecution running high." However, the fear is largely spread due to inaccurate media reports that that the RIAA is suing downloaders.

They mostly aren't. They are going after people sharing a lot of files, but the downloaders are not being gone after by them unless they happen to catch you in the act, which is highly unlikely. There are simply too many.

[SamAdams76]

During the years 1985 to 2004, I bought about 1,000 CDs that contained an average of 3-4 songs I liked. So figuring an average cost of $12 per CD, I spent $12,000 to obtain between 3,000 and 4,000 songs that I really wanted to hear. That is a cost to me of between $3 and $4 a song!

Since 2004 (about a year ago), I have purchased 1157 songs on iTunes (according to my Purchased Songs playlist). That's $1,145 to purchase the songs I really wanted. Under the old system, I would have had to purchase about 330 CDs at $12 each to obtain that many good songs at a cost of $3,960.

Yes, I am a serious music fan and I do not mind paying out the money. This is a win-win situation for the recording artists and the consumers. I am buying more music than I ever did before and a lot more recording artists are benefiting from my purchases than they would otherwise. Now if only they could start offering the tracks at a higher bitrate, it would be a perfect situation.

[Mobilemitter]

I thought the article spoke well of the trend to utilize "legal" downloads of music. The music industry is just throwing money out the windows of their jets as they continue to fly by what is just a great opportunity. IBM suffered for the same thing, trying to control an industry that was ready to bust loose.(clone PC's)

Photographers will take rolls and rolls of film before they get the shots they believe will sell. However, I would only like to buy a photo that is of interest to me. This seems to work quite well: Lots of photos, lots of buyers, you only buy what you want.

Make singles available and then sell the snot out of them. Invest in the equipment to make downloading/purchasing/ listening as easy as breathing. Develop features that make a particular device/download site more preferable than another. Visualizations, personalizations, mixing, signal processing,fashion, etc..,

$'s just flying out the windows......

[SupplySider]

I use Rhapsody now instead of Kazaa, because I like the depth of their catalog and the near instant streaming.

I don't feel guilty about all the songs I used to download, though. I went many years without buying a CD. Once I started downloading P2P songs I also started buying CDs again. If I found something I liked, I'd buy the CD to get higher quality.

[R. Scott]

I didn’t start downloading music until I hooked up with Jukebox and Rhapsody, not because I fear the music police licking in my door, but because I’m basically a person who respects the law.