The culprit?
Once again, digital audio. A mouse and software can do the job of the old mixing boards while burners and downloads decentralize hard copy and files. Meanwhile, the RIAA cartel is rendered ever more superfluous.
Posted on 07/16/2003 6:15:12 PM PDT by Pern
Like every other small private start up business getting started, a loan or private investor would be best.
Pretty much..
They were about as blunt as they could be about it and people still acted like they were bluffing.
The culprit?
Once again, digital audio. A mouse and software can do the job of the old mixing boards while burners and downloads decentralize hard copy and files. Meanwhile, the RIAA cartel is rendered ever more superfluous.
I guess if you have Kazza, you are allowing anyone to look at your machine willingly. If you can look into 1 folder, why not look at all?
| Musical Capitalists
What opens it up is the new distribution channel. The RIAA guys had the record store chains sewed-up; you couldn't get in without them. So you had to go through them. Hmmm. This could be more fun than biotech. |
It won't make any difference. Once it's in digital form and on the Internet, the pilfering will begin in earnest. Make songs available at 50 cents a download and you'll sell many copies (I would likely pay $1 or more for individual songs that I have previewed and like), but far more people will simply pilfer. As is always the case, a minority of perhaps 10-30 percent of the consumers will end up subsdidizing the collections of the other freeloading 70-90 percent.
Yes there is Kazza-lite, but still, I personally won't support any group that states in it's EULA that they have the right to take over my computer.
Similar things are happening in the world of books. I didn't even bother to do the traditional begger's dance up and down 5th Avenue with a boxed manuscript, pleading with stony faced gatekeepers to "please please pretty please" read my book.
The hell with them, they are dinosaurs. I am going straight to my target audience. My printed books are for credibility, something tangible to send to reviewers etc. Then it's on to e-books and books on CD.
But for the writer, the liberation is already happening. The slavery of begging and pleading to be one of the 1% annointed by the whores of 5th Avenue is coming to an end.
Oh, indeed. I've been discussing with one of my buddies the fact that ebooks need to take advantage of the "e" part.
Hyperlinks. Value-added web content. Snag the name of the owner of the PC and dynamically incorporate that person's name into the story. Include paid hyperlinks to advertisers inline with the story (mention your character having a Stoli on the rocks, have Stoli hyper-linked - -doesn't detract from the story but adds value to the reader as well as to the advertiser).
In other words, make the new format SUPERIOR to what the "e"stablished monopolies offer. If I read about a cool new firearm in a Jeff Head or a Travis McGee novel, then by God I want a hyper-link in my eBook to the manufacturer.
Pretty much leaves paper books to those who need to travel lite, and adds multiple potential revenue streams to the author / Venture Book Capitalist.
The established print middlemen have grown fat, lazy, uninspired, and obsolete. As an author, I don't need them to distribute or manufacture my eBook. Moreover, my eBook is a superior format due to the customization options and dynamic eContent possibilities.
Consider that my eStory can send an email message to my server, so when a reader gets to a certain point in my eBook, I could have my server automatically ring his phone, send him a fax, page him, or send an email message to his cell phone. I can pull the reader into my eBook in ways that no paperback book can touch.
How can 5th Avenue compete with that?! Where do they add value?
So forget 5th Avenue, it's the Venture Capitalists on Wall Street who are going to be seizing this new paradigm to get a piece of the action in exchange for providing the writer with upfront living ca$h and backend promotional monies to get the eBook noticed worldwide, because THAT'S where the value-added potential still remains.
Ask any starving artist or author if they would sell a 25% cut of their potential future Million$ in exchange for cold hard ca$h today as well as guaranteed promotions, ads, publicity tours, etc., tomorrow, and you'll find plenty of talent willing to sign on.
That's our future.
Nonsense.
It makes all the difference in the world.
For one thing, I can make the pilfering profitable for me by simply including paid hyperlinks (for clickthroughs), banners, adn other such online ads. Stealing an eBook or an eSong takes on a whole new dimension when the paradigm is shifted to include ads.
For another thing, you can help persuade people to pay for CD's by giving a concert ticket discount to those who show up with said CD; likewise for paid speeches and eBook tours.
As a VC, you might even make all of your money back from selling tickets to tours, as well as for celebrity appearance fees for/from your new talent. It's pretty tough to steal those things online, too!
At worst, all that the online stealing does is reduce your overall profit potential. That merely changes the level of risk and level of investment that Musical Capitalists are going to be willing to engage in.
But for the old guard doing business the same old way, such online stealing spells complete and total doom.
So rest assured that it makes a difference. The new paradigm makes all the difference in the world.
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Brilliant insight, and dead-on. That is exactlty the game VCs know how to play. We start with three guys in a garage, and if we pick the right three guys we get Apple or Sun. Most of the time we go splat, but the occasional Apple or Sun pays for the whole thing.