Yet Another Report Of Free Label Music That Isn't
from the details,-details dept
Last week, we noted that the press couldn't stop talking about Last.fm's supposed effort to offer "free" music, when the details showed it was a lot less than the press made it out to be. You'd think that maybe they would be more careful the next time around. However, when you combine the words "free" and "music" it appears that some folks in the press just can't help themselves. Thus, when a company named Qtrax announced "free" file sharing, with the backing of all four major labels, plus iPod compatibility, the press ran with it. The Associated Press and Reuters both ran with it... though, at least the Associated Press has quickly started backtracking after the various record labels all started denying any kind of deal with Qtrax. They admit they're talking, but no deals have been signed -- meaning that Qtrax jumped the gun, as did the reporters who ran with the announcement. Even if the labels do come around on this one, it's a plan that will go nowhere fast. It involves crippling DRM and annoying advertising that won't even be close to effective. This is a non-story turned into a story by the use of two words: "free" and "music."
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Filed Under: drm, free, free music, ipods, record labels
Companies: qtrax
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read the article
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If it's against Freedom or Americans both are completely for it.... Is that what "Freedom of the Press" means?
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You must allow the freedoms. When people get sick of it, the news will reshift.
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itappears that...............
Also musician / artist Pter Gabrial is doing the same thing as Qtrax here in the UK he cant get major labels to sign either. I dont think they will just pay lip service then say NO we have our old model of doing business we will work to that.
Well done to Qtrax their site was down for a while due to demand that was before the labals said we not signed.
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Re: itappears that...............
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The second a good becomes digital in a free market it has next to no value. Granted there are fixed costs involved in making it but the more you sell or distribute the more those costs are spread out, after a certain point the value of the item is now negligible...
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There is still a scarcity at play due to the fact that digital goods require physical resources for hosting and transport, albeit in much smaller unit quantities than physical goods. For a case in point, look at the financial statements of Level 3 (an internet bandwidth provider) and Akamai (a hosting service). Those two randomly selectd firms, which represent a sliver of the industry, had combined revenue close to $4 Billion last year, and have experienced double and triple digit annual revenue growth.
This demonstrates that society does place value on digital goods. To the extent that consumers can substitute physical goods with less costly digital goods, in the long run this supply/demand dynamic will tend to drive the price up as the digital economy continues to move along its marginal cost curve. In the long run, Internet technology is no more immune from "diminishing returns" than any other.
As another case in point, the combined average household expense for for bandwidth (cell phone, broadband, cable/sat TV, sat radio, phone, etc.) has been steadily increasing each year. If digital goods are getting cheaper, why is it that we are spending more money on them?
Peer-to-peer architecture and ad-supported business models do not make these costs go away, they just shift them to different places in the value chain (i.e. ultimately the consumer still pays).
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Then the professor is wrong. Infinite goods still have *value*, they just will have a price of zero. It sounds like he's confusing price and value, which are not the same.
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Yes, it's a "theory" in the same way that gravity is a "theory" or that evolution is a "theory." There are certainly enough proven forces that go well beyond what common language "theory" is.
Where economics may be a bit different is that there are so many variables in an economics equation, it's often more difficult to account for all of those variables. Yet, the forces that impact economics are very real. Brushing it off as just a "theory" is brushing off the very real parts of economics.
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qtrax
They are offering 25 million songs free.
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QTrax is now live!
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Totally off topic.
After exhausing my efforts in finding a 4G iPod (I apparently I didn't have an IQ high enough to find it), I went online to find a similar iPod to what I had, but in the spirit of my personal hero Ingva Kampra, I wanted to pay less than I paid for it. So I went on eBay.
What happened next was somewhat interesting-- I found an iPod I wanted. Some may say this was an end to a means- but to me it seemed like my quest was a little too easy. We exchanged monetary instruments for an ipod.
The weird thing is that when I met the guy I bought it from, it had the same serial number of the one I returned three days ago to the Big Blue Box Store.
Could it have gone through the supplychain before it got back to me? Probably not.
So yes, I know how these guys work, and I know I was just scammed. I just didn't expect to get the same iPod back for $130 less than I paid for it last time.
P.S. Mr. Dozer, I've read your ten personas, and I don't fit any of them. Thanks for the insight. However, it certainly helps to understand the narrow window in which you view your world through.
Yes, I shook your hand at the National Retail Foundation ARTS Conference earlier this month. You were too busy... Just like now. Glad to have met you.
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Re: Totally off topic.
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Meh...
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