Nowadays it is simply to easy to get music for free, for the current music business model to make sense. It simply has to change, and I am glad to see that little by little this is happening.
On the one hand I think that it would be a good idea to use cheap CDs and (nearly) free downloads to promote your sound to the world. With the Internet it easy to reach people at nearly no distribution cost. Of course the music industry needs to make money. Instead of charging for music, this could then be done through the live gigs they give. It appears, according to an FT article, that indeed sales for concerts are going up:
"The live music industry is enjoying a remarkable boom, with ticket sales up 16 per cent to $3.6bn in the US last year according to Pollstar, and the average ticket price at $62, more than double the average of a decade ago. Record labels are now scrambling to get into the touring business."
On the other hand, it just seems ridiculous that we are still having to suffer from DRM. I understand what they are trying to do, but if I buy a song, I want to be able to decide where I play it and whether I want to give a friend of mine a copy. In response to that need, it seems that the new music download service called Gbox has already some big labels (Universal and SonyBMG) signed up for DRM-free downloads. Whether it will be able to rival iTunes remains to be seen, but the BBC states that it has some good plans for using social networks and Google to spread the music.
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