It's not a big secret that music is available on the internet for free. Neither is it a secret that a lot of people burn the downloaded MP3 files on CD-Rs. It is still a secret if this hurts the music sales, or if there is a positive site on it.
Fortune has an article that says that current illegal music sharing could be turned into a very profitable business for the music industry. Currently the paid services are not very populair but if the amount of people currently signing up continues, it will be the savior of the music industry:
So what's with all the savior talk? Forrester predicts that after one more year of depressing sales, labels will supply more content on the cheap; the story goes that by 2007 this will create a downloading wave of tsunamic proportions that will wash all this additional money onto the music industry. |
One indication that it is starting to happen is last month's launch of Pressplay 2.0, a joint venture between Sony and Universal. The updated service offers downloads at lower prices and allows more freedom. (For 99 cents a pop, plus a monthly download fee, you can store a file wherever you'd like.)
That's a good deal, but--wait! check your calculator!--it's not free. And since Pressplay's catalog doesn't yet include BMG or Warner (owned by AOL Time Warner, parent of FORTUNE's publisher), both of which operate MusicNet, you won't find everything you're looking for either. That yawn is 70 million users of Kazaa, Grokster, and Morpheus not caring.
And this sure could be the truth, most people are willing to pay for quality, unrestricted music. And if the prices are reasonable (they to drop about 25% according to the research) this might certainly become good business for the music industry.
Source: Fortune.com
