U.S.-based music download business Napster, which is now a paid-for service after its chastening battles in the law courts against the music companies, is extending its services to European customers, according to this report. Well, when it comes to stirring up a hornet’s nest of controversy, few subjects generate more angry buzzes than the case for or against the right to download music on the net, in my experience.
If the record companies ever thought that Napster would vanish without trace, they were deluding themselves. Personally, while I have my questions about the intellectual property right aspects to Napster-style downloading technology, there is no doubt that it has thrown traditional business models into the dustbin. But does it mean the death of music recordings, orchestras, book authors and film-makers? I don’t really think so.
As a related point, there is an interesting article here on the website of science fiction publishing house Jim Baen, making a good point about how downloading can, in the medium to long run, raise rather than cut book sales. I suppose that the argument works for music and possibly films as well.
If you visit the Baen Free Library mentioned in the Baen article you mention there is considerably more discussion of the success of giving away the free samples – its not too different to the successful strategy used by drug pushers when you think about it 🙂
I’ve been a member of Baen’s Webscription store since it’s inception and I’ve probably bought about 50% of the available titles, if not more. I like how Baen has approached this issue and I pretty much agree with him about it’s utililty.
The primary point that Baen has, which is somewhat different from music, is that books generally don’t make very much in the way of sales beyond the first year of printing. Especially Sci-Fi. The sales model that seems to apply is usually where second year sales approach 10%-20% of the first year’s and the third year’s sales is around 2%-5% of the first year’s. After that the number of books sold usually amount to less than 1,000 and are comprised of first-time buyers and people, who having become interested in the works of the author or of the series, purchase additional books to round out a collection. It’s these last two groups that Baen is seeking.
As for myself I purchase both electronic books, to store on my laptop, and paperbacks. I like having an extensive library available for lunchtime reading breaks and I also enjoy reading physical books. I’m also in that category that Baen is looking for as I have encountered a number of interesting authors entirely through his free library and Webscriptions program.
Roaming through the free library and some of the books I’ve purchased through the Webscriptions program I encountered 1632, a book about a West Viriginia town relocated to Germany during the Thirty Year’s War, by Eric Flint. After I read that I started picking up the other books of that series and the author’s backlist. If it weren’t for Baen I doubt I’d ever read anything by Mr. Flint.
*shrug* I think it works. But I’m not so certain it works for music. It might for those artists that aren’t regularly in the Top 40 or something. Books have a, to excuse the pun, shelf life that music doesn’t seem to. While it’s not unusual to purchase a CD of material written and performed twenty years ago it’s pretty rare for a Sci-Fi book that old to sell all that well, unless it’s an acknowledged classic.
YMMV
Yeah, Baen’s business model is extremely good. They bundle CDs with their hardcover books, and I’ve found them to be worth every penny.
The 1632 only had one sequel so far, 1633. It was an interesting read, to say the least. I think I have it on the CD from Hell’s Faire.
During the past three years I have downloaded many many songs illegally, however the entertainment companies should consider that during that same period I have purchased many more albums than I did during the previous 30 years. Similarly I have spent far more money on sound equipment during this time frame than ever before. If I had not started downloading on Napster I would have spent bugger all in the same time frame.
Most of the songs I downloaded were from the ’60’s and ’70’s and are not radily available anyway. Now that I have downloaded about all the old songs I need I do not find myself downloading modern songs for the simple reason that it is utter crap.
I doubt I am the only baby boomer to behave in such a fashion. The music companies may have lost from some music lovers but would have made up ground from others. Their real problem for years has been their deteriorating products.
Eric Raymond has a recent article about how putting entire books on the web does not (necessarily) adversely affect their sales; and may increase sales.
http://www.ibiblio.org/esrblog/index.php?m=200401#149
The thing with books, though, is it’s genuinely more convenient to hold a book in your hand than read it on screen. This is not the case with music; you have to be quite an audiophile to tell the difference between a good MP3 and a CD.
On the other hand, I’d personally buy more CDs from artists I hadn’t heard of if I could have a listen or two online first. And bands could feasibly cut out the middle man by releasing stuff straight to the web. There’s definitely scope for a wider variety of business models.
I definately buy and listen music a great deal more since downloading has become available. I also would not have a huge issue with paying on a per download basis, especially if it guaranteed I could download the whole thing, instead of the song fragments that you frequently get on napster and other sites. I find that I will tend to get a CD by an artist I particularly like if I hear some of their stuff, especially since not everything every artist has done is available online. To me, a very low cost pay site would be similar to paying for commercial-free satellite radio, except you get to be your own dj. As for free sites, there will always be someone who is able to figure out a way to steal, but far fewer would be inclined to do so if the product was marketted in a more convenient and cost-effective way. CD’s and Record companies are trying to keep their world from changing, rather than adapting and continuing to do quite well as the winds of change blow; and blow they always will.
Baen bundled a CD with John Ringo’s latest book _There Will Be Dragons_ that explained the whole deal on the back cover– basically, the CD included full text and cover shots of about forty titles in the Baen system, and the explanation that “pretty soon, you’ll get sick of reading them on the computer screen, and then you’ll walk into a bookstore and recognize the cover that we oh-so-slyly included and just pick the book up…”
They very explicitly state that it’s *not* a favor, that the first one is free… 🙂