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When Will They Get It? |
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 Pressplay. Listen.com. Rhapsody. Buymusic.com. All of these services have become or are ON THEIR WAY to becoming utter failures. Why? I'll tell you why.
Why is it that the movie industry is so big? Why is it that Netflix was so much bigger a few years back and now is struggling? Because people don't want to pay subscription fees. ESPECIALLY for music. Music today is so hit or miss, and paying a fee to subscribe to have the ABILITY to download music you may or may not want isn't something that is very appealing to the average consumer.
The Macintosh market is somewhat different in the respect that iTunes is a dominant force AND that creative professionals pretty much are the leading users of Macs. When you target a group of people who are willing to pay per song to get music they love rather then steal, they are more willing to do so. Why is it that every single flipping Windows-based pay-for download program is going to go belly up faster than a fish in my roommates fish tank?
Laziness. The dominant group that needs to be targeted with this so called "download problem" are college and high school students. Moreso college than high school, because of the apparent wealth of bandwidth that some college networks let students have without restriction. Why pay when I can steal and get away from it? The RIAA needs to really get to people downloading music. I know it makes me sound like a big brother supporter, but they seriously do. Yes, I've downloaded pirated music in the past, but I'm saying now that Napster has taken the bullet for everyone, we need to find a way to harness the Internet to deliver the media that people want. Whether it is music or film, this needs to be used well. But you can't expect people to switch from hopping on WinMX and downloading the latest rap song to suddenly say "Oh gee, I dont want to take an album sale from DJ beeskizzle, I'll go buy the whole album for the 1 song I want or pay 10 bucks a month when I don't know if there will be any music I like on the site OR if they will carry the releases im looking for". Not plausable. BusinessWeek said it right when quoting "Until Apple, it wasn't cool to buy digital music. This was about getting to that pivotal group of people -- the people who buy the cool sneakers and wear the right clothes -- and showing them that legally downloading music could be cooler than stealing it."
iTunes for Windows is coming out at the end of the year says Apple. Not only does this have to be marketed with the largest marketing campaign Apple has ever done, but it needs to be bundled with something. AOL, MSN, Dell PC's, something. The meeting that went on between colleges and these online music services is extremely encouraging, but something needs to be done about it. Laziness will prevail as well as apathy if downloaders feel there is no penalty for downloading. Apple has the potential to take over this market, even since Realmedia's option is going to be subscription based as well. This needs to be one of Apple's major priorities. First the online music community...then the world. |
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August 5 2003, 8:42 PM EDT, by |
Comments:
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| ZackMac |
8/6/03, 7:49 PM EDT |
Although I see your point about going after music downloaders, I don't condone or agree with it.
I do not agree with any legislation that allows a private third party like the RIAA to snoop around my computer and then slap me with a lawsuit.
-Zack
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