Know anything about e-Books and readers?

Sorry TMW2009, I meant to quote rickyjo. I wasn't referring to your post at all.

 

Except electroniccal published scientific and engineering papers, reports, journals, and videos - I spend a small fortune on these items.

Note that I am not able to give away some of the papers I have written because copyright was assigned to my employers.

When I was a student at one of the on-line universities I did have access to some of these documents through their library but still not free since access depended on my paying tuition.

 

Are you saying that you indirectly had to pay to read some of your own papers? How ironic is that?

 

Mr. Oliver, first let me tip my hat to your superior knowledge on the topic because you are in the industry and I believe you know more on the topic than I do in many respects--remember I'm a techie not a musician! I'll really going try to see through your glasses here, I suppose my perspective is fairly blinding in some ways. We techies believe technology is the answer to all the world's problems.

That said I understand the concern for the little guy, that also is my concern and I did not disregard it completely in my previous posts. There will be suffering in all aspects and levels of an industry that is changing rapidly; however, change generally benefits the little guy in the LONG run. Change in an industry causes a shaking up of structure which generally benefits people on the bottom, eventually. Just like when a industry first begins and budding entrepreneurs swiftly ascend to the top out of nowhere (but on a smaller scale). In my judgment it seems likely that a more open distribution method would result in smaller names getting their shot.

Consider Pandora, I've learned of so many great artists that nobody has heard of. This kind of open access is great! People get included that have less of a name and less money resulting in more music, more albums being recorded and more people who need to produce the music. The only people who I think will be hurt in the LONG RUN are super stars. In the short run, everybody suffers.

You, the small business owner, have the opportunity to try and (here come my techie glasses again) outsmart the new wave of technology, outguess the tides of change. When an industry gets inundated with technology it's usually the first people to figure out where things are going that survive.

I'm grateful for your tone in your rebuttal, my ideas get me in trouble and I may not have presented my argument tactfully because I was unaware that anybody was in the industry that could be affected was in this forum!

As for Ian's remarks:
I did not know that. I stand corrected!

 

OK, I have another idea. As you can see I am a big believer in ad driven revenue.

How about a "this free song was downloaded from the iStore" or "this free download presented by Nokia **SLOGAN**" at the start of each free song (3 seconds tops). This should drive traffic to the advertisers site or the originating site where they would see ads. Obviously some people would rather pay, and that's great too! This way you don't have to pay or operate outside the law and everybody wins.

 

Thanks for your kind words, rickyjo. No offense taken at all. I can see your techie point of view, and I actually agree; it has to happen. There's no way around it. I'm just afraid that the quality and quantity will suffer and it already is, to some extent. But you are right also when you say that more amateurs will get a crack at it. But amateurs usually sound like, well... amateurs.

There are some exceptions, of course. You should hear John Mayer's homemade CD that he made before he was a star; it's amazing! But he's the exception rather than the rule.

Speaking of the techie side of things, I can do everything on my Mac laptop with a few thousand dollars worth of extra equipment, that only a multi-million dollar studio could have done 10 or 15 years ago. In fact, the studio I work for often will ask me for a guitar part for somebody's CD and I will do it on my laptop and then email it to them. So creating music is really accessible to the regular guy these days.

Also, Pandora totally rocks! I love it. I think that sort of thing, like you said, is the wave of the future. We just have got to find a way to make a living in the meantime.