Forcing People To Buy Bad Downloads

Found on Techdirt on Wednesday, 07 April 2004
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It's scary sometimes to realize just how much the recording industry doesn't get the internet. The latest is that all of the major record labels are working on ways to raise the prices for downloadable music. In some cases, downloadable CDs on services like iTunes now cost more than the CD itself - despite the fact that there are no physical materials and no shipping costs to build into the price. Clearly, the industry still doesn't realize that part of the reason people flocked to online sharing services was because the price of a CD with one or two good songs was way too high. Among the other braindead and backwards ideas from the industry to make downloadable songs more expensive is to force buyers to buy a bad song with every good song. It's amazing. The slight success of iTunes already has the industry working on ways to kill the one just-barely smart enough idea they've had (and even that's been pretty weak overall) concerning online music.

There's nothing more to add. This should clearly show the greed of the music industry. The whole business is not about music anymore; it's only about money. With their monopolistic status, they can force people to buy it or get sued. It's about time that Open Music joins Open Source.