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Author Archives: ratpie
A High Price for Free Music
To the ‘feels like free’ crowd, two examples from the summer of 2014 have shown just how strange and illusory is the ideal of a music market with no barriers to consumption and no price to the public. Barriers, it turns out, … Continue reading
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To Get Paid We Should Set Music Free
Digital music, having started out as a tied product with iTunes and Windows Media locking the files to devices and software players, achieved a certain freedom as DRM came off, but is now migrating fast back to proprietary encrypted formats. … Continue reading
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YouTube Sends a Depressing Message About Music
This month (May 2104) saw the surfacing of another argument between the organised independent record companies and a wholesale customer, in this case YouTube. The accusation, that YouTube had given the major labels better terms then they were offering indies, was … Continue reading
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Downloads versus Access? Follow the Science AND the Money!
One of the big debates in music is whether the download is dead, killed by ubiquitous connectivity and streaming services. Certainly the expensive (>$0.5) download seems to have plateaued, and streaming revenue is growing strongly tempting new entrants who bring … Continue reading
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What the Future Used to Look Like, in 2006
A new feature in iOS 7 reminded me that the sky, which was supposed to be falling eight years ago, has remained inexplicably buoyant. The feature is called the ‘Multipeer Connectivity Framework’ and it provides a simple way for devices … Continue reading
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The US Net Neutrality Debate; Sleepwalking into Walled Gardens
Being an outsider to the US Net Neutrality debate, I don’t feel the pain of cable monopoly, or the blight caused by expensive and poor quality broadband. Over here in the UK we hear more about Verizon FiOS and Google … Continue reading
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Spotify Royalties: More Expectations and Numbers in Digital Music
Spotify has released some very helpful information about what it expects to pay music owners for albums in different parts of the sales curve over a typical month. It’s being widely discussed. Less than helpfully, while we have a fair … Continue reading
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Record Companies Should Give Up a Hard Won Right. Here’s Why.
When the recording industry was young there was a genuine concern that it might be strangled at birth by owners of popular songs, who might naturally wish to protect their sheet music sales and public performance fees from competition from … Continue reading
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The Cost of Granularity in Music Copyright
It might be just my very partial view on some high volume/low unit price markets, but it seems that at some point the cost of the granularity required for a royalty based remuneration system is just too high, and the … Continue reading
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Perverse Incentives for Music Producers
Digital music could be a world of opportunity for many talented creators and producers who were squeezed out of the old world of manufacture and inventory limitations. One click to listen, one click to buy, and any number of new … Continue reading
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