Music Labels: Streaming Is Swell
Quote: "Record companies continue to use their financial muscle to slow the growth of file-trading networks and to acquire digital-rights management technologies that limit what people can do with MP3s and other files.
To meet the growing demand for digital music, labels have turned to streaming services because they offer the one thing entertainment conglomerates want most: control."
Comment: Content...who owns it...how much can I charge for it...what do I want my users to do with it...etc. These are just a few of the concerns being grappled with at various levels of recording/content-producing industries. The problem rests in the medium itself. The Internet is (was?) a forum of freedom - sharing, communicating, linking. Now, for-profit interests are trying to bend this medium to serve their profit-oriented goals. It's a tough task...but apparently, the for-profits are making ground fairly consistently. Problem: it is altering the nature of the medium itself. Part of the reason the Internet grew as rapidly as it did was the free-flow of information.
On a related note: Charge For Web Site...get used to more of this: "Saying it wants to impose the traditional newspaper subscription business model on Internet news sites, the Spanish daily El Pais next week will begin charging for access to any part of its Web site, elpais.es...However, El Pais is believed to be the first big general-interest paper in Europe to put its entire interactive newspaper behind a paid subscription wall."
Posted by gsiemens at November 18, 2002 1:14 PM