On 1 April 2010 17:36, Terry Coles <d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk> wrote: > On Thursday 01 Apr 2010, Robert Bronsdon wrote: >> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:09:58 +0100, Terry Coles <d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk> >> wrote: >> > people who illegally download buy more music legally than those whodon't. >> >> *clearly* those people would spend even more if they weren't downloading >> illegally. > > I'm not sure if you left out the sarcasm tags or whether you really believe > that. The theory is that illegal downloading is like payola without the > bribes; people download music to see if they like it, they then go out to buy > the music when they've selected what they want from all the ones that they've > downloaded. People who don't illegally download on the other hand, are more > cautious when buying because they don't know if they will like the music or > not. > > If the theory is correct, then I would say that it's the modern equivalent of > going into the local record shop and asking them to play a record before you > buy it.
That sounds about right to me Terry, so surely the solution for the music industry is obvious ... "Time Limited Downloads". By this I mean a new file format that plays an embedded MP3, (or whatever), and kills / cripples itself after a pre-defined time, say a day or a week. If the user goes on to buy the item online, it should be possible to detect somehow that they had downloaded the Time Limited version and they could be given a discount on the full version as a reward for being legitimate. That would provide exactly the style of "Try before you Buy" that the theory says is happening, and would provide a whole host of new sales opportunities for the industry to boot ! -- Cheers Peter -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wed 2010-04-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.org&channel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
