Reader Mail -- Here's an Idea... by George Ziemann -- December 25, 2008 Jason writes in to offer a solution. His English is slightly jumbled, so I'm going to print it first as written and then paraphrase it back. "Would you think a solution where producers, such as films and music producers, should somehow place their products online at an authorized site? With this they can extract revenue from the advertisers on their page allowing the public to legibly use their products for free. Yes, they probably will lose funds from the lack of consumer purchases, but now that it is legitly free then the producers can accurately measure their popularity of their product from downloads since now its more easy and obtainable meaning that the more popular it is the more money from advertisments. The producer can also gain more revenue after attracting the public and then sell other merchandise such as related shirts, goods and other type of items that cannot be pirated. There must be some benefits from piracy along with its negatives. After this happens, all we have to do is put more strict penalties and persecutions on sites where they are unauthorized to host the producers products, in addition there would be little reason since its now up for free. It does have some flaws, but what is your opinion on this? "I also need some information on piracy, statistics, or stories perhaps you can share some?" My interpretations: Content owners should place their products online at an authorized site, give the product away and sell advertising. The more popular the product, in terms of downloads, the more money would be generated from advertising. Additional revenue comes from selling other products not so easily pirated, like t-shirts. Then increase punishments for unauthorized sites offering the downloads. He also has a tangential theory in there which I agree with -- if you give something away for free, it shouldn't be a problem if others spread it further. I'd say to make everything 128k and below legal to share because you shouldn't pay for anything less than that anyway. Unfortunately, Jason's line of thought falls apart at the assumption that you'll make more money from advertising if you give the product away for free because of the increased traffic. That's a leap that has no logical backing. Last year, we did 30,000 downloads at AzOz. This year, more than 165,000. No increase in the number of advertisers or the amount they offer to pay. Jason's overall idea makes sense to me. It even appeals to me. So much so, in fact, that what he describes as a solution doubles as a description of my music page, except I don't let people advertise there. I offer low resolution (128k) as free samples. To replace advertising income, higher resolution files can be purchased at digital music retailers, or by purchasing a CD from me. Songs that I don't expect to create a retail version of, I'll post at high resolution (256k) to boost traffic. It's all so very logical, neat, and tidy. A textbook solution. Jason and I must have read the same textbook. It ought to work. It should work. It doesn't work. Okay, to be fair, I've only seen retail sales reports reflecting two weeks in October, so it could get better. We just got in, so we just barely have the mechanism in place (being in digital retail sites) that would allow us to sell copies on a large scale. Just being there is not enough. I agree that the content owners have to make a trade-off somewhere. Jason thinks advertisers can fill in that gap, but that puts you in the position of giving away your own stuff and trying to sell someone else's stuff. If I've gotta sell something, I'd rather it be something I created. I'd rather trade-off with the audience. Show them the difference between high quality and sample quality. Give them good-sounding samples and, if they like a song, maybe they'll upgrade it. Reality -- if the samples sound good, there's no reason to upgrade; if the samples don't sound good, that might discourage an impulse purchase, too. The other difference between Jason's perspective and mine is that he's offering a "solution," and I'm not sure what it is he's trying to solve. Although I'm no threat to Bruce Springsteen this week, I view the RIAA as "the competition." As a result, if they want to sue their audience, or start denying ISP service to them, this is more of an opportunity than a problem needing a solution. The only real problem I'm trying to crack is how to convince a million people to give me a mere $1 for a song, which is a way better deal than Pet Rocks or mood rings ever were. But when you come right down to it, what really counts is the music. You can have an infrastructure, a business plan, additional merchandise, distribution and everything else, but you really need to have some good songs. Just because you did all the necessary behind the scenes work and got your album into the store does not mean you are entitled to be paid, just that you have enabled it to happen. I think a lot of people confuse that. After that, it's up to your audience and your music. Either they support you or they don't. "I also need some information on piracy, statistics, or stories perhaps you can share some?" This entire website is filled with information on piracy, statistics and stories. You're going to have to be much more specific than that.