I think most artists would agree that "evaluating" the album before a purchase is not such an evil thing!! I mean, with the trash that record companies are putting out thesedays can they really blame us for wanting to be better informed about making our purchases?dgsyd1 wrote:If anything, I find that getting stuff from file sharing sites actually helps me decide if I want to but an album or not. On more than one occasion i've bought an album on the strength of one song, only to find out that the rest of the album is pretty bad. At least I now have the option of hearing some other tracks before deciding whether to buy the album or not.
I think the Virgin chain in the UK have got the right idea by letting people download music onto portable devices from their shops up and down the country. People can then decide if they want to buy the album I think. I think that is the way ahead. The only other way that the whole "mp3 industry" can be stopped is to go against our human rights and have unworkable systems in place making ISPs liable for their users activities. Effectively, ISPs can ban MP3 files from being downloaded across their servers by their users!!
So, I think that the music industry should embrace the change now and make some good ground in adapting to the changing technological horizon we can see! There is no use fighting a loosing battle when you can control the battle by letting it reign free to their advantage. Free advertising? Efficient and complete information in markets? Nice.
