Another look at the dilemma exemplified by Kazaa - licensed vs. unlicensed downloading, copyright holder's willingness to license - coming to the now almost universal conclusion (excluding most corporate copyright holders, of course) that the key to the digital entertainment future is for record labels (and to a lesser extent, movie studios) to provide high quality, secure, convenient access to all recorded material for a reasonable price - maybe a dime a song, with copy restrictions (DRM) making the downloads LESS valuable.
- Two Guy Trio's singer, Evan Gamble, doesn't mind that bootleg copies of his band's "Shelby Sugarcane" are spreading on the Internet through the Kazaa file-sharing system.
A half-million fans have downloaded legal copies of the song through Kazaa, the Internet's leading bazaar. Illicit trading by a few million others is a minor nuisance.
More important is Kazaa's ability to let an emerging pop-rock band like his find an audience.
"Whether it's licensed or unlicensed, it's a fan," said Gamble, 21, a junior at the University of Texas. "We want people to hear the music, so they'll buy the album, so they will come to the show and request songs on the radio."
....Search for songs on Kazaa and you get the authorized files on Altnet marked with an orange icon, alongside the regular shares in blue. After downloading an Altnet item, another click gets a license and informs of payments due.
Altnet even developed a micro-payment system so you can enter a credit card number once and combine charges from future buys.
In the case of Two Guy Trio, a music video costs just 10 cents and songs are free for 90 days, after which fans are encouraged to buy the album. Without a license, the song or video won't play.
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