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Goodbye, Liquid Audio?

Posted by timothy on from the dripping-away dept.

gosand writes "Yahoo is carrying the AP story that basically says that Liquid Audio's days are numbered. The board voted unanimously in favor of a $57 million stockholder cash payout. They would rather sell the company, but if there is no buyer then they would probably have to liquidate the company. Liquid Audio indeed. There have been other Slashdot stories on this topic, but this could be the last one."

1 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. My answer to what the record companies should do by BigJimSlade · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dear Recording Industry: feel free to implement this at anytime...

    A music professor of mine said that he thought the music industry would improve if it went back to a "singles" market (ie: Don't put out a whole album of crap if you've only got one or two good songs). This is the way it was in the 1950s and 1960s. This makes perfect sense for downloadable music. I see two real problems with these a la carte tracks right now.

    Number One: There is not an easy way to pay for something online that costs so little

    Number Two: Traditionally, you have paid for a tangible product that you hold in your hands... a work of art, if you will.

    I suggest the following to counteract this:

    If the music industry truly want's to treat online music as a service, how about $0.10 - $0.50 a track. You don't get unlimited downloads (except maybe a way to resume a download that did not complete or something) At this price, who cares if you lose it? You can just download it again really cheap. It's probably not even worth most people's time to back it up to a CD, but it's certainly something they can do.

    Now what about the micro-payment problem? It's simple: pre-paid music cards. They work for telephone service quite successfully in the US and for cell phones overseas. Why not sell a $10 card at the local convenience store (or even at something like Tower Records to start with) that works like a phone card and allows you to download whatever music you want! Maybe you get even more "download credits" for buying more at one time (a la Dave & Busters game cards... the more money you put on at one time, the more credits you recieve) Special incentives can be offered to frequent downloaders, etc.