I'm glad to see that the facts here are coming to light. In a very real way sharing files will only lead to more records sold. The irony here is that for years record companies have been giving away huge quantities of free goods as promotional product (at the cost of the artist mind you) to just about everyone who they thought needed it and/or wanted it. Radio station, retails outlets, all employees and their friends all get copies which adds up to many thousands of full copies of the product. In short the practice of giving away music for free is not new and even if the Napster phenonemon is on a larger scale, the upshot of more record sales is only that much greater. People like to hear first what will cost near $20 a piece. To that end new technologies offer great oppurtunity to music comsumers. The ability to find new music and then get new suggestions for other related bands is a huge help in cutting through the swath of music currently available. Check out Gigabeat as one cool solution to this problem. Gigabeat's technology lets you find and download music from the web. Then it generates suggestions for new bands and songs by employing sophisticated filtering methods and algorithms that find similarities between songs. So it's doing exactly what you were asking for - directing you to new music based on your preferences. Getting music you want and learning about stuff you aren't familiar with is all part of the process of discovery and is what makes the experience fun. Its a no-brainer to say that Napster/Guntella is not/can't go away and its now a matter of how to cope with it. Hopefully the folks in charge of the major label content can see that and realize it is actually to their benefit. Plus, as I said before, it really is nothing new. Its just the future. - Brett (aka... manwiththeplan)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad to see that the facts here are coming to light. In a very real way sharing files will only lead to more records sold. The irony here is that for years record companies have been giving away huge quantities of free goods as promotional product (at the cost of the artist mind you) to just about everyone who they thought needed it and/or wanted it. Radio station, retails outlets, all employees and their friends all get copies which adds up to many thousands of full copies of the product. In short the practice of giving away music for free is not new and even if the Napster phenonemon is on a larger scale, the upshot of more record sales is only that much greater. People like to hear first what will cost near $20 a piece. To that end new technologies offer great oppurtunity to music comsumers. The ability to find new music and then get new suggestions for other related bands is a huge help in cutting through the swath of music currently available. Check out Gigabeat as one cool solution to this problem. Gigabeat's technology lets you find and download music from the web. Then it generates suggestions for new bands and songs by employing sophisticated filtering methods and algorithms that find similarities between songs. So it's doing exactly what you were asking for - directing you to new music based on your preferences. Getting music you want and learning about stuff you aren't familiar with is all part of the process of discovery and is what makes the experience fun. Its a no-brainer to say that Napster/Guntella is not/can't go away and its now a matter of how to cope with it. Hopefully the folks in charge of the major label content can see that and realize it is actually to their benefit. Plus, as I said before, it really is nothing new. Its just the future. - Brett (aka ... manwiththeplan)