Posted: 10th Mar, 2003 By: MarkJ
Apparently more and more people are getting use to the act of sharing music files, be they free or illegal, at the expense of an increasingly troubled industry:
Last year, around about the stage that file-sharing was ramping up, there was a huge window of opportunity for the record industry to do something before it became too ingrained but that moment has disappeared," said Mark Mulligan, senior analyst at Jupiter Research.
A whole generation of youngsters are growing up with a new view of music, not as a commodity but as a file to be shared with anyone in cyberspace. "When those teenagers hit the 20- 34 age group with no intention of paying for music, then that is going to be incredibly bad for the music industry," said Mr Mulligan.
It is not just youngsters getting involved in file-sharing. Grokster says that 38% of its users are over-45s. High-speed net access has prompted a revolution in file-sharing with up to 60% of total broadband traffic thought to be some form of file swapping.The
BBC News Online item goes on to quote Wayne Rosso, the head of file-sharing firm Grokster, as putting forward a 'flat-rate' pricing model for the future.
Instead of paying for individual songs, you'd pay for the access to download them. Is this all the fault of pirates or the industry for being unable to keep up with changes?