People are willing to pay for content. They just want the price to be fair, reasonable, and just. When content holders try to charge monopoly rents, even the most law-abiding individual is tempted to become part of the “information wants to be free” sloganeering hordes.
If that’s correct, we can expect Rumblefish’s Friendly Music service to be widely embraced by the public. The NYTimes:
For [$1.99] the user gets the full version of the song and can edit it as well. The new service, Friendly Music, can be used only for noncommercial purposes — like posting family or wedding videos online. Any commercial purpose, like including it in a video intended to sell a product, requires a different license….Users can search the music in a variety of ways, including by genre or by mood (like love or warm summer day), and can eliminate songs with vocals, for example, or those that have a slow tempo.
So far no major label “name” artists. That’s a problem. Hopefully the artists will pressure the labels, recognizing that wider exposure will benefit all. More likely the labels will be moved by the highly profitable iTunes song/app economy. There are some big bucks to be made in those $1.99 licenses.
You can find me @jwindish, at my Public Notebook, or email me at joe-AT-joewindish-DOT-com.