How long until a music industry revolution?
Bob Lefsetz recently published another broadside in his continuing crusade to drag the music industry into the 21st century. In this one he asked the following question: How long until there’s enough unfettered new music, tunes the creators control as opposed to the fat cats, that someone from the outside can roll up these rights and create a viable alternative to the established game? This I think is the key question, since I agree with Lefsetz that industry incumbents are extremely unlikely to innovate, and long copyright terms, existing contracts and statutory licensing arrangements, and political battles over compensation (e.g., regarding performance royalties for terrestrial radio) will slow down if not halt altogether any major revamp of business arrangements for existing works. In particular I doubt we’ll soon see Lefsetz’s preferred “all you can eat for one monthly price” scheme for legalizing P2P downloads of major label content—a skepticism shared by others. ...