Week 7 Blog Post

This article on Salon.com, http://www.salon.com/technology/the_gigaom_network/tech_insider/index.html?section=tech_insider&blog=/tech/giga_om/tech_insider/2010/04/23/can_p2p_be_made_to_pay

, argues for music providers to start working with music file sharing instead of trying to put a stop to it. We all know that stopping this file sharing is a losing battle. Companies have to accept this and move on. They have to embrace and adapt.

The article above provides three suggestions on how to pay these companies that provide the music. Out of the three, I think that Ad-supported P2P and user donations will be the most successful with ad-supported as the one on top. Think about it, how many times do we click an interesting advertisement on the side of our Facebook profiles or on Youtube.com? Most of us don’t even realize what we are doing. It is already a huge source of income for thousands of companies. Making the ads on the music sites about the music and the artists is a perfect idea. If we hear a song we like, we want to learn about it and the artist in the hopes that it will lead us to more songs we will enjoy.

I am not sure how successful the user donations would be. I support it because I have many friends who are artists and can’t afford to have their songs given away for free. These donations show them that they are supported and appreciate the way other paychecks never could.

I don’t download music off the web. I rarely buy CDs even though I listen to a lot of the same bands over and over again. If I really like a song I will find it on Youtube.com and add it to one of my playlists there. I don’t have to worry about soring CDs or keeping up with an mp3 player or I-pod. It suits me since the only time I really listen to music is at my desk. I don’t like having headphones in my ears. I like to know what is going on around me and hearing the sounds of the world.

I think that my view is probably pretty average. I know that kids are going to download songs the cheapest way possible and no parent wants their child coming to them every five minutes so they can pay for a song. Children are notorious for clicking ads that interest them. Ad- supported P2P just seems like the right course of action no matter how you look at it.