For all the work that record labels do to prevent downloading, a popular symphony in England has avoided the issue entirely by offering their tracks online for free download through a music management company called BlueFrog. The Lancashire Sinfonietta has 10 songs posted on their website, and they allow the user to use them however they wish - burning to CD, uploading to an mp3 player, and they even have the CD album art and booklet available for download and printing. They also offer their CDs for £7.50 on the same website, which is about $12 or $13.
To download the songs, the user must register with the website and provide very minimal personal information (name, email and country). Then the site provides you with a "passcode" to download the songs. They say that they won't sell your personal information, so I'm guessing that they just use the information to track and market to their existing fan base.
Their press release notes that "this is great for people who want to try out classical music for the first time as there's no need to fork out for something you're not sure you're going to like." So BlueFrog and the Sinfonietta are effectively providing an on-demand sample of classical music so users can try it out for free. And, you are not "borrowing" the tracks. The absence of DRM sets this model apart from the Napster and Ruckus model.
However, at the same time, I realize that the British model is quite different from the American system of capitalism. The arts receive many times more funding from their government - through regional Arts Councils - than they do here, and they probably aren't as concerned with "stealing." The Lancashire Sinfonietta is probably not going to bankrupt itself by offering its tracks online for free. Despite the differences in how the recording industry works in the U.K. and America, I think the record companies here could take a lesson from this model. Offer some tracks online for free, and allow users to do whatever they want with them. If they like what they hear, they will come back for more. And when they come back, they'll bring their credit cards with them.
1 comment:
This is very cool, but many people don't realize that most public libraries have volumes of classical, jazz, and world music available for borrowing. I think this is a great way to expand the fanbase of classical music, and I hope other genres do the same.
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