okay i'll take the word from a guy on the internet with Che Guevara as his avatar picture, that artists and recording companies will actually make more money by selling at a lower price. I assume you have done extensive price/demand elasticity research on the area.

If the solution was that simple, why don't the record companies embrace it? Don't you think that with the amount of money involved (and since they are dealing with their own money) they would have done extensive cost/benefit analysis of various pricing models?

There is no sanctioned monopoly on being in the recording industry. There are four very big labels, many more medium sized labels and about a gazillion tiny independents. If you think its so easy for the 'fat cat pirates' to generate obscene profit margins, why don't you do it and undercut them?

That is because BT freaks already have an ideal situation - BT. I am convinced that hardcore BT freaks are not interested in advocating for or educating themselves in realistic legal alternatives. Example:

$2 an album. Get real. Is that really how much you value the music that you listen to? And $5 for an entire TV series. Yep.

P2P is too easy, we have grown up with it. Also the fact that record companies are so greedy.

The TV and film industry is just as bad, case in point; the writers strike. What a joke that was, how small what the writers were asking for was and how stubborn the studios were.

Channel BT is always going to exist as long as Australian TV is so far behind the US, I don't mind waiting a week but 9 months etc is just bullshit. Channel 7 was addressing this but that seems to have stopped now (where is my Prison Break!!!).

Nothing to accomplish. As I mentioned IP copyrights already lapse after a certain amount of time.

So you think $2 and album and $5 for a TV series is a reasonable price.

Mmm...ok. Very good of you to be honest, but I think that's a completely unmaintainable price point.

Is $16 for an album really that bad? I'd gladly pay $5 for rental of a movie for a night as a download (which seems to be about the going rate for digital stores o/s).

Good idea, however artists and production houses *need* some of the services provided by labels and film studios. They need some promo/marketing and they need distribution, even if it's just for online partnerships. Even the most fiercely indy artist needs some way of getting CDs in stores and being listed in all the various online stores. It's very difficult for individual artists to do that and I don't see the situation changing (and it's not due to some industry monopoly, it's because artists are good at making music and because distributors are good at distribution and promo). Everyone has their role. To assume you can cut out a lot of the players and still be able to function is a little ridiculous.

At least some of the reason that pirating of IP content exists isn't that it's too expensive, it's that it simply isn't available!

I have purchased over 500 e-books from Fictionwise and Mobipocket, over 2000 songs from iTunes and I would have purchased many many TV episodes. I also pay about $90 a month for Pay TV.

But many of the TV shows I want to watch simply aren't broadcast here... so buy them legally you say. Well I'd like to!

But most of them aren't for sale on DVD here (the ones that are I do buy).

And none of them are available from a legal download service... unlike songs or ebooks.

So what's that leave? Buying DVD's from overseas sellers? Who are most probably pirating them anyway... because most of the major sellers just won't ship here.

I'm not condoning piracy here, but the makers of some forms of entertainment really aren't doing themselves any favours!

The writers aren't starving wage slaves. That's a common misconception with the strike. The writers are quite powerful and mostly very, very wealthy. It was a power game between two very strong groups. So it wasn't David vs Goliath, it was Goliath vs Goliath.

I definitely agree that the writers should see residuals from online sales etc, but the real losers were the production staff and other staff who wouldn't have had work while the writers and studios fought their battle.

I completely agree. And that's one case where you really can argue there's no loss of income.

The UK recording industry has been presented with a few different pricing models - though it really is not just going to affect them. The Film and TV companies are already starting to feel things change due to high speed broadband.

The best option I've seen presented incorporated a universal fee / tax / charge that is added to the cost of your ISP.

Charge everyone $15 - $25 a month extra that is fed back 100% to the TV, Movie & Music industry because the cost is spread over 100% of all internet connections it covers those that download big numbers and those that don't - an example of this kind of system at work would be the BBC. Everyone in the UK with a TV pays a license fee that covers the cost of all TV, Radio and Web activities - expand on that.

yep, thats right. do you have any idea how many cents (not dollars) an artist sees from a $17 album?

its more than i value the music at, but it is a reasonable price.

look if you want to pay $17 for an album to line the pockets of some fat cat recording industry mogul and $40 for a TV series that shows FTA anyway then go right ahead - but please dont expect the rest of us to join your benevolence!

as long as the current model continues, P2P and Usenet will flourish and the artists will see no income for their work from this potential market.

Lutze: It's not a bad idea, but it is very hard to distribute the money fairly. Also, would the tax mean everyone can pirate what they like?

I obtain tv shows that aren't screened (Mighty Boosh series 3, Jam) or made available on DVD (The Office (US) series 3) in Australia through amazon.com or amazon.co.uk. It's not hard to find them.

Along the same lines, high quality, legal, DRM free music can be found cheaply through emusic.com, or the new amiestreet.com, where it is possible to find good music for under US$4/album, with the full support of major independent labels.

As a producer who's been signed to several indy labels and who's just sorted distribution + promo for the next album I think I have a pretty good idea. The worst thing is that I bet you'll lump the release I've been slaving over into the same basket as the rest of the pop industry, even though I've specifically requested iTunes Plus (ie no DRM) and we're about as indy as you get.

FTA / radio are ads with some content in between. You *do* pay for FTA by watching ads.

Btw, the whole "recording industry mogul" thing is a bit of a thing of the past. Most majors are really struggling and indy's have always struggled.

So "potential market" = people who are willing to pay $2 for an album. I bet that some people would complain that $2 for an album is too much. Damn those corporate pigs!

Distribution of funds would be done by monitoring the networks to see what is being transfered on the network. If the buggers think they can monitor P2P traffic then let them prove it this way.

If it's pre-paid then it's not piracy is it? The distribution channels (TV, Movie & Music) all need to realise that if something is available in one location it needs to be available everywhere. Nobody is going to wait 3 weeks / 3 months etc. for a show to be shown. National TV networks don't always pick up all the shows that we would all want to see. And films are not always released at the same time - an example for me is Run Fatboy, Run. I've got this movie on DVD in my shipped goods - yet it's just come out in the flicks here.

No it's not hard to find them.

The problem is that when I go to amazon.com and try to buy them it says "only available in the United States" so I can't actually purchase them

Not sure. I guess we're talking about changes to law to make this happen. It'd be great to see this tested in a small country or region somewhere. It's very clear that IP law needs to change somehow, but I don't think anyone has a new model that works for consumers and creators.