The music industry have got to change their model. They have successfully used copyright laws to effectively kill off the unauthorised copying of music. Taking someones hard work and not paying them for it is clearly wrong, but the big 5 have not even attempted to move to a distribution model that is internet based.

Too many vested interests within the supply chain.

Imagine a system not so very different to the TiVO but a music server connected to the internet via wi-fi / broadband (ok I know the majority of the world does not have broadband). You have a subscription, not too much, you download music to the server for as a time based event, say 7 days or whatever, after which it's deleted automatically, if you like it you have the option keep it for good, burn it to the inbult CD burner (ONCE ONLY), by paying a fee or ordering a CD at a discount price, because you are a subscriber.

No reason why Satellite technology could not be used.

The point is that all this technology is currently available, the above is hardly an original idea!

What do the big 5 do? Pretend that the internet does not exist or that MP3 was ever invented.

An analogy that most people (except those in America) will appreciate.

102 Million SMS (Short Messaging Standard) were sent on New Years day (in the UK, I'm sure that similar totals were seen all over the GSM world), the highest total for any one day. That's about �10.2, mobile phone companies make more from SMS that telephone calls. This revenue stream that did not even exist in ANY of the mobile operators business plans when GSM was launched.

You have not got to get too far out of the box to work out how the music industry can make money apart from selling CD's!

Martin.

[This message has been edited by mgarthwaite (edited 01-08-2003).]