A challenge

February 27, 2002

I just turned on the Grammys to see National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences president Michael Green discussing how downloading music is theft and that consumers and the industry need to do what they can to end it. Perhaps you the industry should be doing more than offering half-assed, undesirable ways of downloading music that end up more expensive than buying a physical product with lower sound quality and more restrictions on what devices it can be played on. How about a system where downloading tracks is cheaper than buying a physical CD? How about a system that offers sound quality as good as a CD? How about a system that compensates the songwriters and performing artists fairly? How about a system that offers a good selection of tracks? Offer a good product and people will be lining up to buy it. Leave a system in place where consumers can not buy music in the format they want it in, and many will download music in that format. Perhaps if the big labels tried to understand what their consumers want instead of trying to force something on us, they could spend less time complaining and more time supporting new artists.