The always-interesting Digital Music News has a couple of discussions (here and here) of the rent-buy-or-just-stream-it issue, including some neat thoughts on the role of music in people's lives.

Particularly sweet music to our property-rights-oriented ears:

So I'm renting music... so what? I get to listen to so much more than I ever have, especially with the tethered component built in. I listen to music I don't even like - - and yes, that, too, is all part of the Net Enjoyment equation. What about Peer to Peer, you say? Well, from a discovery and Net Enjoyment standpoint, I have to say that subscription is better. Why? The meta-data is all correct and the interface is editorialized. Also, when you introduce collaborative filtering on a subscription service, it is much more compelling. On P2P, instead of 'people who like this also like this', you get 'people who downloaded this also downloaded this' - I know it sounds like the same thing, but it's not. If I build my 'library' on a sub service, it IS what I like, as there is no good reason for me to engage in that activity otherwise. On P2P, people download stuff just because it's there and they might want to listen to it later. This means that the community and sharing features are bound to be very compelling once there is enough adoption and data (the big drawback with collaborative filtering is the enormous amount of data points required). [Emphasis added.]

The stuff I really really like, I still buy the CD or the vinyl, and I don't know if that will ever change for me. Often, this is because I want to support the artist by buying at a show or support a local record store - or because the packaging and artwork is really nice. Also, there is still quite a bit of independent stuff that either doesn't make it to the services or doesn't make it when at street date . . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 7:51 AM | Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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