Published Mar 12, 2007
A few weeks ago, I suggested that the recording and movie industries outsource their challenge to create a new business model. By having VCs and entrepreneurs attempt to implement industry group-approved business plans, it seemed to me that these industries could shift all of the risk of figuring out what was next onto other individuals while reaping all of the rewards from emerging distribution channels. The recording industry, at least, has made it clear that they have no intention of doing any such thing. They asked, and got, an increase in the royalties paid to artists by online radio stations, an increase to a level that will probably drive all of these radio stations — this entire emerging distribution channel — out of business.