338

A Blog for ISYS338 -- Information Technology in Global Society.


Record Companies Try Suing Baidu Again

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/06/record-companies-try-suing-baidu-again/

After discussing China's policy on bootlegs and piracy last class all I can say to the labels is good luck. Complete and utter waste of money (which is ironic because isn't that what the lawsuit is about?) especially against China's version of Google.

It has been pointed out that additional mp3s produced by a label costs nothing, no more than the original recorded track. There are many ad-supported music services emerging, Last.fm to name just one. Its been suggested that these free, ad-supported music services are sending out the message to consumers that music costs nothing to produce. This is why so many music distribution models fail. Consumers are hardly willing to pay $1 to iTunes as is.

Previously downloading pirated music was very clearly piracy and users might have thought twice (then gone ahead and did it anyway but...). But now free ad-supported music downloads are floating around and users are thinking that yeah, music is/should be free.

It is unlikely, however, that sites can dig out the cost of a song via advertising (even with things like signing up for email newsletters, tracking user behaviors for online marketers, etc) when you consider the size of the digital music going through Baidu.

- Laura

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