With P2P via Allofmp3, is low cost, lawful music finally on the horizon?

Are you happy paying the cost of a cd for music downloads? Me neither. The music business have succeeded at this costly cartel for years, pulling in even greater earnings now that they don’t have to manufacture, circulate or stock anything material. Notwithstanding the popular attempts of Napster, allofmp3 etc to offer a lower priced alternative (albeit with suspect legal standings), the industry has every time applied maximum force to eliminate other choices on copyright grounds (read profit cut).

Then again there are novel ways of listening and downloading music for a fraction of the charge of buying your music from the industry ‘approved’ site(s). Two models have appeared which seem to be taking on a cult status that hopefully will become widespread and mainstream once music downloaders realise that there are alternatives to paying $1 a song……

The first is the subscription service, where members pay a monthly payment, and can download a restricted quantity of mp3s depending on the amount of their subscription. Sites like emusic.com have a massive back catalogue and many new releases (citing 6 million mp3s on their website), though they tend to be more genre specific. Mp3s, however, cost between $0.50 to $0.75, dependant on your monthly payment (the more you pay, the cheaper the mp3s get). The main downside is that you can’t ‘bank’ your credits - don’t use all of your downloads by the finish of the month and that’s it - they’re gone! One key benefit is that all of the music is DRM free - you can listen to it on as many separate mp3 playing devices as you want. Attempt that with iTunes.

The more left field option is the ongoing appearance of streaming music sites. You don’t download the music - you stream it to your pc / phone etc. Sounds a bit limited, but as soon as you create an account you can create playlists online, or just enjoy music as you rummage around for it. If you’ve got access to the internet, you can listen to your music! Sites like spotify have a considerable choice of music, all on hand to stream at no cost (though with the free option there are occasional ads played between tracks - just think of it as listening to your ultimate commercial radio station). There is a (inexpensive) pay service, which gets rid of the ads, and streams at a superior bitrate. I’m in fact listening to the colossal Killing Joke on spotify as I type this, and have just been offered a test drive in a new Lexus….faintly odd.

Looking ahead, one hypothesis gathering energy at the moment is that eventually bands will give all of their music away for free, on the grounds that it is used as promotional material for their gigs and merchandise. The record companies must be apprehensive, as this would ensure most of the money going directly to the artists, who could go off and record their tracks exclusive of the involvement of a record company. And touring is big business these days - the recent cancelled Oasis concerts are believed to have lost the band millions in missed income.

Of course, giving tracks away for gratis is commonplace among new bands who have access to an immediate and targeted audience if they do their viral marketing correctly (Arctic Monkeys anybody?). On the other hand stadium oufits like Prince and Radiohead have lately been giving new music away - is this a sign of things to come?

Despite the attempts of P2P & the flood of allofmp3 alternatives, are we seeing the beginning of low cost / free, legal downloads on the web? I hope so……

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