| The New Free Decentralized Marketing System
When Metallica, a band whose members live in houses the size of football stadiums, are fighting "piracy" going on with new technology like Napster (which allows people to share music files easily over the Net), are they really fighting for artist's rights? Do they really believe that they are losing anything, when nothing physical is changing hands? Do they really believe that they are loosing money when a typical new Napster user is spending more money than ever on CDs after finding music on the Net?*
They may believe so, but I am suspecting that what they are really fighting is a new Marketing System which is growing like weed.
The old system, which is wonderful for the established firm and the artist who is already very successful, is Big Advertising. Big posters and TV ads, etc., cost tons and tons of money. But if you can pay that, they are very likely to pay off handsomely, regardless of the quality of the product. (Modern day Metallica, Rolling Stones, and Kiss come to mind regarding that point.) This system also ensures that a small number of people on the top can control what is popular, and what will never be.
The new system, which is only possible in the Internet age, can be considered the "democratic", or the "distributed" marketing system. In that system, an artist is using some of the many cheap or even free methods of marketing available on the Net to reach customers. He then gives samples of his work away free. If people like his work, they will then talk about it to their friends, who will talk to their friends, etc. And they will share the free work, and probably even some of the paid-for work. All these new people will then want more, and will spend money to get it.
This system will be greatly aided when we get a "micro-payment" system actually working. What this means is that it will be possible to buy items over the Net costing just a few cents a piece, something which is not viable today. This will be a big boon for starting artists, as well as for the more experimental of artists. ...And think about the possibility that the inexplicable year-after-year delays of getting such a simple system going is actually caused by the powers-that-be because it will undermine their power and control, which is partly based on the credit card system and a centralized and registered economy.
Such a decentralized system, beyond the fact that it can be used by people who are not already successful or embraced by the establishment, and beyond the fact that it cut out the middlemen who takes 95% of profits, will have the added value that it will be more quality-oriented. Today, if you go to an advertisement agency and offer them a million to do an ad, it is not all that likely that they will tell you: "Sorry, can't do it, we don't really like your product". [Hysterically laughing at the thought.] But in the future, the bulk of "advertising" will be happening from individual public to individual public, people who only have something to lose and nothing to win by lying (unlike advertising companies).
It will be a much healthier, much more economical, and a much more honest system. Is it any wonder it is being fought so diligently by the well-monyed?
- Stobblehouse
*As one example, after finding a couple of rare Bowie items this evening, I have just now ordered two Bowie CDs that I had not thought about for years. One of them I used to have both on LP and on cassette. David is losing nothing on me. As one more example, I have also just ordered an Eartha Kitt CD. I hardly had any idea who she even was until I found "Santa Baby" on the Net after hearing it in the great movie Mixed Nuts. (I have never owned a radio, I can't stand all the discount music they play.) |
