The popularity of file sharing demonstrates the popularity of media on demand, with which a subscription model would be the best fit for monetising this market. However, the DRM restrictions on current subscription models such as Napster prevent both CD burning and even syncing with various mp3 players making them less attractive to consumers.
DRM has rightly had a bad year as consumers have been faced with iTunes songs not working on any other mp3 player, and even interoperability issues between Napster and Yahoo Music’s Microsoft developed PlayForSure DRM and Microsoft’s own Zune player. Annoying to say the least. Even iTunes sales have collapsed in contrast to emusic’s DRM free growth with their limited subscription model and the continued growth of file sharing. With this in mind, a subscription of file sharing could be useful where users play a flat fee per month and the money is distributed on which songs are played most rather than downloaded. This is to be offered as an alternative to emusic’s model, and not a replacement of such a popular distribution model.
Privacy Issues
The problem with subscription models where files are shared and not downloaded from a central server is how to track who has downloaded what content and how the subscription money would be distributed between the content creators and providers. The automatic tracking of consumers’ activities makes many peopled awkward as they don’t want big brother knowing what they listen to.
A way to get around this problem is to make tracking part of the media player and not the music itself. Media player software such as iTunes already counts how many times each song is played to let users create smart playlists from their favourite songs. This information could be optionally sent to a central server every month with the users’ subscription money automatically split between the artists they have listened to that month with artists they listen to most getting the biggest cut. This way of money distribution prevents the large media companies from getting the lion’s share of the subscription money from users which more often listen to music from independent labels. It also doesn’t limit the growth of new labels or bands promoting themselves, which is good for new music.
