To me one of the weirder assessments for why there was so much controversy in the music industry with the arrival of the web is that the web offered a more efficient distribution mechanism. So people could just directly download songs, while many in the music industry wanted people to buy CD's. And that's it.
Why fight for people to buy CD's versus buy songs and download direct? Well that's where it gets interesting and more complicated, except to say there were people who made more money that way, and not the artists either by the way.
If artists in the music industry had figured that out early, could they have done much? I don't know that they didn't figure it out. But to me some sure sounded like they hated audiences, and thought all fans were thieves who refused to pay for music they could steal.
When today fans continue to buy plenty of music.
Innovation can simplify, and in so doing can remove ways some people make money. Though over time it actually tends to help primaries make money. Like today artists can grab a bigger percentage of the music sales, like even just control distribution of their artistic production themselves. So it was more about other people involved? Like the people who made more money from CD's than from direct downloads?
To me, MOST of the time when I study heated fights over innovation, including with my own, I trace it back to money concerns. Some group of people are looking at a potential drop in money in some kind of way I tend to notice. And that's it. Nothing more.
James Harris
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