I just finished reading The Pirates Dilemma. The overall message in the book is that piracy is here to stay. You can choose to fight a losing battle or make a decision to compete with them. Apple, for instance, is a great example of a company that made the decision to compete and has done an outstanding job. Napster came along, let people download and share music for free, and changed the industry forever. Apple saw an opportunity and developed iTunes, the iPod, and much more. Old school artists and record labels have been fighting ever since and are losing the battle.As I was finishing the book, I came across a great article on Mashable about how Nine Inch Nails is embracing the change. They have put the first volume of their new album on torrent sites to be downloaded for free. It's a multi volume album and if you want the rest of it, you can download it off their website for $5. How about that for cutting out record labels and industry execs?
In The Pirates Dilemma, there was a great story about how Madonna unfortunately decided to fight piracy years ago. By the end of it, someone had hacked into her site, posted all the songs from her new album up to download for free, and wrote a message across the top of the site about how the "pirate community" felt about her.
The music industry is not the only one under fire. Don't count yourself out. The free economy is already in motion. Check out the latest issue of Wired. The headline for article states "Why $0.00 is the future of business."
