Hi Arthur, (AC) <<<< In a world of easily copiable everything, new pricing models will be needed to compensate creativity. Trying to defend old ways is clearly going to fail. Looks like we will have to live with failure for a while since everytime someone mentions looking at new pricing models for a knowledge economy they are given the "is that guy from outer space look?" >>>>
Well . . . I started Handlo Music (www.handlo.com) with a new pricing model right from its beginning (5 years ago) -- anticipating what is happening now. I call it "convenience pricing". Even though about a quarter of the sheet music on my list is (knowingly) freely available elsewhere on the Net, customers still prefer to spend with us because our site is more convenient to use. Besides, the quality of our engraving is better than the freebies. In the case of the music that's not freely available elsewhere on the Net, I price it at about double or thrice the normal shop price for one copy (though much cheaper for choirs in LDCs*) but a licence is given to the customer to photocopy our PDF attachment in sufficient numbers for all the members of their choir so that the unit cost per singer works out at about 5-10% of what they would have to pay for conventionally bought music. By selling one copy per choir, what I lose on the roundabouts, I gain on the swings (that is, world-wide, rather than local or national sales). (*One choir in the Czech Republic told me recently that their entire annual budget for music was US$40 so we naturally give choirs like this a substantial discount. Many choral singers -- even in the affluent west -- can't afford the outrageous prices that some publishers charge.) Handlo Music has never advertised on the Emersonian principle that if someone invents a better mousetrap then the world beats a path to his door. I'm not yet up to mousetrap sales but we are growing quite nicely thank you, with many free mentions in the professional journal world. Thus, without knowing how they'd heard of us, I sold music this morning to a major US choir -- the San Francisco Lyric Chorus -- and a little schoolchildren's choir in Jakarta, Indonesia. Both equally valuable customers I have bumped up against complaints from conventional music publishers in the last five years and have been threatened with legal action more than once. I usually see them off by asking for precise evidence of their claim to copyright. In most cases their "copyright" is fictitious and they simply don't reply to me. In coming into the world of music publishing from the outside it took me quite some time to learn some of the tricks that publishers get up in claiming copyright in many instances (and colluding in these matters with other publishers). The world of copyright is a murky one. (I actually had the advantage of the experience of a previous threat in my architectural business. I was sent a parcel of papers an inch thick and was threatened with court action by a London West End firm of lawyers for a house I'd designed which was supposed to infringe their client's copyright. Their client's design happened to have Tudor features, and so had mine -- so there were some similarities. But these similarities happened to be design features that were already 500 years' old. They were actually trying to claim copyright on them! Talk about chutzpah!) The hostility of sheet music publishers is really defensiveness -- they've actually lost their way. They had a fantastic opportunity some 30 years ago when the photocopier came along, but they fluffed it. Instead they chose to treat the photocopier as a problem. I haven't thought much about the world of recorded music. But I have little doubt that the major CD/DVD publishers (or, more likely, their replacements) will adopt something similar to my model of "convenience pricing" in the coming years. ---- Ray, (REH) <<<< Keith has talked about the future of the giveaway but refused to discuss the Cola/Linix article that I put out on the list. I have not understood how a copyright free world would generate income for the creative types. >>>> To my knowledge I haven't "refused", old sport. I'm just letting this one simmer for the time being. Besides, I prefer someone presenting their case personally; I don't much like having to comment on third-party articles. But -- this is the point -- who decides what is creative and what isn't? Answer that one if you can. For example, if I wanted to use a photo of Tracy Emin's "Unmade Bed" which won the prestigious Turner Prize for Art two or three years ago, then I'd be hammered for infringing her copyright. But, as it happens, I create an unmade bed every morning -- just as crumpled and messy as Emin's. Keith __________________________________________________________ “Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.” John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
