Peter Ruppert's Blog

It’s said that 95% of signed artists aren’t going to sell because they don’t connect with consumers. We subscribe to that view because everyday we at EMR see these problems. In the past, these products would simply be deleted. Now they end up in the long tail for friends and family filling up the internet (ie making search so much harder).

The continuing cries for music taxes, all you can eat subscriptions and licensing like TV and Radio make me feel nauseous. Consider a lake full of artists with only a few big fish. The big fish don’t want to be obscured by the mass of tiddlers whereas the tiddlers are happy to be there in case someone wants them. In such a model the earning capacity of the few big fish is much reduced and you would expect them to exclude themselves from such a model and sell their products individually, download by download at a far higher unit price with revenue visibility. When other big fish follow their exit the lake will be left with the small fish that get thrown back into the water because who wants to pay a fishing license for a lake without big fish?

I think it’s now time to seriously stop people downloading illegally by working together with the ISPs. They were, after all, able to block access to a Wikipedia site displaying a 1970’s album cover by the Scorpions. That should open some eyes.