As many of you know, we spend a lot of time beating up on the recording industry and motion picture industry at Public Knowledge. Today, though, I want to heap a little bit of praise on the former. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed some baby steps in the right direction for
some of the music companies with regards to embracing new business
models for selling their music. First were the announcements that
three of the major recording companies are teaming up Wurld Media to
deliver music via a P2P service called Peer Impact, Universal Music had agreed to license its music to Shawn Fanning’s Snocap P2P service,
and Sony BMG had agreed to license its music to Grokster as part of a
new service called Mashboxx.

The second was the announcement by Universal that it would engage in a creative profit sharing endeavor with certain artists whose music would be distributed online only.

This activity only goes to show the huge gap between what the business folks are thinking and what the lobbyists are thinking. While the business people are looking for new ways to bring in customers and share the risks of making music, the lobbyists are looking to preserve their old business models by pushing the Induce Act (which will be back next Congress), draconian penalties for file sharing and tech mandates like a “broadcast flag” protection for new digital broadcast radio services.

So I guess I really want to praise the business people. And encourage them to talk to their colleagues here in DC about what is really best for the future of the recording industry.

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