I just read this paper on frictionless sharing and I like to comment on something written inthr paper. Quoting is not allowed without permission do I just rephrase it, but the whole idea goes back to what I wrote a couple of month ago
Basically the part I’m talking about deals with recommendations: in the case of a little restaurant I like, recommending it to friends may help to keep the restaurant in business longer.
This is the argument used by most people in favor of filesharing and unlicensed distribution of music. But as you can clearly see: sharing a recommendation is all fine and dandy if you encourage your friends to support the act/artist/musician/producer as is the case with a restaurant. But sharing the actual work will have the opposite effect: less people will buy the music and the act/artist/musician/producer will go out of business.
And an industry that has been reduced by roughly 65% in the span of 12 years (meaning, we lost 3 major labels and now are left with two and also lost many many independent companies) is proof that something is broken in a medium that means so much to people and that helps young people to define who they are. It saddens me to have to argue with people (even colleagues) about business models, legality and such instead of just sharing a recommendation to a good piece of music.