p2pnet.net News:- In could be the thin end of the wedge, the gradual opening of the flood gates.

Yahoo is biting the bullet, virtually admitting its Yahoo Music service is done for, and definitely admitting p2p and file sharing are here to stay.

It’s offering Jesse McCartney’s Right Where You Want Me album at $10, a price that’s close to falling within the ballpark of almost acceptable pricing. And it’s unpolluted by DRM.

So what prompted the not-so-surprising (someone had to do it) move?

“We’re trying to be realistic,” Variety has said Ken Bunt, senior VP of marketing at Hollywood Records, saying. “Jesse’s single is already online and we haven’t put it out. Piracy happens regardless of what we do. So we’re going to see how Jesse’s album goes (as an MP3) and then decide on others going forward.”

It’s not piracy, though. It’s people using the Net to prove they’re no longer cash-cow consumers, but customers again, buyers with free choice. And they’re continuing to ignore the rip-off offerings of Yahoo and everyone else, instead using the p2p networks and indie sites for their online music fixes.

At the bottom of the murky corporate music industry barrel are Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG, the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel who hold people on both sides of the fence, music retailers and, through them, customers, to ransom.

The Big Four demand an extortionate 60 to 85 cents wholesale for individual copyrighted files, each of which should retail at no more than 30 cents or so at the top end.

Consequently, only a handful of people are prepared to pay through the nose at $1 and up for each download, buying from the likes of iTunes, a loss leader for iPod which in all likelihood has only recently turned the corner into black.

The vast bulk of online music lovers get their tunes from the p2pnetworks or indies such as AllofMP3.com.

“We think this is a really good experiment, because copy protection is not doing anything to stop people from stealing when you can just get unprotected tracks off of a CD or get music illegally online,” Variety quotes Yahoo! Music’s Dave Goldberg as saying.

Of course, Goldberg is merely parroting Big Four lie-speak. With file sharing, nothing has been stolen, no one has been deprived in anything they once owned, and the Big Four have never come even close to proving their assertion that a file shared equals a sale lost.

To the contrary, as more and more artists are discovering, p2p is a great way to promote music and develop sales – without the venal labels in the middle, hogging the lion’s share and calling the shots.

Because if you’re speaking of pirates, you’re talking about the Big Four.

Meanwhile, is this the start of the corporate music revolution?

Stay tuned.

Also See:
Yahoo – Yahoo! Music and Jesse McCartney Team Up for an Exclusive MP3 Promotion , September 19, 2006
Variety – Yahoo tests ‘Right’ to MP3 downloads, September 18, 2006

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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