I am not talking about government regulation. In the context of music industry(and to some extend the motion pictures), it is exactly free market at work. The label company(RIAA) has been producing 'bad' stuff for way too long and yet charging more and more. That is the reason the buying public go for the 'free' alternative; because the value is NOT there -- there is no incentive to buy from the group of RIAA companies.

Here is a test, how many songs or movies that you have heard or seen in the last two years that you would buy for your home library at a price of $45, $20, $10, $5. This is again the 'value' equation that DRM can not overcome.

IMHO, DRM was designed for company to hold on their existing business model and with wall-to-wall user lock-in.

Cheers,

Assume that was sarcasm about Google.

@cheve: I don't know about RIAA numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if the music studios have the financial powers to actually shape market demand by very strong marketing tactics. Of course those more vulnerable are the younger generation, which is why they're all listening to all these aural trash nowadays that they call music

But that's probably just my baseless opinion...

Anyhow... the commonly accepted understanding is that the 'value' is there, if the item gets sold.

Don't make me agree with you again, ysss!
(As much as I don't like the "If enough sheep follow the marketing experts, there's value in a product" philosophy - but it's true, no matter if the quality's good, as long as it sells, it actually HAS value to quite a lot of people.)

Though with them constantly crying about how much market share they lost (and thus things NOT getting sold like they did before) - wouldn't that mean, more or less, that they are actually admitting that there's not enough value anymore?

Of course they blame it on the evil internet instead (well, because copying tapes was completely unheard of before :P), but if they DID have better quality at better prices, there's a high probability people would be more inclined on actually buying.

@ysss, for the younger generation(assuming young in age and as well as less in financial ability), then I would think a "$5" item is a quicker sale, than one costing $40.

iTune is successful, because it costs relatively little(for each download) for the user and the user get to pick his/her trash(ops.. I mean music)
Cheers,

@nathraiben: haha I didn't want to make that connection in my post because I'm repulsed by that very idea; but I guess for that particular transaction, the value was established - however artificial it was. Whether the value diminishes as soon as the buyer gains sanity/grows up or not, that's a different matter

Know what's rather frightening? This gaining sanity/growing up process seems to be vanishing from today's generation...

Oh, by the way, something I forgot to post before but still wanted to throw in to the "trust vs control" discussion:
Said trust-based company (would posting their name count as unwanted advertising?) even has a 30-days money back policy where they simply TRUST you to delete the files of the product you returned. And it works. Quite well.

@Nathraiben: I completely agree. They live within pockets of (unsustainable) comfort provided by the well-meaning previous generation.. (or something).. and all this derivative market popping up, making all of us out of touch with what matters and handing the reign of control over to... (!) but I digress

Ok, I gotta know the name of that successful trust-based company...
I'm ready to purchase whatever they're selling already...

Care to join in on the 3D rendering fun then?

(Actually, now that I think about it, there's actually quite a couple of companies in that sector that manage to make quite a bit of money with that business model.)

@nath: lol blender? can't be... I don't know much about 3d modeling scene...

ok, i think we've gone far OOT already

kill switch!