On the music market

It seems the IP component price of the product is trending toward zero. But I would think forcing 2-3 dollar price models per album via download would NOT significantly detract from overall gross for the band (based on the 62% who paid nothing) as long as the real money in the industry is in live performance and shows. People can always BiTTorent it for free.

But a band could have a good delivery website with good bandwidth for the first month of the "big release." You could also combine with various web targetted-advertising outifts. In that sense, the more exposure you can get the better, thus cost-of-production is equivalent to advertising for that 62% who paid nothing. What percentage of that group then attends a local concert with friends or clicks on an advertisement from the excellent website? There is big money to be made by the bands without the record companies and their contracts, middlemen, and physical delivery systems.

http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10125466