Timeblog.net

In a recent article, Cory Doctorow not only pinpoints the way information can and should spread across the internet:

But the disposition of each — or even most — of the seeds aren’t the important thing, from a dandelion’s point of view. The important thing is that every spring, every crack in every pavement is filled with dandelions.

he also makes the soothing statement that each blog on average caters to three people, which is well true for my blog, and talks about how a connection to a sale is often made only if something is available right now.
That’s exactly what’s bugging me about music availability online. I often look around for new bands, on MySpace or on CDBaby, and if I find a band I like, the band has a window of about 3 minutes to sell their album to me. That means for each band, it has to have online copies in MP3 format available for download and that the place where I go to buy this download is available via a click or via the first 5 results on Google. After that, I might lose interest and just go and look at the 10000 other bands that might be interestung.
Now - the reality is that you can get most music from popular artists in non-DRM format for reasonable prices. Strangely, the bands and labels that should have the biggest interest in a low-level, straight-to-consumer, immediately-available distribution that still brings in money often neglect to use this chance. So, I wander on as I have no interest in purchasing and waiting for the plastic medium that carries the information to arrive by mail weeks later for a higher price. Especially with bands that only have promo CDs - why don’t you all offer easy ways to buy digital versions of your music? I’m the customer, have money, I want to spend it - but I can’t. So I spend it elsewhere!