Must Read Article: Rhapsody's Rob Reid: 'Copyright law is like doing archaeology in the Mediterranean'

Rhapsody's Rob Reid: 'Copyright law is like doing archaeology in the Mediterranean' | The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/9/3122252/rhapsody-rob-reid-interview-year-zero-copyright-music-piracy

I don’t know the details of the deals that Spotify cuts with indies vs. majors. But I can speculate about the relative size and attractiveness of a fully-streaming market. This is where I see the world in 5-10 years, when the technology allows immediate (and mobile) on-demand access to all the world’s music at essentially all times for a modest monthly fee (which is coming very quickly) – and consumers have fully digested and acclimated to this fact (which will take quite a bit longer).
In that world, a la carte piracy and the annoyance of managing and synchronizing file-based music collections across multiple devices will look about as cutting-edge as carrying canteens around a city with modern plumbing. I expect that anyone with even a passing interest music would be a subscriber in that world (much as the huge majority of households now get pay TV), and that prices will initially gravitate around $10/month, and then drift upward as “music dial tone” comes to be an increasingly integral aspect of daily life.

So let’s say about half of the country is on board at $10/month. That’s $15 billion/year in revenue, which is slightly more than the US music industry at its peak in 1999. And I think that’s a starting point for the market once the transition to streaming is complete, and it will do nothing but grow after that (again — think of cable/satellite bills).

(via Instapaper)

A tom of really useful points about the music industry here - be sure to watch the videos, too!

Gerd Leonhard
Futurist, Author and CEO 

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