I was listening to the latest Relevant Podcast the other day, and they had an interview with Derek Webb that was very thought provoking and in the process he mentioned Noise Trade. I had heard about Noise Trade before, and even downloaded a couple albums. The idea is really cool: You can pay anything you want for an album, or you can tell five friends about it and get the album free. The albums I downloaded at the time seemed to be a bit lacking, but I visited it again today, and the selection has grown tremendously, and there seems to be some real quality music on there now (Derek Webb, for starters, although I’ve only heard a few of his songs).

Going back to the core issue that he touched on though. Music is going, no, scratch that. Music has already gone digital. This makes it an infinitely reproducible commodity as one commenter said. Based on the laws of supply and demand, that makes it free (or close to free, since there are still distribution costs). Realistically, there has to be some way to make money from that, but you’re a bit at the mercy of the consumer now, since you can’t cut the supply (you could, but why?). I think a lot of artists are starting to get it, and doing some really cool experiments with pricing and marketing in the digital realm. The labels, however, seem to be drowning, gasping for breath, when the shore is mere feet away. If they would only look to the side, instead of the same way they’ve always been going.