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Robin Whittle[SMTP:rw@firstpr.com.au] wrote: . [lots of good stuff about the music business clipped]

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I think this is an accurate analysis of a really sad situation. Like King Canute, the record companies are devoting most of their thinking and resources to holding back the tide.

As Peter points out, Canute actually did have the clue that the record companies don't. One place I lived in New Jersey was in Sea Bright, which is a sand bar just south of Sandy Hook beach. Two hundred years ago, it was an island, and it's trying to become an island again. The Army Core of Engineers, however, keeps trying to tell the tides to stop, primarily by pouring a few million dollars worth of cement into the sea wall and road foundations every decade or so. In some sense, it may be worthwhile, since the value of the houses that they're protecting is higher than that, but while I knew I was renting the house I was living in, some of my neighbors their thought they owned something other than a bit of drifting sand. Perhaps the record companies need to see what equivalents of pilings or surfboards they can find for their business models.