i know a lot of people who equate "try before you buy" with downloading songs and living with them for a while. they need to spend *a lot* of time with those songs. me? five seconds of a myspace stream counts as a trial. i know in a very short amount of time if i want to buy something.

labels try to offer the "try before you buy" by giving out a free song or two, streaming music at the label site and streaming music at the artist's myspace page (if you can stand the d.r.m.). there are plenty of opportunities to sample music. the moral here, as i see it, is that "sample" means different things to different people. some need half a song once. some need an entire album for a few weeks. (and let's be honest...some just want a lot of free music. period. they don't buy much and they never get off the couch to attend concerts.)

with subscription services (rhapsody, zune, napster) or social sites (e.g. imeem, last.fm) labels and artists get paid while you sample. good for artists. music blogs have a lot of music not found on those services/sites, and the music is readily available and free. good for users.

something between the two would be great for those who love music blogs. if people really want to sample before they buy, the sampling should be monetized. i see no legal way to do this at the current time (an ISP tax is so, so unlikely) so those (few) consumers with a nagging conscious may want to voluntarily shift to other forms of discovery. that's a tough switch to make. while imeem is pretty cool, it can't replace a well-curated music blog.

there's a risk, though, for labels. if sites/services that allow sampling become much better, far more easy to use, etc., sampling will simply replace purchasing (similar to how satellite radio acts as a substitute for cd purchases for many of its users).

coolfer

there needs to be a line drawn in the sand between music as a hobby and music as a career. And about 99% of folks thinking their making music their career need to wake up, smell the coffee and stick to the day job folks

worldsfair

noamjamski

SuperUnison

biggy1000

Mmmm....letters.

Paperboy 2000

Question: does anyone know if DFA's publicist(s) sends out mp3 links?

And: what's worse to me is the ever-increasing prevalence of full album mp3 blogs. When does Rapidshare get sued?

Paperboy 2000

SuperUnison

SomeSound-MostlyFury