OTHER TECH

You've got to read this article: Two-Thirds of Active U.S. Web Population Using Broadband, up 28 Percent Year-Over-Year to an All-Time High, According to Nielsen//NetRatings. Bottom line: 68% of Web-users now connect via broadband.

Somehow, the record labels think it's all about iPods. That the revolution won't be complete until everybody has a hand-held music device, if ever. But the iPod is the explosion. The revolution comes with broadband penetration.

Broadband jump-started Napster. Acquiring files at 56k is just too damn slow except to do on a whim. But back in 2000, only college students and early adopters had high-speed connections. Now seemingly everybody does.

And why did they get these high-speed connections?

Well, interestingly, price plays a big part. Actually, AOL just RAISED its dialup subscription price, trying to steer people to broadband. Because its services at the newly beefed up aol.com depend on it. If you want to watch videos, you need a high-speed connection. Which the telcos are offering at sometimes even LOWER than AOL dialup prices. So, desirous of watching video, and enticed by the price, Joe Sixpack is springing for broadband. And what he's getting is faster surfing, the ability to watch video, and the right to experience the online digital music revolution.

With broadband, you can download apps on the Web in a minute or two. Apps like iTunes. Now you can purchase tracks, but being confronted with all the free tracks on Websites and the ability to rip one's own discs, the titles coming up in iTunes via CDDB, the new broadband customers dip their toes in the iTunes Music Store waters and then go elsewhere.

But make no mistake. Although the initial broadband sign-ups were all about stealing music, now they're about seeing clips on youtube and elsewhere. It'll be interesting to see if the movie and television entities are as stupid as the record companies and restrict the distribution of their wares. Because, it's been proven, people will get them elsewhere, chastising providers for being light years behind. Also, companies risk losing their place in the consumer psyche, like the record business did.

Yes, music drove the online revolution of the 21st century. People were signing up with their cable companies JUST to download music. And what did the major labels DO?? They killed this activity, now ceding all the buzz to visual-entertainment companies. Can they get the buzz back? Not by selling copy-protected tracks for 99 cents.

But they've got the CD.

But, after downloading iTunes and listening to music on your computer, suddenly you don't want the disc. It's as superfluous as those CDs that software companies used to distribute their programs on. Why now you just download files from the Web.

So, all around, things are bleak for the record labels. They're selling tunes in an obsolete format and the thunder comes from a completely different kind of entertainment medium. Looking to protect their old business model, they're trying to sue into submission customers who have adopted new ways of acquisition they'll never give up and are trying to monetize and protect elements of band promotion that are hindering the breaking of acts.