Can The Music Industry Get Beyond P2P And Piracy?

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." – Bill Gates

In the age of P2P and music piracy could the music industry learn something from Gates’ pragmatic philosophy?  He’s not saying stealing is OK.  He’s just acknowledging the reality; and acknowledgment is the first step towards figuring out what to do next  In fact many acts learned long ago that they couldn;t rely on substantial checks from records labels and started to live off tickets sales and merchandise. In a real way they have, out of necessity, already moved steps ahead of the record business.  And adversities have always believed that people’s connection with music is is a powerful point of contact where the real sales process just begins.

Is a good song just the initial connection between the artist and the individual and should monetizing that relationship come later?  It’s a major paradigm shift, but one worth seriously considering. After all, do we really have a choice?

More in Microsoft and piracy here.