I was stood outside a local football ground the other day, meeting someone. inside the ground there was a "computer fair" going on (for you americans - sort of a garage sale where traders sell computers, parts and supplies at very cheap prices off the backs of lorries - no frills - just cheap as possible).
Whilst I waited (about 20mins) I counted at least 40 people that came out of the hall with large bags full of blank cds, labels and jewel boxes etc. We are talking average about 4 or 5 spindles each of 100 blanks per person.
Why would these people be buying such large quantities of blanks?
Simple. In my workplace there are around 3000 employees, and I personally know of at least 8 people who will burn you any album you can think of, get it to you with colour printed sleeve notes and a jewel case for less than a third of the price of the shop-bought item. The lists of albums available are openly circulated within the internal email system. The albums are not mp3 rips, but good quality copies.
I counted 40 people in 20 minutes. Alright, not all of them would be running a little bootleg business, but a significant number will be.
This is the problem that the music industry has to tackle.
Personally, I'm not going to pay £15 for a new cd when I can buy exactly the same thing from the chap in the next room at work for £5.
But what I will be willing to pay for is a fast server based quality music download site on a pay-per-dl system, with every title that I want on there, guaranteed complete quality recording or your money back. I don't care if I have to burn it myself.. at 16p a blank disk it's no problem.
Present p2p is ok, the speed is not always great, you can't always get what you want, stuff is incomplete and the quality is not guaranteed in any way, but hey, what do you expect for free?
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