Mircopayments and comics online

[Malk-a-mite]

http://www.thecomicreader.com/html/i...-6/icst-6.html

Coins of the new realm


You'll have to read this - nothing I can do will sum it up as nicely as it's done here.

It's also a good read for people that may not agree with the idea - something to point them to so they can decide.

Enoy.

kayryst. i feel like i just read war and peace! he makes his point but takes too long. anyway, it's somewhat hard to take him too seriously because i imagine he could have set up a 25 cent a month pay-site long before his post. A site that any comic fan could pay into using pay-pal or such. Even those kids without credit cards. A three dollar money order would take care of a years subscription. Might work, might not, but why hasn't he tried or those other guys that are spending all that cash on servers? I don't think people will stop free swapping just because the price is low. With a little work you can download 1000 songs a month and that's $150.00 @ 15 cents a tune. Still a bit pricey for the avg kid i think. Maybe if the price was a penny a tune...But it would never be that cheap. The cartoonists' board is nice but it's wishfull thinking. His logic is flawed. People won't stop unless someone actually forces them to stop. And that someone here will have to be the U.S. gov't.

nice post malk.

He also suggested that there are different ways to pay (other than micropayments) that could replace subscription fees. He just didn't say what they might be. I think micropayments could work if it was done correctly. Each user could have an online cash account along wiht each artist that want's to use the service. People could buy music online the way they buy stocks online. The price of course would depend on the popularity of the service. In Napster's case (or any other filesharing service) 50 million users could keep the price down to one or two cents a song, lowering your $150.00, Jack, down to $20.00 a month.

But you're right, micropayment works best for artists who host their art on their own servers, no so well for an aggregated network of millions of different songs. Someone would have to track and certify every file and make sure payments go to the right person. So, like he said, there are other ways. Just gotta find out what they are.

Yeah and the joke is that most pay-per-download (ppd? why not.) most ppd outfits are talking about $10.00-15.00/month subscription fees allowing maybe 50 downloads. That's 50 cents a tune or around $7.50 a CD. No incentive not get it free with that price.
I've heard of people who've gotten 10,000 songs in 6 months (stop smirking, we know who you are). At those prices that's FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! A lot of cabbage for some grainy MP3s burned to your own CDs. You see it's the record company. They won't allow cheap prices because they have to get paid. But they no longer do anything. They don't manufacture or distribute. So by paying them a fee they don't earn (a mob tax) the price will never get low enough to eliminate file sharing (how's that for irony?). Most artists by the way get 2.5 cents per song from their label. At those prices maybe but we ain't never gone see those prices as long as Clive 'n' Tommy's around.
No, ain't nothin' gonna stop this river ceptin' the gubment. An even they gone have their hands full.