Re: Pirates Of The Web?

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

>It's sheer arrogance, yes Pete is and has a right to be arrogant...usually 
>I don't mind but it puts me off, in this case. We are the people who 
>bothered to buy Chronicles, which already puts us in the VAST minority of 
>music fans, maybe even Who fans...I don't know how it's selling. Most are 
>excited about it, and promote it to others who then buy it. But THIS is 
>like charging $200 to see a concert, and I'm not going to do it. He had 
>only to leave out the word "cheaper" and it would have been fine, but...

Pete has always had a love/hate relationship with his fans, and I think this 
is another manifestation of it.  All the fans who pirate and buy and sell 
bootlegs heavily justify it by saying they buy everything that's officially 
offered, so I suspect Pete is calling their hand with the expensive custom 
sets--very typical of Pete for having more than one reason for what he does. 
  Several people have already found reasons why they won't buy this or that.


>This is what makes it different. But as a music store owner, I'm not
>completely comfortable about being taken out of the loop with online sales 
>and downloaded music. Are we looking at the wiping out of an entire 
>industry (music retailers)?... As I said, being financially involved in 
>this matter, I am keeping an eagle eye on this situation, but so far I 
>think people want "the real thing" over a burned CD. So far.

None of this change is planned, and everybody has to do that same 
thing--it's always technology that undermines an established system, and 
we're seeing it happen right before our eyes.  No telling what the music 
industry will be ten or twenty years from now.  The younger fans who are 
comfortable with downloading mp3s from archives may not have that attachment 
to a hard copy disk, and as it becomes less profitable, music companies will 
be less ABLE to develop and promote groups--they're already stingy about it, 
and I gather that managers are having to make the initial investment in 
development.  A couple of people have predicted that rock groups of the 
future will give away their music and make money through tee shirt and teddy 
bear sales, as Brian has reported.  You have to hand it to Kiss--they do 
stay on top of the trends.

keets
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