CW in FT: Free Downloads Are Worth Their Weight In Gold
Every day brings an article about how music labels, video studios or book publishers are facing new headaches caused by the content revolution. But they aren’t headaches – they are opportunities, and, luckily for everyone, the opportunities are so large that pretty much everyone in the content business is going to win, writes Cody Willard. | Read
posted by Cody Willard at 6/16/2006 11:16:00 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Cody--funny you should just post this this weekend--free downloads are the theme of my weekend too.
I recently was able to sign on a large new mailing list of opted-in people to my monthly newsletter, and it occurred to me to welcome these strangers by giving them a choice of my half dozen free ebooks. I'm having a blast getting their picks and sending them the stories and getting all kinds of gratitude and positive feedback. I make these stories available to any readers who want them for free, and I encourage them to pass them on to others. Sure they were a lot of work to write and publish, but where is the downside of getting my work out to these people?
I had the same reaction as you did when NBC pulled the plug on "Lazy Sunday." I hadn't had any interest in SNL in years, until that video showed up on the web. I watched it countless times and told everyone I knew about it (always mentioning SNL in the anecdote). Where is the downside in this for NBC and SNL?
Since all my published books are available in electronic versions, I can never hope to completely prevent piracy. Nevertheless, there are always people willing to buy them in ebooks or print, so I'm not hurting. Tonight a good dozen new readers are discovering my writing because I enabled them to do free downloads. Worth their weight in gold indeed, my friend!
Most pop music has one good song per album, right? Imagine if the only way to find that song was to sit through an entire crappy album - at a set time each week! Along came radio and played the best of the album for free. Even if people recorded the radio for a free copy on tape, people certainly went to the store to buy the whole album.
Same with TV, yet how blind are the studios to history? YouTube is the radio for video. iTunes is the store where people will buy the whole album (read:show). The studios need to let SJ sell things the way he wants, everyone will win.
nice duds & general look on kudlow today. very cute. and your 6/16 ft piece is dead on.
a thought ... you recently ripped on ken fisher's ubiquitous smirking face ... yet your headhot's all over the place.
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