We all know the Music Industry is running around suing everyone they can for downloading music.  They seem to have made Weird Al's song I'll sue ya their motto.

In my opinion, they are complete idiots.  Jim Davis' blog post about Fraudsters got me thinking about the missed opportunity to collect data from illegal activities.  If the Music Industry weren't so busy being crybaby's about losing money, they'd realise they can probably make more money with letting people download music illegally, or listening to music online for free.

For example, I am currently listening to Tragically Hip for free on the Tragically Hip website.  There is the option to create a user account.  Imagine collecting socio-demographic information in the signup form and linking it to artist preferences right down to specific songs.  By datamining people's playlists, you can really target future sales of service or merchandise to specific groups of people. 

If the Music Industry created one big-ass website where anyone could listen to any song, they could do amazing things.  They would be able to forecast the next big artist with a greater degree of accuracy.  A music artist could improve a songs ability to be on the #1 top hit list because the data says people prefer a certain speed of song.  Perhaps their is a relationship between artist voice type and music genre such that a certain type of voice for a certain type of song means the artist is 30% less popular?  Perhaps kids between the ages of 11 and 15 like songs with deeper bass drums? 

Now, imagine when visitors are on the website listening to Rap Artist XYZ.  They see they can click on a link to purchase the same sweatshirt the artist is wearing on the album cover.  The Music Industry now has deeper relationships with other product lines.  Need I say anymore about the endless possibilities?

Add to this the ability to track music preference changes over time?  It's a gold mine, baby.

It's not about selling a song at one point in time.  It's about the Music Industry being a part of your life for a longer term.  They become a part of your daily activity, not something playing in the background.

The trick is to understand that the money is not in the song itself.  The money comes from what you offer around the song.