Mass adoption of P2P demonstrates the public's real value of music and market power to express it. Consumers reject the artificially inflated prices enforced by the record industry. Indeed the major labels have been convicted of various offenses for price fixing. In an open market economy it is inevitable that the retail price will move to its true value.

This has already started to happen. Singles used to carry a price of $3-5 each, whether you buy the single direct or estimate 3-5 sellable songs per average album. Today that price is down to $1.

Music producer and academic sandy Pearlman proposes a price of 5 cents per song, which he claims will result in exponentially greater sales that generate more revenues than the industry sees today. I agree.

This is not unreasonable. Services like Napster To Go and AllofMP3 already similarly value a song at a few pennies.

Indeed in many legitimate cases music is already valued at literally zero, whether it's legal music over P2P or via web, Creative Commons music, or music stuffed on a hard drive.

Of course the industry doesn't get it. They cling to bygone days of monopolistic power. So they focus on costs and not customers, and seek to increase prices.

Just one question, is that 5 cents Canadian or US?

Marc Freedman
RazorPop, developer of TrustyFiles, the leading multiple network P2P file sharing software
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