Modernizing Music Monetization Models

The corporate desk jockeys of the record labels and the RIAA on the top floor of that high rise building have been sending ravenous legal teams and henchmen after college kids and others for years as a way to stop the file-sharing frenzy that has seemingly been the catalyst for the demise of the industry, so they say. These stiff-lipped penicl pushers have now given up chasing down the file-sharing 'criminals' that are our youth and began going after the internet service providers to simply blackout service to those believed to be infringing on copyright and intellectual property laws and regulations. Over all these years since the introduction of technology that makes file-sharing possible, these pit bull executives have been racking their brains trying to find a way to stop it while they instead should have been devising a way to embrace it for their own benefit.

What does most of America, or even the world, do today if they want to find information on something? They Google it. Google's has recently announced their record label sanctioned music search engine. According to Gerd Leonhard...

Clearly, it is much better for Google to offer and develop a new payment logic
and mechanism for the music that is being used, i.e. to somehow license and
pre-pay for ... until such time where the revenues from advertising, up- and
cross-selling are big enough to pay for everything, and quite possibly beyond
that, as well. And as far as the music licenses are concerned - otherwise a
no-go minefield that few Internet companies have crossed in the past - China is
clearly a very good place to start as most of these new revenues will be 'found
money' for the record labels. ...The bottom-line? For all parties, it is better
to deploy new kinds of ads (think mobile - that
will certainly be key), sponsorships and affiliate links while the music is
being used (fka consumed;) and to thereby fund the pool of music licensing costs, then not to get involved and leave
the turf to all the other guys that don't play by the rules, anyway.

Yes, it is only in China currently and there are issues to consider when thinking about having something similar in the U.S. but it is a step in the right direction at least. The cultural and economic differences would surely have call for a different resposnse or reaction in the States, but it would provide record labels with a stepping stone for their path towards new monetization models to profit from. Instead of digressing to yesterdays way of doing things they need to adapt and progress with technology. Otherwise the current decline of business will continue and likely end with the death of the industry. In my mind, today's technology will act like a fire that burns down the overgrowth of the music industry allowing a paradigm shift that can provide the ability for some out-of-the-box thinking to revitalize the industry. It's back to the basics, survival of the fittest. Adapt and overcome or die.