What will happen if the major record labels stick with DRM?
CD sales will continue to tank exponentially as even the most faithful customers in the most traditional territories are tapping into the ever more powerful online networks, while the growth of digital music will stall in all territories, paid-for ring-tones will decline, and all those fancy new mobile devices will play MP3 files but not those crippled and DRMed files, on a ratio of 50.000 to 70. The wireless broadband explosion will take the sharing of music to an unprecedented level: every single user becomes a moving super-node of content, and 99 percent of them will exist in a legal and economic gray zone of non-compliance – because there is no other option! In other words: unless the record industrys content is available in open formats, its music will be consumed outside of any system of monetization. Avoidance is not an option, participation is! New companies will show the way and quickly propagate entirely new ways of acquiring and presenting music: telecoms, handset manufactur
