New White Stripes Thumb Drive Release

Remember the days, when your buddies' band came up to you with a freshly packaged album with full color duplication, booklet, lyrics, and professional packaging. I remember thinking how cool that was and actually being motivated to buy it, providing I liked their music.

Or how about the days when you went to the CD store looking for the latest release of your favorite artist, or new ones you might possibly like. Last time I was at the CD store it was for Tower Records' going out of business sale and I did pick up a few CD's. When I got home I promptly imported them in Itunes as a high res MP3 and the rest was history.

The kind of history I'm talking about is the CD, its case and artwork hitting the trash can right after import. I do have a little heart however, There is this little independent CD store right in downtown Decatur, and I'll go buy something out of pity every once in a while, being well aware that I could buy it online for about half the price and twice the convenience.

So now that I got you all stirred up and ready to debate and express your opinion / frustration. I wanna say that I feel it too. I also want to mention that illegally downloading music is wrong and it is stealing so if you do it you suck.

That being said I want to firmly state that I don't buy the record labels' story about illegal downloading being the cause of the fall of CD sales. The bottom line is, times have changed and if you don't keep up you're gonna lose and that's exactly what's happening to the music business.

They could have embraced digital music sales long ago rather then fighting and pointing fingers on who's to blame. Now the industry is way behind and catch up looks near impossible. So you might think this is some kind of article to support digital downloads, but it's not. It's a look at how we could improve digital downloads and how we could help move the industry forward. Goodbye record business, hello new music industry!

There are three main problems that need to be addressed with digital music sales. The first is exclusivity. Everyone wants to have their own specific file type, players and music stores. This is frustrating for the consumer. We are in the plug in play revolution. Nobody wants to download special software and we definitely don't want to feel monopolized by your product. One possible solution is all the major players ( Itunes, Yahoo, Windows Media, etc.) should decide on certain file types that works among all music players. Also all portable players should work with their competitors. For instance you should be able to plug your off brand Mp3 player into Itunes.

This isn't a new invention. This is how laser and ink jet printers work. Does HP say, Oh I'm sorry our computers don't support Canon printers. Consumers wouldn't tolerate it. So as music professionals and consumers neither should we. The second is Digital Rights Management. DRM are technologies intended to give content providers control over redistribution and access to material. So here's the deal on that one. You can't regulate consumers on how and when to use their products, and restrict that usage.

They'll never tolerate it. The good news is Itunes recently struck a deal with EMI to allow DRM free music purchasing. This means you can pay a little extra and do anything you want with the file without restrictions. I'm not too excited about breaking that .99 price point but at least it's a move in the right direction. So the final issue with digital sales, from my vision, is distribution at concerts, shows, gigs, parking lots, etc. The best solution I can see now is custom thumb drives. It's a new and exciting medium that can motivate your listeners to purchase your music. What's really cool is you can purchase different types of styles and put your logos on them.

That means you can do printed artwork again and include cool photos and videos. Your fans will get a double value. They not only have your music, videos and photos but they have a cool flash drive they will re-use with your band logo on it. I am working now on a independent record right now and she is going to release it on thumb drives as well as digital distribution. She also decided against CD duplication; the investment seemed to be a waste of resources in both of our opinions. We did the research and math and found out we can get custom drives that look way cooler than CDs that will motivate her fans to buy to help her in her career.

I did a lot of research on this sort of distribution medium and found that some big players are already on board. For instance, the White Stripes just released their last record on a thumb drive; you can buy a drive with the picture of the girl or the guy and it comes with all kinds of bonus materials. I recently went to my local independent CD store and asked if I could buy the new White Stripes album on a thumb drive. He looked at me like I insulted his mother. Oh well, I guess I'll just buy it online, but I won't be throwing that one away. Happy duplicating! I look forward to your comments Michael Wynne