The View | Taylor Swift leads the way in demanding payment for original ‘content’
While people will pay more for better products and services, the notion that internet content is free still persists, to the detriment of media firms
It is perhaps shameful and most definitely uncool to admit that I know far more about Taylor Swift's views on the economics of the music business than I do about her chart-topping music.
Frankly, her music is not my cup of tea but she makes a great deal of sense when writing about the illogicality of artists giving away their music for free or almost free. "It's my opinion," she wrote, "that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is."
She is putting her money where her mouth is by withdrawing albums from Spotify, the popular Swedish-based music-sharing website that offers users free and some very low-cost access to a vast music library and gives the originators of this work very little in return.
There are exceptions because selling porn over the internet has become a large and viable business and there are many smaller but usually highly specialised sites that can charge for their content and make a buck. Other than that, the people making real money out of the internet are search engines and product sellers who are starting to eclipse traditional retailers as a means of distribution.
However, when it comes, for example, to Amazon selling books or even camping gear, consumers are fully aware that they need to pay for what they get. When it comes to music, the written word or even images, there is an assumption that all this should be for free.
This is why most media companies are in big trouble and why people who produce "content" are in despair as to how they can monetise it.