misunderstanding micropayments   (link, opinion)

http://www.scottmccloud.com/home/essays/2003-09-micros/micros.html
bitpass shirky scott mccloud free commodity publish filesharing

I think micropayments are a great idea. I love the potential they have to put physical distribution channels with all their potential abusive power out of business and put the power back in the hands of the people who contribute real value to the system. It's fun to watch people who don't know how to change their thuggish ruggish tactics squirm (RIAA, MPAA). OTOH, record labels like GoKart have another approach to micropayments, as it were, with their new mp3 cds that offer about 300 songs for less than the price of a regular cd. All of this is an indication that people's perceived value of popular music is rapidly falling as they realize where the money is going.

""Micropayments" is a decades-old term with a flaky history. Over the years, the label has been hijacked by many elaborate schemes. Proposed changes in Web-wide protocols, invisible sub-cent metering, intrusive monitoring and weird new Internet currencies were all fed into the marketplace and rightfully spit out. In the process, micropayments gradually gained a reputation as being exotic and unworkable—if not downright evil."

"File-sharing other people's IP may be a kind of "theft," but it's a kind the world has never seen before; one that has a strangely philanthropic component. It takes time and computational resources to offer those songs to others for free; an effort rationalized by high retail prices, disdain for record companies and the belief that musicians see very little of our dollars."

"Most users are neither Saints nor Sinners. If getting it legitimately is just a few more cents, while getting it for free is just a little more work (or even risk), a significant number will "do the right thing" at the drop of a hat. At a time when 1% of computer users (Mac owners running OS X) just bought 10 million songs in four months—nearly all of which they probably could have found for free with a little effort—it seems a little odd to be speaking of the collapse of paid content."