Fed II Star - January 22, 2006

REAL LIFE NEWS: DELETED ALBUMS RELEASED AS DIGITAL DOWNLOADS

After lambasting the record industries for their stupid short-sighted polices in my article about Fed Radio, I have to report that Universal Music Group has actually done something right. They have figured out something that should have been immediately obvious: that with digital music downloads, it's possible to offer stacks of stuff from deleted albums that are no longer available, and that would otherwise never be heard because it wouldn't be practical or economical to release the music in physical form.

UMG has just announced that it's going to offer about 100,000 songs for download that are currently unavailable on CD. The scheme will take three to four years to complete, UMG said, with the first 3,000 tracks due to go online from the middle of February. No news yet on how much they will charge for this musical archaeology!

Now this is an excellent use of new technology to offer a genuine service that benefits everyone. The artists benefit, because music that was previous unavailable gets an airing, and they get a royalty. The music company benefits, because they make money by selling the downloads. And the punters benefit by being able to get obscure or old tracks that wouldn't otherwise have been available.

What I want to see is the book publishers following suit. There's a whole bunch of out-of-print books I would love to own, but I'm not willing to pay the large prices second-hand book-sellers want for the few copies out there. So why doesn't whoever owns the copyright stick them on the net? I'd pay!