[who_would_fardels_bear]

"If the current distribution model collapses you won't know about a song, so you won't be able to go get it."

There is now technology ... which will continuously be improved ... to analyze songs for musical content. It may be possible in the future to map songs not by artist or genre, but by some sort of profile based on the intruments used, the beat, the harmonies, etc.

Then you could type in a few of your favorite songs, and out would pop a list of similar songs tucked away in obscure places all over the net.

Looking for a song could become some weird version of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon"!

[longtermmemmory]

The problem is the price fixing of cd's. The price of a dvd has plunged but cd remain at the same high price. You are now able to buy whole seasons of popular shows at significant reduced prices for a quality set/package. The music industry has never understood what business they are in. They are not there to sell disks or packages they are there to sell the song. If they accepted napster's settlement offer they would still be alive.

Its not about protecting rights, its about protecting distribution. When a consumer can obtain a song at greater ease than buying a blank cd then they will have a desireable product.

[discostu]

But how will my mapping software know to look for it? The internet is a big place and while the music corner currently gets a lot of attention it's actually very small. Many millions of URLs probably less than 1% actually have music behind them. That's a lot of searching for nothing. As for profiling music, some of my favorite musical discussions are trying to decide what genre band X fits into, this isn't an easy feat especially for anybody on the cutting edge or with a serious catelog.