technoculture203-09

Until our ability to file share is completely disabled, people are going to continue doing it. I believe that adapting to this new culture in digital media is necessary to move forward, because I don’t think our ability to file share will be eliminated any time soon. We have started to see this idea be embraced in parts of the music world, as we see some artists release free songs; meanwhile recently Lily Allen has announced that she won’t release another album because she doesn’t believe that she can make money from music sales anymore. The idea that music tracks can be released for free and be used as a promotion other commercial ventures such as world tours and merchandise sales is something that I see as a reasonable adaptation to the culture of file sharing. This concept isn’t quite as feasible in the film world, but it is happening in the snowboarding world; several companies such as Stepchild Snowboards have recently released a series of videos which are available online, rather than producing DVD’s for retail sale like they used to. Even though this move isn’t as economically beneficial as selling DVD’s it is great to see some companies moving with the times, as there are still profits to be made from such a venture; they sell snowboards and apparel too.