{"id":3665,"date":"2006-05-18T01:44:56","date_gmt":"2006-05-18T05:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2006\/05\/18\/lalacom-and-embracing-sharing\/"},"modified":"2006-05-18T01:44:56","modified_gmt":"2006-05-18T05:44:56","slug":"lalacom-and-embracing-sharing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2006\/05\/18\/lalacom-and-embracing-sharing\/","title":{"rendered":"LaLa.com and Embracing Sharing"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

The LA Times reports that “Sharing [Is] Still Divisive,” <\/a>and this time the tool stirring the fires is LaLa.com, which allows individuals to trade their own CDs with each other.  Someone recently wrote me to say LaLa.com is based on “facilitating piracy.”  It’s sad that any time a novel sharing service comes out, the first instinct is to demonize it rather than find a way to embrace and monetize what music fans so obviously want.<\/p>\n

LaLa.com is just like eBay in two senses. First, LaLa.com enables a more efficient market by reducing transaction costs in ways not possible in the offline world.  Second, people already had the ability to sell their CDs via eBay — LaLa just modifies the model.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong — some are going to use LaLa.com in illegitimate ways, but many will use it for legitimate purposes. People who bought their CDs — and thus already paid licensors — have
\nthe right to give away their own property in this way.<\/a><\/p>\n

In today’s world, almost everything facilitates piracy to some extent.  Computers
\nmake copies; the Internet distributes copies. There is P2P, there are
\ndarknets, there are sneakernets, there are campus lans, in 5 years
\npeople may be swapping HD-DVDs worth of music and in the next 15 years maybe
\na single keychain memory stick will hold the entire universe of recordings.<\/p>\n

Artists will get paid in this world, but they’ll get paid differently and, I would contend, more. 
\nLala is certainly part of a larger structure that’s upsetting settled
\nbusiness models.  That doesn’t mean that it is simply “facilitating
\npiracy.”  To define it as such is unfair.<\/p>\n

Regardless, given the myriad other thoroughly convenient methods people
\ncan unlawfully acquire copyrighted content, excuse me for not worrying
\nabout Lala as a mortal threat.  Downloaders (as opposd to uploaders) on
\nP2P have little vulnerability.  Swapping CDs filled with mp3s is far easier and costs less than using LaLa.<\/p>\n

And for what it’s worth: LaLa is giving 20% of its revenues to artists.<\/a> 
\nThat’s a better deal than they ever got from used record stores.  What’s more, LaLa is reportedly losing money on every CD trade. 
It’s planning to use CD trading as a loss leader to sell CDs and online downloads — that’s right: LaLa only survives if it helps artists sell more records.<\/p>\n

What will it take to embrace sharing and the sales-driver it could be?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The LA Times reports that “Sharing [Is] Still Divisive,” and this time the tool stirring the fires is LaLa.com, which allows individuals to trade their own CDs with each other.  Someone recently wrote me to say LaLa.com is based on “facilitating piracy.”  It’s sad that any time a novel sharing service comes out, the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}