An Interesting Music Strategy...Pay if You Want

Canadian pop artist Jane Silberry recentely decided to offer her music online for download. Upon download, one could choose between four different options. You could download it now for free as a gift from Silberry, download it now at a rate you choose for each song, buy it now and decide to pay for it later at a rate you choose for each song, or download it at the fairly standard $0.99. The Freakonomics Blog reports some interesting results.

% Accepting gift from Jane: 17%
% Paid by determining price: 37%
% Paying Later:46%

Avg Price Per Track: $1.14
% Paid Below Suggested: 8%
% Paid At Suggested: 79%
% Paid Above Suggested: 14%

Now, this may come as a huge surprise to all those businesses out there who can think of absolutely nothing better to do with their time then push more and more laws, even that that means making the punishment for an illegal copy of a movie more extreme than the penalty for child porn.

I'm a huge music and movie fan, and I can tell you a pirated movie or CD really doesn't compare to having the actualy physical media. There's something about owning it that makes it that much more special. Real fans will support the artists if the product is quality content. I've viewed illegal copies of movie, but that pales in comparison to a quality theatre experience or even a clear DVD on any TV. That's without including the ability to have surround sound or even a full stereo experience.

So to the fans, the results of this test should come as no real surprise, and maybe this will help be a wakeup call to the music/movie industries to focus their money on producing quality content, and waste less time trying to punish everyone with increasingly strict copy protection.