-----Original Message----- From Tom Fine: "...The idea is that a wide variety of deep-catalog content, if made constantly available in a medium that costs little to distribute (ie digital downloads) will, in sum, be profitable over time. The key is over time."
Let's not forget the major labels have only just come out from under a cloud that left who will own what very much up in the air. I understand a huge problem has been determining what royalties are involved and even the actual ownership of masters. Contrary to what one reads, royalty agreements and master ownership have always been all over the map. Another issue has been an appropriate file format so that everything doesn't need to be re-encoded every year or so.
I have no doubt that the future of recorded music catalogs is precisely this but I don't think it's quite as easy to accomplish as it sounds. I'm sure the folks involved want to set everything up once correctly rather than have it remain an endless work in progress that never really becomes profitable.
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined! 615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com http://www.thewombforums.com