Okay, while I'm in an end-of-year predictive mood, let's talk about the Beatles and on-line music. I'm not actually waiting for them to release their songs on-line, but lots of other people seem to be. The big question seems to be who will they choose to favour with their back-catalogue? Is there an on-line music store big enough for the band which was bigger than God? I'll go out on a limb and guess "no".
I think that when the Beatles make their songs available next year, it will be through their own on-line store. After all, when you're dealing with digital downloads there isn't a physical supply chain to manage, so why give some other company a cut for managing hosting and payment processing. Radiohead -- joke that the In Rainbows "pay-what-you-want" scheme was -- have shown that given enough free publicity it can work. And since it's the frickin' Beatles we're talking about, I can't see a lack of publicity to be a problem. I imagine that it's only Sir Paul's divorce which is currently holding things up, but I'm sure that once he's shot of peg-leg someone need only flip a switch and they're good to go.
So there you are: more stunning predictions to follow.
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