Online Public Relations Thoughts

The ad-supported and word-of-mouth strategy these sites are using to distribute music is one of the few good ideas I've seen in the music business. The industry has been unable to adapt to the internet. It has been using a stick rather than a carrot to force listeners to obey rules, and, of course, they won't. PR practitioners can learn a lot from examining this case of how not to treat your public. On the other hand, music swapping grew so quickly that the industry never had a chance to adapt even if it had wanted to, which it didn't.