The music industry is feeling the heat of new technology as piracy of new music occurs within minutes of a record’s release.
Even today, singles and albums are still released on different dates around the world, sometimes even weeks or months after their first appearance in some markets. At the least, it is four days between the release of new music on Friday in Australia and the market date of Tuesday in the U.S. with the U.K. and most of Europe having the product in stores and on-line on Monday.
The problem for the industry is that the music will hit file sharing sites almost immediately with the Friday Australian release and will be distributed around the world before the music is officially released in Europe and North America.
Executives of the major labels are now in talks, and are rumored to already have agreed, to move the release date of all new music to Friday in every country around the world. Their hope is that it will cut down on piracy although, according to Billboard, the change will require major changes in procedures.
Beyond the need for the distribution channels to revamp their systems, the record and PR companies will have to rethink the way they promote new releases as they will not be able to move artists from continent-to-continent for day-of-release press junkets.
In addition, other industries will have to rethink their release schedules. Here in the U.S., the home video and book publishing companies have also moved to putting out new releases on Tuesday, allowing consumers to hit stores like Barnes and Noble, Wal-Mart and the on-line retailers on a single day to pick up a variety of newly released products.
If the companies move forward with their plan, it is expected that the change will take place next July.
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