Just a quick one here, but Gerd Leonhard, self-proclaimed "media futurist" and shameless self-promoter, has released a new book, Music2.0. I admittedly have not looked too deeply into a lot of Leonhard's positions because so many of them sound foolish and ignorant on their face. From what I gather, his main vision is that recorded music as a commodity is a thing of the past, and he seems to be a huge proponent of using recorded music only as a means to get eyeballs for advertisements.
So I really find it funny that Leonhard, who thinks that copyrighted material should be subject to blanket licenses and distributed rather freely, and should depend on whatever means other than traditional sales to generate revenue, has a book for sale . . . for sale, through eBay. The "buy it now" price? $45!!! Sure, he let's you bid on it, starting at the modest reserve price of $12.99, though that's barely less than a CD at retail.
Why doesn't he just post it on his MySpace page, let people read it there for free, and hope he gets a few ad clicks in the process? If he can beat Billy Bragg over the head for speaking out against Bebo and other social networks' for their use of music, why is he releasing his book in such a traditional manner?
He's obviously a smart guy and I'm sure he has a brilliant answer to this question; I'd just love to know what it is.
