COPYCENSE

“While current radio hits still dominate the digital music charts, classics like Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and the Eagles’ “Hotel California” are regularly ranking among the 200 best-selling tracks on the Internet, a sign of their staying power even in the accelerated culture of modern pop music.

“Their popularity indicates that fans are flocking to online services like iTunes at least in part to pluck out celebrated oldies.

“But the popularity of such songs raises a troubling issue for the music business, which relies in part on the huge profits generated by greatest-hits collections. What if fans who might have paid for a full album of “the very best” of an established act instead choose to pay substantially less and simply buy the very, very best song?

Jeff Leeds. When All the ‘Greatest Hits’ Are Too Many to Download. The New York Times. Feb. 2, 2006.

(Editor’s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper’s fee-based Archive.)

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.