Big Champagne sees a brave new world that ain't all doom and gloom

One of the best recent articles I’ve seen about the future of the entertainment biz online comes from this CNET interview by Greg Sandoval with Big Champagne CEO Eric Garland, whose company tracks the unauthorized downloading that’s given the music industry so much grief.  The thing is, many of these companies also hire Garland to track which downloads are hottest (knowing that they can’t ignore this sector). 

Because of his work, Garland understands much more about the Net age and downloading that just about anyone else in the biz.  He concludes that pay-walls (for places like Hulu) and RIAA lawsuits ain’t gonna save the industry (and of course DRM was ridiculous).  Though he doesn’t have specific solutions himself, he generally sees that the labels/companies need to provide the goods in the quickest and easiest fashion possible.  And the cheapest too, so that they can compete with the free model.  As such, his thoughts should be required reading for anyone in the biz.  Whether they’ll actually listen or take to heart what he says is another matter…