The Guardian today reports that Paul Coelho links to pirated versions of his own works on the internet, claiming that it drives sales of the physical version. Independent publisher TOW has decided to do this with all their books. (Hollywood also banks on this approach, claiming that giving away low resolution version of films drives people to want to experience the movie theatre or HD DVD or DTO version.)
Also today, Passionata.com launches – 18,000 classical music tracks of high audio quality are released. James Glicker, the founder says
“It’s ironic that while classical music concert attendance is on the rise, labels are reducing their recordings and physical retailers are shutting down like there is no tomorrow.
“So the future of classical music distribution is online. The only thing that has stopped this inevitable shift from happening to date has been audio quality, plus the DRM issue.”
The site should also help start move the classical music aficionado to buying online. As fastidious purchasers, thy have not been interested in the highly compressed MP3 format, which works fine for pop.