I apologize for the unannounced vacation from blog entries. But I am back now and you get a bit of a rant today. The topic is this story from the NYT:

Labels Halt Downloads to Increase CD Sales

Not quite a direct DMCA issue, although indirectly the market will affect the policies chosen.

So, as mentioned in the article, this seems to be a backwards attempt at helping cd sales. Would it really be so bad if cds just took a smaller part of market and were eventually replaced? Selling music is still a very profitable business. It is clear that the interest isn't disappearing despite their recent worst fears with p2p file sharing. Perhaps it is the nostalgia causing them to resist the innovation of digital music.

And second, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the complete piece of art that an entire album creates. But maybe it is time for a change. Maybe not to singles, how about just a redesign of "packaging" - just as happened between records to tapes to cds. Sort of a compromise by creating a third option?

I can't be the only or first person to think outside of the box. And I am definitely no industry expert. However, I still wonder what these companies really expect to happen?

Anyways, I'm not sure what all of this has to do with digital governance.