Future of Music T-shirts? - Josh Spear, Trendspotting

All this chatter of Mos Def and his album on a t-shirt makes us happy. Music Tee’s we spotted last week are coming out in full force. My next question is simple though: What stops people from taking a camera phone picture of the download code on the t-shirt without purchasing it? Similar to the days kids used to bring razor-blades into the record store and slide out the CD quick and undetected. I hope we don’t ever have t-shirts locked up behind security as records and other hard media (DVD’s etc) have now. Â I’m excited to watch for sales figures of the Mos Def T-shirt ($40) to see if it has legs.

Tags: future, Music, T-shirts, Trends

Ryan Catbird

Monday, 06.22.09 @ 11:52 am

What’s to stop them from photo-copping the code with their cam? Nothing. But what’s to stop them from going to Google, typing in “Most Def RAR” and downloading for free? Also nothing. And that’s no big deal.

Just as TechDirt’s Michael Masnick pointed out in his recent NARM talk ( http://vimeo.com/5229486 ) (and which I wholly agree with), in today’s age, we have to stop thinking of “the music” as “the product” that’s being sold. The music, the songs: they’re just another component of the overall artist brand– and that’s what people pay for. In short– who cares if the music can be had for free if it helps to build the artist brand, which in turn leads to more fans who actually, actively WANT to pay for the artist’s items.