May 21, 2008

From an interview at Tape Op Magazine (download PDF of interview excerpts here):

If that model works then I think (Radiohead has) done music a huge service. The only thing I would say counter to that is when I was a big fan of the White Bicycle experiment [White Bicycle Plan, 1964] in Amsterdam where the city bought hundreds of thousands of bicycles that they painted white and left around the city. The first two or three months were brilliant. Everybody took the bikes from place to place - just picked them up and off they went. Come summertime a few guys said, "Hey, there's an opportunity here." These vans and trucks come in and the bicycles disappeared. I actually think there is a way to bring that back again but it requires a lot of people - it’s an employment solution as well - where we'll have human-guarded bicycle parks. You still probably need to be able to have some little GPS thing embedded in the bike but you should be able to set an alarm where if the GPS thing goes off if it goes out of city limits. That would be a correct application of technology and a little more employment for people and you're on to a winner. I think then a lot of people would go for it and maintain the bikes.

When asked if MP3 files should disintegrate if they're not purchased after a certain number of listens, Gabriel pointed to the model at We7 (he was a co-founder) that offers free downloads with audio ads that "disintegrate after four to six weeks."

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Posted by Glenn at 9:06 AM | | | DRM