Where do I take all my old cassette tapes, vinyl albums, cd’s? If I put them in a Garage Sale they sell for pennies if at all. Even on Ebay they bring little. I could digitize them all and throw them out but there are two problems with that. First, more clutter for the landfills and Second, most of this music has already been digitized by someone. It would be very time consuming to digitize all of this myself and why should I when it has already been done. I own these tapes , records and cd’s. I purchased them all. At the time when they were made no-one knew we were moving into a digital future full of mp3’s, Ogg’s, and other files.  I could obtain most of these songs using a program such as Limewire that would search for all of these songs and let me download them for free. However, this is illegal as you cannot share copyrighted material. I could purchase them through a source such as Itunes or Lala, but why should I have to pay for something again that I already purchased just because the format has changed? I have an idea that would create jobs, promote recycling and curb the sharing of copyrighted music. I propose there should be centers all over the country where I could order a mailing box. I could then place up to 10 items in this box; cd’s, records, tapes. I pay for the box and postage. The center receives the box and documents the contents. The music is then made available to me to be able to download in digital format. The centers could have servers or be connected to Google, Itunes, etc. someplace where my songs could be available for a 1 week period to give me time to download them. I could also pay an additional fee to have the songs stored on  a server for $10 a month. I would not pay for the songs but I would pay a processing fee of $2.00 per cd, record, or tape. The Records, Tapes and CD’s then get sent to recycling centers to be melted and re-used. This would also help to get all of the music digitized. Most of it (I believe) already is, so that work is done already – it would be more of sorting out the red tape with the record labels, music publishers, itunes, etc. as to how to coordinate all this together. There could be other centers set up that actually do the digitizing of media for items that are sent in that are not currently available in digital format anywhere.  You can see many jobs would be created to do all the processing and digitizing work. I am not a business major by any means, so others could probably find additional or better ways of making profits by doing this. I personally would just like to use a service like this if it were available. I also believe many others would take advantage of it as well.

At the Digital Music Forum in New York City last January we sensed a new willingness by the major labels to take practical, measured steps towards encouraging an ecosystem that sustains innovation, allows new business models to take hold, and ultimately provides fans with engaging music experiences. This article in today’s NY Times highlights new reasons to be optimistic. From Imeem to Spotify, digital dreams are evolving into reality. The next six months are going to be very interesting and ripe for smart, resourceful entrepreneurs. We’re not there yet but these are first steps in the long march.