OK Go lead singer Damian Kulash Jr. offered this op-ed in Saturday’s New York Times about YouTube, record company greed and how those record companies by and large don’t understand how to operate in the digital age. It’s well worth reading.

As for OK Go, you may not know the name, but you probably know the band: They’re the ones who created that treadmill video a few years back. You can see a screen shot from the video above, but I can’t embed the video into this post (see it here) because of EMI restrictions … which is part of Damian’s point.

The fact of the matter (pay attention, EMI, and other intellectual property owners) is that free stuff makes people spend more money. As a recent British poll showed, heavy illegal downloaders spend more money on music. My post the other day about The Grateful Dead is relevant, too: The Dead’s legendary openness regarding the taping and trading of live shows was a huge component of helping catapult them to massive financial success.

The bottom line in business today: Trying to exercise absolute control over every iota of intellectual property does more bad than good.

Takeaway for marketers: If you haven’t yet read Free: The Future of a Radical Price, you should. Appropriately, it’s available for free. Get the link here.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 9:35 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.