The only thing now is that it will be more widespread. You can't lie awake at night worrying about that. Instead of focusing on the traditional business model of licensing content and collecting royalties for ongoing distribution, Ramp Records will take a grassroots approach. The idea is to discover unknown bands they like, put their music online, see what catches on, produce and sell the albums online and via traditional retail outlets and, for now, not worry about how they're distributed. McDonald says they will also use the big retail music stores to promote the site.
Plans are in the works to test out film and video over the Internet as well.
The idea is for consumers to pay when they download a whole album, then do whatever they want with it. They deal with the Internet as it is, not as they wish it to be. And because they have a lean operating machine that cuts out the middleman, the royalty revenue they're passing up might not be as important. Actually, not wanting the middleman taking all the money is exactly why McDonald, Bridges and Pelonis started Ramp Records in the first place. It's arguably more important for companies to pay attention to a venture like Ramp Records than it is to get updated on the Napster lawsuit every hour on the hour.