As I was grabbing some items at the corner deli this week, a man approached me to proclaim that his wife had heard my ringtone minutes earlier and desperately wanted to make it her own. The man requested i beam him the ringtone via bluetooth to which i kindly obliged. the only problem was, this was a rather large file and the transmission was taking an unusually long time. the effective range of bluetooth is approximately 32 feet and 13% into the transmission, the man acknowledged the awkardness of the situation and suggested i continue my normal shopping routine to which i again obliged.

I must admit, walking around the deli ordering various cheeses while having a strange man following steps behind me so as not to severe the connection was an unusual experience. It made me think of how digital transactions evolved from physical ones to make exchanges easier and the impact this would have on an already threatened business model. Copyrighted music is already being illegaly exchanged on peer to peer networks in mass quantities but the proliferation of bluetooth devices is allowing this exchange to happen offline as well.

As history has shown, the optimal strategy for the music industry to pursue would be one that does not inhibit the new method of exchange but rather benefits from it. An interesting model proposed by Microsoft involves monetizing such off-line exchanges by paying users commission to sell the content to others. The idea is that by allowing a user who has paid for the digital content to continually re-sell the content to others, a viral off-line peer to peer market would be created where revenue is shared among resellers and the content’s copyright holder. While the idea is innovative and seems promising, it has not gained much support from media player manufacturers who would need to upgrade their devices to provide a transmission technology such as bluetooth. However, the increasing convergence of digital media players and mobile phones into one (bluetooth supported) device will only proliferate off line digital media sharing and will make this issue a hot topic in the near future.