Passage 4
It seems obvious that you don't give away your product for free but this is exactly what indie rock group The Crimea did earlier this year. The band's reasoning goes like this: more people will download the free album than would pay for it. Therefore more people will heat. The Crimea's music. These people will then pay money for concerts by the band and perhaps buy a T-shirt or other merchandise. If the band play regular concerts to crowds of 200 or 300 people they can make more money than they would from sales of a CD. There will always be some people who want something they can hold in their hands so they will release the CD into the shops too—but making money through sales of their music isn't the top priority.
The story illustrates the creative thinking going on in the music business in response to dramatic changes over the last few years in the way that people buy music. Sales of music digitally—to computer, phones and MP3 players rose to $2 billion in 2006—an increase of almost 100 percent on the previous year—yet overall record company sales are down. People are simply not buying CDs in record shops in anything like the numbers they used to.
This trend looks set to continue, so the big question for the music industry is whether they can successfully manage the move to being primarily a digital industry without profits falling to unacceptable levels.
There are both positive and negative signs. On the plus side, more and more people are buying music on mobile phones, which allows people to make impulse purchases—they can buy a song as soon as they hear it. Research by the UK mobile operator 3 suggested that 75 percent of 16 to 24-year-olds wanted to buy a track they liked as soon as they heard it. With so much competition for people's disposable income, a product that you can sell immediately is a big advantage.
The bad news for record companies, however, is the amount of music that is downloaded illegally. Piracy—usually in the form of cheaply copied CD—has long been an issue for the music business but the Internet means music can be copied and distributed freely through file-sharing sites on a large scale than ever before.
It is this situation that leads bands to start giving away their music for free and promises to make the next few years a very interesting time in the music business.
What is unusual about the Crimea's business plan?
事实细节题。题干的大意是：关于克里米亚乐队商业计划哪一个是不寻常的?从文中第一段第一句可知，选项A正确。
The Crimea hope to make money ______.
事实细节题。题干的大意是：克里米亚乐队希望通过______挣钱。从文中第一段第四句可知，选项B正确。
The Crimea also released CDs for sale in shops because ______.
推理判断题。题干的大意是：克里米亚乐队也在商店销售CD因为______。从文中第一段最后一句中的“some people who want something they can hold in their hands”可推断出，选项C正确。
What is true about sales of music over the last year?
事实细节题。题干的大意是：关于在过去一年间的音乐销售描述哪一项是正确的?从文中第二段第二句“yet overall record company sales are down”可知，选项B正确。
What effect has the Internet had on music piracy?
推理判断题。题干的大意是：互联网对音乐盗版有什么影响?从文中第五段第二句“the Internet means music can be copied and distributed freely through file-sharing on a large scale than ever before”可知，互联网使得非法拷贝音乐更容易，故选项C正确。