Who remembers when minivans only had one sliding door and then they came out with two sliding doors, one on each side? Well, I know I’m not the only one who had a soccer mom, so there’s got to be some of you who know what I’m talking about. But what is important here isn’t the actual EUREKA moment that was had at the minivan design table, but rather my 10-year-old reaction to the commercial introducing the design revamp: “Really, Ford? It took you a decade of minivans to realize that you could conveniently put doors for rear passengers on BOTH sides of the vehicle? I could be getting paid millions to design your 2001 Windstar.”

Last week I had one of these moments once more. Sony Music and Universal Music have come up with something that may cut down on the amount of illegally downloaded music over the Internet—releasing albums at the same time in which the single from that album is released to radio stations. How many times have we been driving in the car (always) or listening to the radio at home (never) and have heard a single from a new Kanye West/Taylor Swift/Justin Bieber/Miley Cyrus album and said, “Wow, that’s a great song! I need it on my iPod NOW!”? The only way this was possible was to download it illegally or somehow get Kanye to sing it directly into a voice recorder. Well the minds at Sony and Universal, in their latest effort to thwart swashbucklers, have decided to release radio plays and albums simultaneously.

Do I think it’s going to work as well as minivan doors? No. But hey, it was an obvious step in the right direction to investigate WHY people might be driven to download music illegally. Obviously, price will always be a factor, but the amount of time the consumer must wait to buy an album or song also has him leaning towards piracy as an alternative.

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