Ever since Napster began in 1999 the record industry, like an old mother cat with its back to the wall trying to defend its bubbas, has been lashing out at anyone taking advantage of technological developments in music distribution,
It has taken this long for them to realise they were fighting a losing battle and now it seems too late for many of the major labels to recover the revenue they have lost or to be the force in the music industry they once were.
The industry has changed and music is more available than ever before, despite many of the old guard (People who want to make money from musicians and people that think labels are the only way musicians can make money) saying the “music industry” in dying. Thankfully, according to Chris Castiglione, that is a misnomer, it’s the record industry that is dying, which is only one part of the music industry, and as it turns out, not a very important one as far as creating music is concerned; In its wake music is flourishing with less constraint and almost limitless potential for distribution.
NeighbourhoodSound started on July 14, 2009, about the same time the RIAA (recording industry Association of America) found there first victim, mother Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who they sued for 1.92 million dollars for making 24 songs available on P2P network Kazaa.
For those who don’t know, P2P refers to person to person music sharing. Songs on your computer are available for others to download when you are on the network and vice versa.
This was described as a “victory for the music industry” , but very quickly things changed. Those faithful to music’s integrity over the big dollars saw how petty this was, including many artists who are/were signed to the labels the RIAA represent.
It signalled the last desperate, despairing cry of the dying, overfed beast that was the record industry. These companies have begun a transformation. They have lost the weight that was once thrown around so foolishly and at the expense of good music, now they are going to have to be leaner and more efficient to survive in a music industry dominated by consumers of music rather than marketing and how much money was thrown at something in hope of ludicrous returns.
The same people who saw this act as an embarrassment and an attack on music fans were also beginning to have exciting insights of what might be coming. Artists like Billy Bragg were getting involved and many minor labels were branching out into new areas and new services were being offered online, letting artists sell and communicate directly to fans all over the world.
New Zealand got in on the act with RIANZ saying the minister of commerce needs to recognise the cost of illegal downloading and a copyright law change allowing the government to terminate your internet access for possession of illegal files.
Copyright laws and fairness to artists and their incomes are still a an uncertain hurdle, but the hype that can be generated all over the world about music online, and the potential to tour and seems enough to stiffen performers courage when the chance of the “big break” record companies offered is quickly fading. Many artists have been trying out their own ideas to sell over the internet and cut out the big companies, with the likes of musician Ezra Furman offering a personalised song for everyone who bought his last album.
In June Geoff Taylor chief executive of the BPI called napster the Rosetta stone of the music industry saying that they should have embraced it and could have benefitted from it, rather than shut it down. The chance of that was pretty unlikely considering the point made by Nate Anderson on website ars tecnica. The fact is the record companies still hadn’t sided with any napster like organisation, 10 years on from its explosive beginnings.
While file sharing has never caught on with the majors, individual song downloads from the likes of iTunes did, with a growing share of their earnings coming from online stores, but even this technology has now been superseded.
Also in July a relatively new type of start up, SoundCloud, won an award for its innovations and ease of use. The advent of streaming music from the “cloud” had begun to take control. MySpace has done this for a while, and now SoundCloud has made it even easier.
From there spotify have paved the way signing deals with major labels and artists and in the latest and most important twist, Apple have joined forces with start up “lala” to offer songs streamed from the cloud as well as their downloading store iTunes.
Owning a physical copy of music on a record or CD is long gone, now it seems that having a virtual copy on your computer is yesterday’s news too. With the amount of new music available online it hardly seems worth owning songs when there is always something new to listen to and stream from the internet. Apple are well placed with “lala” to keep their noses out in front of the rest of the music industry.
In light of the change, the dollars for bands right now, at least until the online market settles, is on the road and with good live shows (score for the fans). So, small record labels are starting to change their business plans to take advantage of this. In an attempt to offset their loss of revenue from declining CD sales, some Canadian record labels have started to act as agents for their bands and are booking shows and tours.
Another online revolution which will/has affect the music industry comes in the form of Duncan Freeman’s analytical tools. Designed to help musicians, promoters, booking agencies etc, to get a good understanding of how well a band is doing, Band Metrics tracks radio plays and fans interest. This was cool, but he is now released MusicScout, A smart phone app that will let fans or anyone watching a show give real time feed-back on a performance. That’s very cool.
The change in the music industry is truly a worldwide phenomenon, even affecting folks down here in NZ. The Mint Chicks, one of the countries biggest bands, have just dropped their major label Warner and released their latest EP Bad Buzz online with new start up MusicHy.pe.
This is an experimental move. The band is promoting the site in all kinds of quirky ways, such as prizes to direct their new music video and to remix their hit single Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!
A tab on Musichy.pe headed “Why we’re doing this” says when clicked, “We want to make it easier for bands to connect with their fans and to help musicians make more money. On top of this, we want you to be rewarded for helping to keep the music industry humming.”
Whether any of this works out for bands or fans or both or neither… remains to be seen.
