Music Industry Afraid of Change?
The technological world is a rapidly moving and redefining one. Companies, like Google as we discussed today, are always looking at new trends in how people use the net - and how to make money out of them. Google Labs (a Google sub-domain where the more developed ideas that have come out of employees' '20% time' are shown off and tested) is a good example of the corporation's willingness, and in fact their need, to continually change and redefine the way they do business and the types of services they offer.
Examples of this somewhat fluid business strategy can be found right across the web, not only in web-based companies like Google, but in other industries such as 'the media'. I invite you to comment on other companies you feel follow this approach to business. I feel that this whole notion of a fluid, ever-changing and consumer driven market place is what the internet is all about. Its an exciting place to do business, and more and more companies are joining in.
But one industry that is dragging its heels and resisting any small bit of ideological change is the big ol', bung ol' music industry. It has been more than 7 years since 'peoples hero' Shawn Fanning started the file-sharing revolution with the invention and popularisation of Napster way back in 1999. Since then there have been countless lawsuits by various big music industry players against countless peer-to-peer services. But for each service that is crippled and shut down by legal pressure, another one appears and is quickly taken up by the masses.
You'd think the music industry (most often represented in court by the Recording Industry Association of America... (what's with America and putting their finger in the global pie??)) would have got tired of the same old line of 'copying music is really naughty! not sexy naughty - illegal naughty!' and the same old court procedures of big-guy-screws-small-guy... But they've been playing that same game for 7 years, and has anything changed? From what I can see it certainly hasn't.
Now here's where I get confused, cause isn't today's music industry supposed to have been founded on those revolutionary Rock n Roll ideals of challenging authority, rebelling, and just having a bloody good time?! Or am I romanticising things a little?
Yes, I am.
All those rock n roll pioneers are either dead or falling out of coconut trees. They don't have a grip on the music industry at all. The industry is owned by businessmen (and perhaps women). Exactly the same type of people who own your favourite multinationals Nike and McD's. And we know what they're in it for - The Money.
Well, I've got a business proposal for all those big wig RIAA members:
Give music away for free
Now, at first this does seem like some crazy idea that must have been coined by a guy who regularly exceeds his 10gb limit downloading music (which is in part true). But if you explore the idea further it isn't that crazy at all. In fact it is following the same logic that web companies figured out a few years ago. Don't charge people to use your product, give it to them for free and charge advertisers for exposure to those users. That way your product gets to more people, who are happy people - because they're getting something for nothing.
Apply this principal to music and you've got something pretty radically different to the current system, but something I think could work if record labels could face the idea of changing the way they do business. Free packaged downloads with embedded advertising (nothing that taints the music, but perhaps an audio advert between each song, or even a video) would be beneficial to bands, listeners and advertisers. The music is reaching more people (good for the bands) for free (good for listeners) and with advertising that is targeted to the demographic of the band's fan base (good for advertisers).
At this point the artier ones in the class might be thinking "hang on, advertising has no place amongst art", which I respect, but it is already happening without much uproar: When you go to a free concert in a park; that relies on advertising to run. Even a paid concert like the Big Day Out relies on advertising to subsidise ticket prices. When you go to an exhibition at the Auckland art gallery - often that will be sponsored. No one really has a problem with any of this. So why should they have a problem with receiving music for free as a result of advertising?
I realise there are many things that would need to be refined in order for this concept to work:
- How to embed advertising (audio clips? ID3 tags?)
- How to ensure people can't share the music without the advertising embedded
- How much advertisers would pay
- The role of the record label in all this (could this work better for independent bands?)
But I think those issues are ancillary to my main argument: the music industry must make a major ideological change if it wants to truly keep up with the 'file-sharing age'. Maybe they should all listen to David Bowie...
Examples of this somewhat fluid business strategy can be found right across the web, not only in web-based companies like Google, but in other industries such as 'the media'. I invite you to comment on other companies you feel follow this approach to business. I feel that this whole notion of a fluid, ever-changing and consumer driven market place is what the internet is all about. Its an exciting place to do business, and more and more companies are joining in.
But one industry that is dragging its heels and resisting any small bit of ideological change is the big ol', bung ol' music industry. It has been more than 7 years since 'peoples hero' Shawn Fanning started the file-sharing revolution with the invention and popularisation of Napster way back in 1999. Since then there have been countless lawsuits by various big music industry players against countless peer-to-peer services. But for each service that is crippled and shut down by legal pressure, another one appears and is quickly taken up by the masses.
You'd think the music industry (most often represented in court by the Recording Industry Association of America... (what's with America and putting their finger in the global pie??)) would have got tired of the same old line of 'copying music is really naughty! not sexy naughty - illegal naughty!' and the same old court procedures of big-guy-screws-small-guy... But they've been playing that same game for 7 years, and has anything changed? From what I can see it certainly hasn't.
Now here's where I get confused, cause isn't today's music industry supposed to have been founded on those revolutionary Rock n Roll ideals of challenging authority, rebelling, and just having a bloody good time?! Or am I romanticising things a little?
Yes, I am.
All those rock n roll pioneers are either dead or falling out of coconut trees. They don't have a grip on the music industry at all. The industry is owned by businessmen (and perhaps women). Exactly the same type of people who own your favourite multinationals Nike and McD's. And we know what they're in it for - The Money.
Well, I've got a business proposal for all those big wig RIAA members:
Give music away for free
Now, at first this does seem like some crazy idea that must have been coined by a guy who regularly exceeds his 10gb limit downloading music (which is in part true). But if you explore the idea further it isn't that crazy at all. In fact it is following the same logic that web companies figured out a few years ago. Don't charge people to use your product, give it to them for free and charge advertisers for exposure to those users. That way your product gets to more people, who are happy people - because they're getting something for nothing.
Apply this principal to music and you've got something pretty radically different to the current system, but something I think could work if record labels could face the idea of changing the way they do business. Free packaged downloads with embedded advertising (nothing that taints the music, but perhaps an audio advert between each song, or even a video) would be beneficial to bands, listeners and advertisers. The music is reaching more people (good for the bands) for free (good for listeners) and with advertising that is targeted to the demographic of the band's fan base (good for advertisers).
At this point the artier ones in the class might be thinking "hang on, advertising has no place amongst art", which I respect, but it is already happening without much uproar: When you go to a free concert in a park; that relies on advertising to run. Even a paid concert like the Big Day Out relies on advertising to subsidise ticket prices. When you go to an exhibition at the Auckland art gallery - often that will be sponsored. No one really has a problem with any of this. So why should they have a problem with receiving music for free as a result of advertising?
I realise there are many things that would need to be refined in order for this concept to work:
- How to embed advertising (audio clips? ID3 tags?)
- How to ensure people can't share the music without the advertising embedded
- How much advertisers would pay
- The role of the record label in all this (could this work better for independent bands?)
But I think those issues are ancillary to my main argument: the music industry must make a major ideological change if it wants to truly keep up with the 'file-sharing age'. Maybe they should all listen to David Bowie...
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Dont want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
posted by Hayden at 12:30 am
4 Comments:
hey, i actually have to say your idea sounds like the most sensible one i've heard yet.
my only gripe is that currently IN music videos there is way to much advertising, maybe this will be a way to kick them out...
my only question...
how do you do it worldwide? - different advertisers in different parts of the world
Yeah, good point. Perhaps have seperate campaigns for different download areas? Maybe a local advertiser for the band's country of origin, and then a global brand (say, mountain dew) for global downloads. Its relatively easy to direct people to a certain part of a website by detecting the country they're in.
This would certainly be a radical model with some really interesting outcomes, and there's no reason why advertisers should not be funding the royalties instead of end-users. It is worth bearing in mind though, that even if you don't subscribe to the 'advertising has no place in music' claim (i.e. that somehow the music would be tainted), advertising funded media does bring a new set of gatekeepers into play (just as it does already in commercial radio, say). Advertisers can directly or indirectly influence the kind of music that gets distribution. The music has to fit the target audiences that the advertisers are chasing; it has to be 'palatable' to advertisers etc. i.e. there is potentially lots of music that does not get distributed in such a model (a form of 'market censorship'). Might not a mixed model (part ad-funded, part user-pays) be preferable?
Yeah, I can definitely see this idea being more readily taken up in a mixed model environment, with advertisers merely subsidising the cost to the end-user.
I can certainly see how many smaller and more niche genres could be lost completely if this approach was widely taken up - their audience considered too small and insignificant for any advertiser to touch.
Perhaps this model could work best in the Pussy Cat Doll pop-arena; advertisers would jump at the opportunity to get their hands on that adolescent girl market.
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