Mark Evans

The Musical Morass

Disclaimer: I love music but have purchased few CDs - on or off-line - recently, although the new Cuff the Duke album is pretty tempting.

The problem facing the music industry is there are too many people like me. Too many people more than happy to listen to Pandora or Last.fm for free rather than buy a CD. The fact is the music industry as it current exists is drowning in consumer apathy and nothing seems to be stemming the tide.

Earlier this week, there was another victim as Canadian retailer Music World filed for bankruptcy protection amid shrinking sales and growing losses. This leaves HMV as the only national music retailer left standing in Canada.

Meanwhile, the Recorded Music report suggests sales of recorded music will drop from $31.8-billion in 2006 to $26.2-billion in 2001.

So what does the music industry do? There are some very smart people trying to figure it out such as Columbia Records’ Rick Rubin, Warner Brothers’ Ethan Caplan and Yahoo’s Ian Rogers. But it’s been nine years since Napster ignited this whole mess, and the music industry seems no closer to figuring things out.

Maybe the business of selling recorded music is doomed. Maybe downloading, iPod sharing and semi-legit Russian MP3 retailers will mark the end of a multi-billion dollar industry. Maybe Steve Jobs and iTunes can’t save the music industry from imploding. And maybe the Radiohead pay-what-you-can model is simply a savvy marketing ploy by an already-successful band as opposed to a new model that more musicians will want to embrace.

Frankly, the decline of the music empire has me completely befuddled. I understand that consumers should pay for music because it’s how music labels can find, market and distribute artists. But the problem is too many consumers don’t want to pay anything, which is hardly the foundation for a new, 21st century business model.

Maybe there’s nothing the music industry can do except fight the good fight so at least they can claim they tried to keep the ship afloat. If things keep going the way they’re going, there’s not going to be left much to protect pretty soon.

Update: Edgar Bronfman says the music industry has been screwing it up by going to war with consumers. Thanks for being so honest, Eddie! The Wall Street Journal has a story on Rcrd Lbl, a joint venture between Downtown Records and blogger/entrepreneur Peter Rojas, that plans to give away music for free while generating revenue through advertising and sponsorships.

Technorati Tags: Music