Lily Allen has attracted a lot of attention recently for leading a public charge against people (aka pirates) who download music. Not surprisingly, her efforts have attracted a lot of attention, including this excellent video by Dan Bull (see below).
Amid all the attention being paid to file-sharing, pirates and the RIAA, one of the biggest questions is why people need to “own” music. Why is that we need to buy CDs and/or download music (legally and illegally)? Is it the hunters and collectors part of our DNA that makes us want to possess music rather than just listen to it?
If the Internet has done anything for music, it has made it easier and quicker to listen to pretty much anything we want at any time. It’s a musical buffet that stretches for miles and miles so you can eat as music as you want for as long as you want.
There may well be generational differences in how people respond to this question. For me, I like to own music, tag it, categorize it, and so on, I love to see my collection arrayed on my computer screen — but I don't need CDs whatsoever. It's a fragile and bulky form of media.
I would expect many younger people wouldn't even need my level of 'mp3' ownership (and theft, admittedly). Once you give them the ability to keep off-line devices online via streaming or what-have-you, I doubt they will care to own much beyond their favourite albums.
On the flip side, an older generation, raised on 45s and LPs might see this conversation as blasphemous. For them, mp3s might simply be handy backups. Something for the car.
So does owning music make sense? Yes and no. We already listen to music on the radio and watch it on TV, so we're in some way ready for a shift to streamed 'ownership'. If you can give people hi-speed bandwidth that connects them to virtual libraries, I doubt succeeding generations will find much point in owning tunes.
I think it depends on your relationship with music. If music is merely background muzak for you and you are completely happy to listen to what you are fed, then yeah, there really is no need to own it.
I will continue to own music for a number of reasons. First of all, streaming music at the office would be frowned upon by our IT admins. Second of all, when I'm in my car, I want to listen to the music that I want to listen to, not what radio is force feeding me. Third, any streamed audio I've ever listened to has atrocious sound quality. And yes, this does matter to me (which is why all of my CDs are ripped to the Apple Lossless format). Fourth, anytime I've streamed music, I've had to deal with the stream constantly cutting out, or buffering, or whatever they call it, despite having an "extreme" high speed connection at home. No thanks.
I'm sure if I put more thought to it, I could add another 5 reasons – but the reasons above are the ones that come top of mind…..