Music

Why Do We Need to Own Music?

By Mark Evans in Music 2 Comments Tags: , , , ,

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.

Yet the need to “own” music still prevails. Maybe it has something to do with having control over our music, or maybe it’s simply a matter of having to possess music so our iPods and iPhones have a purpose when we’re not connected to the Web.

What do you think? Does owning music still make sense?


Is P2P Dying?

By Mark Evans in Music 5 Comments Tags: , , ,

Do you download as much free music these days using P2P services?

Anecdotally, the number of people building their digital music collections using P2P appears to be shrinking – a development highlighted in a recent New York Times article.

It is a stark contrast to not that long ago when downloading free music was something done by many people, who never thought about the legal consequences. Even when the RIAA went on the warpath by suing people, it had little impact on how people behaved.

This trend, however, seems to be changing, and it strikes me as having a lot to do with availability. Rather than having to “own” a song or CD, a growing number of people are content to simply access what they want when they want using services such as Pandora, Songza, MySpace and Spotify.

Many of these services are free, allowing people to get a musical fix without having to dig in their pockets. Of course, if they like what they hear, there are lots of options – iTunes, etc. – to quickly make a digital purchase.

Stepping back from the fray, the apparent decline of music acquisition using P2P is stunning given it was so prolific anot that long ago. This isn’t to suggest the music industry will thrive again because the business models have clearly changed, and will continue to evolve.

That said, it is impressive to see how Spotify, a Swedish music streaming start-up that has taken Europe by storm, has become one of the hottest startups.

Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek hit the hammer on the nail when he told the NYT that:

“Piracy is essentially the consumer’s wish to have everything on demand. It’s not like people want to necessarily have it for free,” adding that piracy has thrived because due to the lack of services “that allowed people to discover new music and easily share music with friends.”

Are you still downloading music using P2P? If so, why?


Nothing Else is Working! Time for a Tax

By Mark Evans in Music 2 Comments Tags: , , ,

So, let’s look at what the music industry has done over the past decade to battle the emergence of P2P and declining CD sales:

1. Essentially killed Napster rather than leveraging it

2. Launched a nasty legal war against consumers

3. Embraced technology such as DRM that consumers totally dislike

4. Gotten into bed with Apple, only to get pissed off once they realized Steve Jobs was taking over the business

Now, Warner Brothers CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. has decided to take another controversial route: he’s hired industry executive Jim Griffin to lead a lobby charge for a – wait for it – music tax that would applied to ISP bills, and possibly raise $20-billion.

It’s simple; it’s lucrative and, darn shootin’, it’s going to save the music industry from dire straits (as opposed to Mark Knopfler’s Dire Straits). At least, it will be all these things in theory.

But as Mike Arrington enthusiastically rants about, it’s also “crazy” and “dangerously stupid”. It’s a move that smacks of desperation because the music industry has blown the last decade by trying to hang on to a business model that is antiquated and ill-equipped for new digital era in which we work, live and play.

For whatever reason, the music industry still believes consumers should pay for music even though consumers have been telling them for years, they’re only willing to pay a little bit or nothing at all. Look at how P2P services are still thriving, and how Russia’s AllofMP3.com was doing really well by selling albums for about $3 as opposed to $20.

So where is the money in music if consumers don’t want to pay for it? How about live performances – a neat concept dating back several centuries in which people pay for the privilege of becoming to see a musician(s). The amazing thing amid the glut of free music, consumers are happy to pay a premium price to see major performers. Hell, they’re paying $250 a pop to see The Police.

There’s also merchandise sales, access to special Webcasts, special boxed sets (Trent Reznor did pretty well recent by selling 2,500 copies of a $300 “ultimate-deluxe edition” while offering free downloads of nine songs from Ghosts I-IV), and other things that will require some creativity and risks.

In other words, there is life beyond selling CDs or digital tracks.

My friend, Mathew Ingram, makes a great point that if the music industry manages to somehow push through a music tax, how long would it be before the movie and television industries starting to look at a tax. And what about newspapers, magazines and photographers?

At the end of the day, I’m not at all surprised the music industry is exploring a tax. They missed the digital boat as it sailed away over the horizon. Sadly, they’re trying to force it to come back but using a tax but this approach is stupid, outdated and provides more evidence the music industry just don’t get it.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...