Five Reasons Why Buying Music is Headed for the History Books

The collapse of the traditional music industry has been well documented.  The Virgin MegaStore just closed for good in Union Square and the Tower Records franchise that was once a vibrant hub for music is gone from the landscape.  The number of CDs sold is at an all-time low and I am willing to bet if you eliminated all sales of CDs to anyone over 30 the figures would be staggeringly low.

Sure, for the moment, there is still a brisk business in the sale of legal digital downloads.  iTunes and Amazon both seem to be making some reasonable coin on the practice.  Still, it is hard to imagine that this will last much longer.

Here are five reasons why buying music is headed for the history books:

1) The legacy of Napster – Napster, in its original incarnation, was our first taste of how easy, fun and beneficial it was to be able to share your entire music collection with other people all over the world and have the chance to share the music libraries of those very same folks.  Sure, the free aspect was cool, but the best part was the endless selection and immediate accessibility.  Napster taught us that music did not have to be locked down on physical formats or hidden behind DRM.

2) The Return of “Radio” – Sure, traditional, terrestrial radio may not be a threat to record sales, but the world of webcasters combined with the fact that all those traditional stations are available online means that there are an endless stream of free listening options that combine the ability to refine genres with the chance to discover new music.  From Pandora to Last.FM to the basic “radio” options embedded in iTunes, it’s easier than ever to simply tune in, sit back and enjoy.

3) The iPhone (and its brethren) – Nearly every major music webcaster now has an iPhone application that will stream content to you anywhere you can get a signal.  This is not limited to WiFi zones but most will deliver content of 3G and even Edge.  This means that unless you spend a lot of time underground (like I do in the NYC subways) you never have to disconnect from the flow.  Why cart around 10,000 songs when you can just press the Slacker icon and gain access to over 1,000,000 tunes.

4) Songza et. al. – For those not familiar with the site, Songza.com is a music search site that scours the web (mostly YouTube, actually) for recordings of any song or artist you enter into the search box.  This solves the, “I wanna hear the song right now” problem that you face with Pandora and the like.  Whether the major labels and RIAA like it, just about every song and artist I can come up with results in a successful search on Songza.  The point is, legal or otherwise, every song is out there somewhere already, making it tough to convince me why I should pay to buy it.

5) The Generation Gap – Try this: find any kid under the age of 15 and ask them what was the last album they bought.  Chances are, there is no last album.  In fact, studies in the UK have shown that kids are  buying less music online but they are not replacing that with some kind of piracy – they’re just not downloading music to “own” for free or for a fee.  What’s the point of buying music when it is already out there to be heard?

Better Options, Not Legal Threats, Curb Music Piracy

A recent report is showing that the prevalence of P2P music file-sharing is on the decline but it turns out to have little to do with groups like the RIAA suing music fans:

The plethora of legal music options online has prompted Internet users in the UK to cut down on their P2P ways. According to an annual report from media and technology research firm The Leading Question, monthly file sharing has dropped among all users since the last national survey in 2007. The drop is particularly significant among teens, where file-sharing has declined by a third.     LINK

So where are teens going for their music?  To legal streaming sites like Last.FM, Pandora and Slacker.  See, as soon as there is a useful, accessible and easy option to P2P services, users are more than happy to make the switch.

Instead of spending all their time and energy suing music fans, the music industry needs to focus their resources on creating true competition to piracy. That is the only road to sustainability for the industry.  While this shift will mean a huge shake up in the current power-structure it beats losing everything to those dastardly pirates.

UK Music Label CEO Still Doesn’t Get It

In yet another attempt by a major music label to justify it’s continued existence, the CEO of the UK label BPI has written a rather pathetic, rehashing of the same old arguments against file-sharing masked as a look back on the ten years since Napster changed everything, forever:

Many critics have argued that the music industry could have avoided some of the problems it faces today if we had embraced Napster rather than fighting it. That’s probably true, and I, for one, regret that we weren’t faster in figuring out how to create a sustainable model for music on the internet.

Ok, I’m listening.  Tell me what how your new vision and understanding will translate into a new busines model that takes advantage of, instead of fights futilely against what the internet does best:

But this innovation, and the vital investment by labels in new music, is constantly undermined by the various P2P successors to Napster. These companies take and exploit what musicians and artists create, without being honest enough to reward them. And the publishers of books, journalism, films, TV programmes and other media are now lining up with us in the fight against illegal downloading.  Like us, they see how it will destroy their ability to create new content. So we are united in calling for ISPs to play a more positive role in steering consumers towards digital services that reward creators.

Oh, wait, you don’t want to change anything AND you aren’t even remotely listening to the issues and complaints by some of music’s biggest acts including Radiohead and NIN.

Well, maybe you’ve at least moved beyond thinking that the future of the music business will be driven by album sales:

It is true that some people use P2P for music discovery and spend more on music as a result, but in the aggregate they are heavily outweighed by the number of people whose downloading substitutes for purchases. If the reverse were true, our business would be booming and not contracting right now.

Christ, you still think you’re business is collapsing because of pirates?! How about your insane treatment of fans as criminals?  How about your insistence on raising the cost of an album even while the cost of making and distributing that album has plummeted?  How about all the artists that have been screwed by devious contracts and cheating accountants?

Once again, the music industry demonstrates why they will not be long in this new world.

Dear RIAA, Shut Down PS22 Quick! They’re Evil Thieves!

There is a heartwarming story making it’s way around the webosphere about an adorable elementary school chorus that sings covers of pop songs, including works by Coldplay, Survivor and Fleetwood Mac:

It turns out that this particular video make it all the way to Stevie Nicks herself:

Just got word from Stevie Nicks tour manager that she was completely blown away by the PS22 Chorus rendition of her song “Landslide!” He said she asked him to replay 2 times afterwards, crying each time she watched! Talk about humbling!! And the kicker?? She invited the PS22 Chorus to sing the song at Madison Square Garden for the upcoming June 11th Fleetwood Mac show!! Holy cow!!! Thanks must go to Perez Hilton for getting our video out there and making this incredible opportunity happen for the kids! Unbelievable!! LINK

Wonderful, right?

However, this seems like a video ripe for takedown by the RIAA.  These kids did not get the rights to perform this song and they are now spreading their cover for free!  This is just the sort of activity the record industry seems to keen on stopping – whether it is a chorus of school-kids or a couple of people doing a karaoke version of the latest Beyonce tune.

Of course, the idea that this video could somehow create a direct negative impact to the sales of Fleetwood Mac songs is simply absurd.  That won’t stop groups like the RIAA from spitting out takedown notices and DMCA claims faster than you can say, “hey, that was cute.”

Admittedly, the world of copyright law is beyond complicated but we need to find a way to let people legally play with all the content released into the world.  People are going to play with it no matter what so it’s really just a question of whether or not energy is spent prosecuting people or facilitating them.  I wonder which choice would make more money in the long run.

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• Cutest Chorus Ever: PS22 Chorus Sings “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac (neatorama.com)

Napster, Reborn, Again, Tries the Subscription Plan

Napster holds a special place in internet history as one of the first sites to bring P2P file-sharing to the masses.  Napster is also often wrongly blamed for bring down the music industry.  Those of us with even a shred of intelligence understand that the music industry, or big labels to be more specific, brought themselves down with bad business practices that treated musicians as indentured servants and fans as potential criminals.

Anyhow, Napster was bought by BestBuy not too long ago and they have relaunched with a model that is growing in popularity:

…if you subscribe for a year and pay $60, you get a year’s subscription to a pretty decent on-demand music service. You also get access to 60 commercial-free internet radio stations and 1,400 “expertly programmed playlists.” And when you cancel the service, you’ll get to keep 60 songs… which probably would have cost you about $60 anyway if you’d purchased them from Amazon, iTunes, or another online music store. LINK

Of course, this isn’t anywhere close to the first subscription music service and right now it requires you to be at your computer and online to use the service – no portable device support as of yet.

The advantage of this service to something free like Slacker.com or Pandora.com is that it gives you the freedom to pick the exact songs you want to hear when you want to hear them.

Here are the issues that will effect the potential success or failure of the Napster plan:

1) Is $60/year a price the market will deem “fair” AND is it enough money for Napster to pay the rightsholders should users stream music at heavy rates?

2) Will the lack of portability make this a no-go from the get-go?

3) Can Napster supply a broad enough library of music to keep the audience happy?

4) With all the free options out there is this enough of a service to compete?

Music Industry “Caves” to Chinese Pirates

The New York Times has an interesting article about a plan from Google and the Major Record Labels to distribute their music for free in China and make their money solely through advertising.

Why would the labels just cave in like that in China while their still dragging American’s into court for downloading a pirated Jay-Z track?  This pretty much sums it up:

According to the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, which represents the global record makers, 99 percent of the music downloaded in China violates copyrights.

Lawsuits by major music labels and promises by the Chinese government to crack down on Internet piracy have failed to deter the practices.

Gee, this sounds oddly prophetic when you think about the state of the music industry in the US and Europe.  So, this revelation that you can’t sell songs for a profit and need a new business model that offers the music for free must be a sign of what’s to come here, right?  Well, not according to the industry execs:

…they say the China deal is not a model for the rest of the world. They say different regions call for different approaches — some that charge for downloads, some that stream music for a single subscription price and some that are supported by advertising.In China, they decided an advertising-supported model was best.

Exactly what makes these execs think that they can quarantine segments of the internet from region to region?  Yet more pie-in-the-sky dreaming or total misunderstanding of how the internet works?

It is difficult to see how this decision in China will not basically force the music industry’s hand worldwide.  The truth is, they’ve been losing on all fronts simply because they refuse to let go of a dead business model.

LINK

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• Google and Music Labels Bet on Free Downloads in China (nytimes.com)
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Feds Want to Jail Guns n Roses Album Leaker

In yet another completely over-zealous attempt to stop those evil pirates from destroying the music industy, the US Attory General is not satisfied with the crazy $30,000 in fines Kevin Cogill is being made to pay for leaking a copy of Guns n Roses latest album onto the internet before its official release:

The prosecutor in the case is demanding prison time, even though the probation department recommended a sentence of probation. Why? The U.S. Attorney’s Office says probation won’t adequately protect the music industry: “The recommendation does not reflect — or discuss — the gravity of the offense and will do nothing to deter other would-be leakers in this rapidly expanding threat to the music industry,” the prosecutor argued in papers filed with the court.

Let’s put aside the fact that this is a losing (or lost) battle that the Feds are fighting on the behalf of RIAA.  Instead, let’s consider how successful a similar approach against drug users and small-time dealers has been in curbing drug use.

The whole situation is infuriating.  It makes no sense that the US government is wasting tax-payer dollars trying to “send a message” on behalf of a group, RIAA, that is currently being counter-sued for lovely things like intimidation and using false evidence.  Not only that, but considering there probably isn’t an album out there that hasn’t found its way to a P2P site (often after being “leaked” by a member of the band or even of a label b/c it boosts sales) it seems unfair to prosecute Cogill in this way.

(via MediaPost)

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Great Rebuttal of Idea that Pirates Killing Music Industry

TorrentFreak is a great resource for those interested in the world of copyright, P2P, “piracy” and the future of digital content.

Recently, in response to claim in the Swedish court case against popular torrent tracker The Pirate Bay that piracy was the primary cause for the decline in music sales for the major labels, TF’s Jens Roland has written a brilliant 8-point rebuttal that ends with these thoughts:

The fact is that the music industry’s revenues have been artificially inflated for decades because of limited consumer options. The last 15 years of innovation have lifted those limitations, effectively leaving the music industry with an obsolete, defective business model of monopolized production technology, forced album bundling, and almost nonexistent competition in the realm of home entertainment. What is happening now – the decline of music profits and the piracy witch hunt by the music industry – is merely the panicked struggle of a dying business model, a complacent industry’s refusal to accept its diminishing role in a digital world. The pirates are not the reason, and the decline is the not the disease. It is the cure.

I highly recommend reading his entire post.  While it is important for artists to have ways to be compensated for their efforts, there is no reason it should be done the same way in the face of massive innovations and there is also no reason that the artists’ work needs to support a vast network of middlemen who provide less and less service to the artists or the fans.

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• Pirate Bay trial – the music industry has its say (timesonline.typepad.com)

NH Woman Fights RIAA

Someday we will look back on the actions of RIAA and the rest of the music industry and laugh, or maybe cry.  For now, however, we will have to continue hearing stories like this:

The woman, Mavis Roy of Hudson, has called on legal clinics at the state’s only law school to represent her as she fights the charges in federal court this year.

The lawsuit brought by UMG Recordings, Interscope Records, Motown Record Co., and BMG Music alleges that Roy violated copyright infringement laws by downloading and distributing 218 audio files on April 24, 2007.

Roy’s defense team questions how that could be when she did not have a computer in her house at the time in question.

Why RIAA is allowed to behave in this manner is confounding.  Nearly every suit they bring reeks of intimidation and weak evidence.  Not only that, but going after grown women for allegedly downloads a few songs from a pirated source is simply not going to help save an industry that is built on a collection of obsolete business models.

(via)

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UK Backs Away from Over-Reaching Anti-Piracy Legislation

In a rare sign of government siding with users instead of big media, the UK has indicated that it will not be policing ISPs and their users in what has been called a “three-strikes-and-your-out” policy:

There had been mounting speculation about government legislation on the issue as the music industry steps up its fight against the pirates. Other countries, such as France, have supported tough action on file-sharers, who the industry claims cost them dear. But Mr Lammy said legislation would be too complex. “We can’t have a system where we’re talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms,” he told The Times newspaper.

One hopes that other countries take notice and think long and hard before taking on “pirates” in an attempt to save a misguided and floundering music industry.

(via)

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