OF all the fine arts, music is the most difficult to define for the intellect, be-cause it is the most subtle, seeming to produce its effects as by a miracle. Indeed, that a mere succession of ordered sounds, varying in pitch, loudness and quality, should do to the human spirit what music accomplishes, must always remain a marvel.
On the threshold we meet a perplexing paradox. In one aspect music is primitive and universal; in another, it is connected with the latest and most refined civilization. Certain forms of music go back to the earliest times and are everywhere appreciated; yet the major development of the art has come within the last three hundred years. There is scarcely a savage tribe without some form of music; young children respond involuntarily to certain musical appeals; yet the full appreciation of much of modern music demands special gifts or a high measure of cultivation. Thus there is this initial puzzle in the relation of music to life. Something in music is evidently simple and universal; some-thing in it answers the need of highly developed refinement and civilization.
Perhaps we can throw light on the difficulty if we compare the response of different persons to the various elements of which music is composed. One responds mainly to rhythm, another to rhythm and melody, a third to both these and also to harmony. Thus there are three distinct elements in music, forming a progression away from simplicity and universality toward cultivated intelligence. The first and most universal of these is rhythm. This principle is everywhere. It is connected, as has often been shown, with the respiration of the breath, the beating of the heart and the circulation of the blood. Thus the response to it is universal and instinctive. There are few human beings, young or old, cultivated or ignorant, who are not stimulated to some physical movement in harmony with such a rhythmic appeal as that of a brass band playing a lively marching tune. Cultivation seems in fact to have little to do with this response to pure rhythm; it may even be stronger in the primitive and ignorant than in the intellectual and refined.
Melody is a more complex principle, subsuming rhythm under itself. Melody depends upon the pitch, accent and quality of tone, and is an ordered succession of sounds appealing as unified and beautiful to the sense of hearing. It may indeed be called the soul of music.* Melody is also a widely appealing element in music, yet only the simplest melodies are universal, while the more complicated demand some measure of musical aptitude or cultivation for their full appreciation. Many persons instinctively and vigorously respond to rhythm who cannot "carry a tune," and require cultivation to respond fully to melody.
Harmony is the element of music latest in development, furthest from universal in appeal, demanding far more musical training for its appreciation. Note that in our discussion of music "harmony" is used in the technical sense. In the general usage, harmony means symmetry—the agreement of elements of a composition, or of form and content, and is thus a universal principle of all the arts ; but in music, harmony has a technical meaning as the consonance or con-cord of sounds occurring simultaneously or in quick succession. This is the principle, the development and progressive application of which is the glory of the musical art during the last three hundred years, expanding immeasurably the scope of music and giving it the place it holds as a leading art of civilization. High intellectual and aesthetic cultivation is needed for the full appreciation of this element of music in its more complicated forms. Thus varied is the relation of the three great elements of music—rhythm, melody and harmony—to human sensibility and intelligence.
All art must draw its forms ultimately from nature, and to this law, music is no exception; yet the relation it sustains to nature is widely different from that of sculpture and painting. The latter arts depend, as we have seen, upon the direct imitation of forms given in nature. No matter how great the element of idealization in the Venus de Milo, or the figures upon the Medicean tombs, these are, nevertheless, human bodies and faces copied directly from life. So a Titian painting with its transfiguring golden light, or a. Corot landscape with its idyllic mood and subtle atmosphere, after all, directly imitates, even though it idealizes the forest, the air and the clouds.
In music, also, every sound used is found somewhere in nature; it is difficult to imagine a sound not so given. There are, more-over, sounds which form a kind of natural music. Take the best of examples—the sighing of the wind through the pine forest. Who is irresponsive to that irregular rising and falling spheric melody, the wind wakens from the multitudinous pine-needles when, on a warm summer day, one lies upon the ground under the singing boughs. All the elements of music are present here. There is irregular rhythm with the rise and fall of the sound. A peculiar natural melody comes as the wind freshens and lessens. Even the element of harmony is in some measure involved, as the countless needles blend their slight tones in the billowy waves of sound.
It is difficult to abstract the impression of this natural music from the associated appeals through other senses. The play of light and shadow, the somberness of the boughs, the aromatic fragrance, the feeling of the bed of pine needles—all blend in one impression; and indeed it is, as we shall see, this fusing of many elements appealing through different senses, that gives the beauty of nature its wondrous charm.
Let us try, however, to isolate the impression of the music. There is direct sensuous pleasure given. Deeper than this, the music puts the hearer into a definite type of mood, which may perhaps be described as one of calm, exalted joy. The train of reflection accompanying this mood will, however, vary with every hearer.
Next to the pine music, the most impressive form of natural music is the beating of the surf upon the sand or rocks of the shore. Here, also, the impressions through the sense of sight complicate and make difficult the abstraction of the effect of sound. More, however, than. in the music of the pines, the element of rhythm is here, strongly and regularly accentuated. The melody is also more definite, if less moving, than in the other in-stance. Harmony, in some degree, is present in the union of sounds made by the wash of the long rolling waves on the irregular contour of the shore. Thus here, too, something of all these elements of the art of music is present.
Every lover of the sea will recognize at once the direct sensuous pleasure given by the sound of the surf. It tends, too, to produce one of several moods, influenced by the spirit in which we come. There is something peculiarly soothing, indeed almost benumbing, to the tired or grieving spirit in this music, and thus we tend to pass into a general mood of subdued meditation. What do we think about? Ah, to that question only a personal answer can be given. The emotional state is generic, the train of reflections is associated by the individual mind, and depends upon what it brings.
Another form of natural music which really rises to the plane of instinctive art is bird-song. Here rhythm is definitely used, and the element of simple, brief melody is highly developed. Technical harmony is absent. Perhaps for that very reason bird-song shows clearly the type of sensuous and emotional appeal made by music. I need not dwell on the pure sensuous delight we have in such music, nor upon the fact that bird-song lifts us generally to an emotional state of glad joy. Still, different bird songs produce moods widely apart, as is evident if one will compare the weirdly somber feeling with which one hears at night the reiterated three melodic notes of the whip-poor-will, with the tender mood wakened by the song of the hermit thrush. It is a further clue to the nature of music that bird songs spring from specific states of feeling, as particularly that of love-making, in the birds themselves.
Finally, a high kind of natural music is evident in the tones of the speaking voice.
Rhythm and melody are always present in the speech of deep feeling, with the flow, inflections and modulations of the words ; while voices differ from each other in quality (timbre) as much as do musical instruments. One hears voices with the moving, almost strident sonorousness of the violoncello; others that have the clear, stimulating call of the flute; others suggest the liquid melting tenderness of the harp. There are voices which, even speaking in a language one does not understand, have power not only to ,give keen sensuous pleasure, but to move one, by the tones alone, to tenderness and almost to tears.
Thus there are many forms of natural music in which are found all the sound-forms the art uses; yet the main business of music is not directly to copy these sounds, as sculpture and painting imitate the forms of the natural world. At times, it is true, music does this, as in imitating the sound of falling water, the rustling of the forest, or the twittering of birds. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony gives excellent examples of the use of such imitation in great art, and others are found in Wagner's Nibelungen Tetralogy.
This is but a minor device in music, however, and may easily be carried too far. Then it be-comes a mere trick, as in those show pieces, such as the Wakening of the Lion or the Falling of the Waters, which graduates of what, without intentional irony, we used to call "finishing schools," played to display their skill on Commencement Day to admiring audiences of parents and friends.
Instead of imitating natural music as its main function, what the art of music really does is to resolve the sound forms, given in nature, into their abstract elements, and then deliberately recombine these in harmony with human sensibility and intelligence. It is thus that we get the scale, which is a conventionally accepted order of intervals among these abstract sound forms. This is illustrated by the fact that widely different scales have been in use at times, as for instance, among the Greeks. So, too, in Chinese music an order of sounds is used which is sensuously painful to western ears ; while our music is said to sound no less discordant to the Chinese, habituated to their own convention.
Music thus differs widely from sculpture and painting in being less imitative and more creatively expressive. It is interesting that architecture, of all the arts dealing with forms in space-relations, is the one most closely comparable in method with music. I can still recall the sense of elation in a fresh discovery when I saw this identity between the two arts—the one dealing with spatial, the other with time forms, the one appealing to the sense of sight, the other to hearing—for it was a discovery to my own mind. Architecture also finds all its forms ultimately in nature. The tree trunk gave the column, its leaves the first capital; the Roman arch goes back to the cave-roof, the Gothic, to the aisles of a northern forest; yet the main function of architecture is not to copy these forms. It does so, if at all, only incidentally. Its method is to take these forms and reduce them to their abstract elements of line and proportion, and then to recombine these in harmony with the demands of the human senses and intelligence. So in architecture, as in music, mathematics finds severe and exact application. Thus architecture, though limited by conditions of utility, accomplishes in dealing with space-relations something similar to what music accomplishes in time-relations, and the centuries-old comparison of architecture to music is seen to be no extravagant metaphor, but rather to rest upon an illuminating scientific basis. The characterization of architecture as "frozen music" goes back to Goethe and beyond. How significant it is ! Who can stand before such a temple as the Cathedral of Milan, with its spires of aspiration, its countless adornments, its vast aisles, gothic roof, mingled light, forest of columns and great open spaces, and not feel as if a symphony of Beethoven had been caught in an instant and frozen into stone.
Browning, with his delight in giving a fresh turn to an old thought, reverses the comparison, and to him, in Abt Vogler, music is liquid architecture, flowing forth into its many-domed, myriad-spired temple of sound as inevitably as the legendary palace of Solomon, built magically "to pleasure the princess he loved." The comparison either way is illuminating because it rests in a profound truth. Thus the characteristic difference in appeal between the arts portraying statical forms in space, and those dealing with dynamic forms in time, will best appear if first we compare architecture and music in their respective effects.
Consider first the noblest temple the Greeks achieved—the ruined glory of the Parthenon—supreme symbol of Athenian greatness in the wonder of the Periclean age. Mutilated as it is by the vandalism of blind races and dark ages, it is still alive with the immortality the Greeks gave to all they created. How small it seems in contrast to the vast temples of Christian and Oriental art, but how perfect! The simple row of columns surrounds it, each planned to rest the eye with harmony. The roof rests easily upon these. In the entire structure is no mathematically straight line. Instinctively or consciously, the Greek master gave the slight or definite curve that charms with ease and beauty. The decorations—pediment, frieze and metope—are all planned in re-strained subordination to the dominant idea inspiring the whole.
The temple gives sensuous pleasure with its beauty of line, proportion and color, but through this it gives the pure architectonic conception for the intellect of man, with the deep esthetic delight in the adequacy and harmony with which the idea is expressed. The further emotions one experiences in its presence depend upon its setting and associations and one's familiarity with these, as fully as is true of the marble groups in the British Museum, ravished from its decorations.
Turn to a representative example of medieval Christian art from the same field. Notre Dame broods somberly over the surging city of Paris, as it has brooded for centuries of time; vast, multiform, with its two towers and numerous spires ; the rose windows blending forms and light; its countless decorations portraying scenes from Christian and Hebraic history, teaching through the eye the religious story, blending the grotesque with the somber and terrible in those strange gargoyles—wild children of the northern imagination, leering down from eaves and towers.
Within, the wealth of stately columns stretches bewilderingly away, the Gothic arches multiplying the impression of space in aisles and nave, the mingled light lending mystery and awe to the whole. What a masterly blending it is of a bewildering multitude of forms, fused through the unity of appreciation in the spirit creating them all.
Sensuous and artistic pleasure—in what full measure they are given! Deeper, a wealth of conceptions, not united in one architectonic idea as in the Greek, but associated and blent through the unity of the human spirit, is expressed for the beholder. A somewhat definite mood is also awakened by the temple, its setting and associations; but the deeper range of emotions experienced in its presence must vary with the individual and depend upon what he brings as completely as with painting and sculpture.
To make clear the effect of music we must, of course, exclude for the present, song, which is a composite art uniting poetry with music in a new appeal. Let us take as a first example in music, a relatively slight composition such as Schumann's Arabesque (opus 18) or Chopin's Impromptu (opus 29). Each of the titles is suggestive: the "Impromptu" is a brief expression of a mood and spontaneous musical conception ; the "Arabesque" calls up at once those cognate delicate traceries in the adornment of Mohammedan architecture. Each of these brief compositions is made of a series of sound forms, differing in length, pitch and loudness, and arranged by the principles of rhythm, melody and harmony. Please note that the series is not made of statical forms, but is dynamic, one form or group of forms dying as the next is born, so that the composition must be recreated every time it is enjoyed. Thus the striking contrast in method between music and the arts presenting forms in space is evident.
The sounds and their arrangement give direct sensuous pleasure, while their order and combination, beautifully expressing a musical concept, give aesthetic satisfaction. Further, all the hearers of either of these brief pieces would feel much the same general mood awakened by the composition, and would even experience in common the slight succession of emotional states, corresponding to the series of melodic forms. The train of reflections, however, associated with the emotions, would be wholly individual and in no way determined or indicated by the composition.
Suppose the most appealing of Chopin's nocturnes to be played sympathetically for a roomful of listeners. All appreciative hearers would experience, in different degrees, the sensuous and aesthetic pleasure given by the composition. All would tend to experience the same general series of states of feeling, being lifted, melted to tenderness, made to feel the pathos and the pain, subdued to the solution at the end; yet there would be as many different trains of meditation as there were persons in the room. You would think of the poem you know and which you associate with the music; I would think perhaps of Shelley's lyric To the Night. You would meditate upon a phase of your own experience, the music recalls to you; I would brood over a chapter of my life, unknown to you. In the appeal of music the series of emotional states is given, the train of reflections is brought by the hearer, and is dependent upon his character, knowledge and experience.
The same truth holds with reference to all musical compositions from the least to the greatest. Consider such a world-masterpiece as the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, worthy to rank with Hamlet, the Divine Comedy, the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the Last Supper of Leonardo as a supreme achievement of human genius. This complex work —the crowning expression of Beethoven's mind—presents a succession of movements, differing each from the others in rhythm, melody and harmony, and thus comparable to a series of works of art, yet all strongly united by common themes and elements of melody in one masterpiece. Throughout, the work gives sensuous pleasure through its sound forms, and profound artistic joy in the beauty and harmony with which its basal ideas and moods find expression. Each movement, moreover, tends to waken in the hearer a dominant emotional state, and below that a succession of emotions, rising to the supreme exaltation of the concluding passage. The accompanying trains of reflection are, however, as completely individual as in the case of the little Schumann Arabesque first studied. Do not misunderstand me : I do not mean that music is "not intellectual," as is often wrongly said. There is a profound and exact intellectual basis in all music; and to the construction of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven went surely as great intellectual power as is shown in the creation of Faust or Macbeth. I do mean that music does not give a series of definite ideas for the intellect, as is true of the arts dealing with forms in space, but that its dynamic series of sound-forms tends to waken in the hearer a some-what definite series of emotional states, while the associated ideas or meditations are unique in each person.
The contrast with the spatial arts is then evident. Sculpture, painting and architecture present, through statical forms, definite conceptions for the intellect and the imagination, while the emotions we experience vary with each individual and depend upon what he brings. Music, on the other hand, through a dynamic succession of forms in time, tends to arouse a common series of emotions, while the associated trains of reflection vary with each person and depend upon his knowledge and experience. Thus each of these two contrasting types has the strength wanting in the other, or each makes emphatic what is subordinate in the other.
To make it clear, compare the treatment of the same material in the two contrasting types of art. Take the Margaret story from Goethe's Faust, as given in Gounod's music and in the numerous paintings of it by German artists. Suppose you were quite ignorant of the Faust story, and heard the orchestral music of Gounod's opera with the songs given in a language you did not understand: what would you get? You would receive first a large measure of sensuous and artistic delight. Beyond that, would be wakened in you, in succession, the great emotions associated with the story—the passionate longing of Faust, the melting tenderness of Siebel's love song, the blind hunger of Margaret at the spinning-wheel, her sorrow and despair—all these would be given. These moods, however, could be associated with a thousand different love stories, and your reflections, in listening to the music under the conditions assumed, would in no way touch Faust and Margaret.
The painter, as we have seen, is limited to a single moment of the story in each work, and can interpret the whole only through significant moments. He can paint Faust bargaining with Mephistopheles. He can portray Margaret before the Cathedral door, in all the blushing charm of her young maidenhood, Faust gazing upon her in ruthless desire, and Mephistopheles with sinister sneer behind. He can picture Margaret at the spinning-wheel, with far-dreaming, tear-dimmed eyes, and the look of love-longing in her face. He can represent Margaret upon the straw of her prison, with the wild-staring look of remorse and madness. Thus he can give, beyond the sensuous and esthetic pleasure, clear conceptions of the characters and situations for our imagination and intellect. What we feel, however, is not necessarily the series of emotions aroused by Gounod's music. Our feelings depend upon our attitude toward the characters and the story, upon what we have lived and know of love and pain.
A northern artist has painted two pictures dealing with the Brunhild story. One represents the Valkyr carrying, across her cloud-riding horse, a dead warrior to the hall of Valhalla. The other pictures Brunhild at the moment of her enchanted imprisonment. Odin imprints a kiss upon her brow as she stands there—a symbol of woe and resolution, while the flames spring up from the ground round about.
Thus each of these paintings represents a single instant of the story, the second a peculiarly interpretative moment, which to one who knows the legend carries something of the whole. The concept of the cloud maiden is definitely given with the clear idea of the situation of her life. Our emotions in the presence of these paintings depend upon our knowledge of northern mythology and its treatment in various arts, and upon our own life experience. Compare with this the mu-sic of Wagner's Walküre, without the libretto and the stage portrayal. The pure, clear motif of the Valkyr maiden awakens a mood of exultant freedom. It is the call of the wilderness of untamed Nature, of the Wild hungers of the strong, free life. With this motive dominant, through what a wealth of emotions the music carries us ; yet these could be associated with many other stories besides that of Brunhild, while our thoughts, as we listen to the music, depend upon what of life and knowledge we bring.
Thus the strength of the one type of art is the limitation of the other; each makes explicit in its appeal what the other subordinates.
Source: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles28/art-philosophy-11.shtml
maandag 29 oktober 2007
woensdag 10 oktober 2007
Gerd Leonhard’s Open Letter to the Independent Music Industry
Music2.0 and the Future of Music is yours – if you can resist the temptation of becoming just another music cartel.
On June 29, 2007, while at London Calling, I was invited to speak to a small group of indie record label leaders at the annual AIM / WIN gathering in London. I took this opportunity to take a good look at what needs to happen in order for the independent music companies to actually take advantage of the new music economy that is unfolding right now. So... some of my thoughts are shared below.
Today I want to present my views on what I like to call “Music2.0” – the next generation of the music industry that is being created as we speak. This new model is dramatically different: many old ways of doing things, many old relationships, and many outmoded traditions cannot and will not survive.
I want to seduce you, the leaders of the independent music industry, to go down this new road with me, to take a leap, to leave some of your assumptions and your ‘religions’ aside, and to make bold moves – because this is required to turn this ship around.
Scott Fitzgerald, the famous novelist, said: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”. This will clearly be the music industry’s challenge going forward!
Technical and economic innovations have, for the past 10 years, stripped away many traditions, social and economic hierarchies and monopolies in the music industry, and if there is one thing we can say for sure I guess that would be that it’s now show-time: the music industry is finally reaching a major inflection point; 10 years after the first .com ventures shook the ground. It took a lot longer than we all thought but it’s hitting much harder now: CD sales are down between 20 – 40% YTD, and digital sales are not making up the difference, any time soon – and the one-horse race with iTunes clearly is a dead-end.
We are very quickly nearing a point to where we are forced to dive into what I like to call “Music2.0” – a new ecosystem that is not based on music as a product, but music as a service: first selling access, and only then selling copies. An ecosystem based on ubiquity of music, not scarcity. An ecosystem based on mutual trust, not fear.
As Don Tapscott says, in his great book “Wikinomics” , we can think of Web1.0 – the ‘old’ web - as some sort of digital newspaper, while Web2.0 is a canvas that allows information to be put up, shared, changed, and remixed. It’s about the interaction, the send-and-receive options that make it useful and ‘special’. And in music, it’s always been about interaction, about sharing, about engaging – not Sell-Sell-Sell right from the start.
Stop the sharing and you kill the music business – it’s that simple. When the fan / user / listener stops engaging with the music it’s all over. Today, you urgently need a canvas for music not a one-way product (such as the CD).
Let’s face it: most ‘leaders’ of the major record companies as well as some independents are, by and large, still in denial about the fact that their unit-sales-based model is utterly broken and crashing quicker than they can fathom, and many still hope for some magical technology solution to solve a business problem.
Billions of $$ have already been lost due to misguided strategies, outdated policies, and lack of true leadership. Forgive me, but it's time to get your act together and do whatever it takes, not just what fits comfortably into your current landscape – this is a make-it or break-it moment.How come many societies and PROs / MROs are still at a total loss when it’s about ‘licensing the un-licensable’ (as my dear friend and colleague Jim Griffin puts it)? 1000s of companies with innovative business models are left unlicensed, by default (or shall I say by design?), and most of them have given up on even trying. Major money is left on the table due to tardiness and internal squabbling. Many of the traditional music licensing organizations have utterly failed in their mission of making music available – in fact, they have, by non-action, succeeded to make it unavailable. What you need now is action not continued excuses.
Today, we have the paradox situation that any startup that wants to use music will not even try to go legal right from the beginning, since there is no reasonable way of doing so. Look at the biggest exits in this turf, during the past 2 years: myspace, youtube, last.fm – either they did not bother with proper music licenses, or it was unclear if and where and when they would even need one. Non-compliance succeeded and was handsomely rewarded.
The music industry must admit that it has failed to act. Their leaders’ clueless-ness, incomprehension and general lack of willingness to embrace true change allowed the paying for music to become voluntary. Congrats.
Don Tapscott points at the year 2006: the losers built digital music stores, and the winners built vibrant communities based on music. The losers built walled gardens while the winners built public squares. The losers were busy guarding their intellectual property while the winners were busy getting everyone’s attention. Warner Music Group’s stock nose-dived from $30 to $14 in less than one year; Google rose from $323 to $526, Apple went from $50 to $127.
For the independent music industry, the question is: which side do you want to be on? Do you want to become another ‘major player’, and stay stuck in music1.0, or do you want to lead the way into music2.0?
In this context please allow me give you a glimpse of the future, so that you can make some decisions based on what is coming.
1. Within 18 months, in many key music territories around the globe, wireless broadband networks and device-to-device ad-hoc networks will connect every conceivable device with each other, as well as with gigantic online content depositories – or shall I say switch-boards - that will contain every imaginable song, film, or TV show.
If you think ‘sharing’ is a big deal now, wait another 2 years – it will be 100x as fast and enabled on every single device (not just computers). 3 Billion+ cell phones and 1 Billion+ music players will connect seamlessly to each other.
Wireless broadband access and devices will become so cheap, super-fast and ubiquitous that sharing content will become the default setting, at very high speeds and with anyone that is close by. Search – Find – Select – Exchange. Click and get.
How can you monetize this? By licensing participation – and the networks and the devices that enable it. You must license the use of any and all music on these networks, and make irresistible, irrefutable and compelling blanket offers to those that run it. These license deals must be conversations not monologs. Not a stick to the ISPs but a huge, shining and attractive carrot.
2. 10s of 1000s of new TV, online video, and gaming channels will be born in the next 2-3 years – and all of them will need music to go with the visuals. Millions of songs will be synched to video – this market will positively explode. It may well be that those B2B licensing revenues end up being more than 50% of your future income.
However, exploiting these opportunities will only be possible if an efficient and frictionless system for transactions is available – this is, imho, where the huge opportunity for the Merlin initiative (where AIM is a member) lies. Think ebay+ chemdex +ricall + pumpaudio+. Every $ invested in better B2B processes will make 10s of 1000s for music rights holders… while they sleep, or better yet, make more music.3. Streaming music, on demand, will be everywhere. On every website, every widget, every mobile, every device – supported by ads, sponsorships and commissions on transactions. Performance-based income will surge beyond your wildest imaginations, But again, only if you finally chose to play ball, to participate, to make irresistible license and rate offerings, create reliable standards and go flat-out for liquidity not try to maintain artificial scarcity. BMI’s revenues have grown from $630 Million in 2003 to $779 Million in 2006 – not bad considering the overall demise of the recorded music market, at the same time! So read my mouse: It’s not the copy of the recording that makes all the $$$, it’s the use. In fact, the use of your music is the next big format you have been looking for.
4. Rich media (i.e. ads with music, video, animations, audio etc) will become the default advertising format for online advertising, representing yet another huge growth opportunity for music. Soon, 10%+ of all ad-spending will be on the Internet; and 16% of all Internet ads in 2009 will be rich media. With an estimated $ 700 Billion of global ad spending by 2009, that means $70 Billion for online ads, and over $10 Billion spend for rich media ads. 100s of millions of $$$ for music licenses!
5. Digital radio will deliver 100% time- and place shifted music experiences, stopping only a tiny bit short of becoming another iTunes. The reality is that net radio is just another Tivo for music. Radio will indeed become the feels-like-free, on-demand music box, once again: the only remaining ‘Radio1.0’ factor will be that it will continue to be curated and expert-produced, as well as taking in social recommendation and smart technology agents. The best radio stations will become very strong brands (Radio 1, KCRW etc), out-doing what used to be record labels. How will you license Radio2.0 if you insist on staying with a per-copy model?
6. All music companies will become video companies, too – music will be multimedia, by default (music + video + audio + text + games). If you aren’t already diversifying into video and TV you really should.
7. China, India, South America and Africa will explode with new models of usage rights – bundles and flat rates based on access. And guess what: they will indeed have those $100 computers that Negroponte is trying to bring to them!
But again, you will not have truly liquid (i.e. efficient, low-friction, vastly scalable) markets until you allow, support, and enable them. You must swing this ship around, because right now, the music industry is failing miserably: failing on technical and on licensing standards, on flexible pricing offerings, on competitiveness, on compatibility, on being trusted, on transparency.
The music industry’s past was based on:• Control• Exclusivity• Monopoly• Closed-ness• Guarding / Protection• Secrecy / Non-Transparency• Territoriality
Your future – if you chose to go there – is based on:• Openness• Total transparency• Peering• Sharing• A truly global outlook• Liquidity
I predict that as much as 60% of this new music business - and with that I mean a $100 Billion music business - will be independent within 3-5 years – but only if their leaders don’t follow the major labels into LIKING CONTROL MORE THAN INCOME. Update: watch this movie clip for more details ;)
Here are a few of my favorite bottom lines:
1) The media ecosystem of the future is frictionless. That means music anytime, anyhow and anywhere, ranging from free and ‘feels like free’ to bundled, up-sold and premium’ed. Your job as a music company is to do away with the friction, not to add to it, or even to re-insert it: on the Internet, every hurdle is treated as damage, and the traffic is simply routed around it. Create friction and be side-stepped.
2) It’s all about participation not prevention. Because of the utter impossibility of maintaining any real hurdles, it is absolutely crucial that you find ways to participate in any and all forms of commerce that use music. Charge smartly for access but make music available the same way that cell phone operators make cell phones available: a very low-cost, irresistible way of engaging people… and sell-up from there. Whether it’s streaming on demand, remixes and mashups, play-listing and social network music applications, to add-music-to-video, to digital radio – being part of it is what it’s all about.
3) Let’s face it: the web is like a giant Tivo, a huge recorder or DVR - all performances are or can be recorded, all broadcasts really are deliveries. You need to stop distinguishing between music ‘to keep / own’ and music ‘to listen to’ – our users have done this a long time ago! License the USE. Share revenues. THEN upsell to ownership.
4) Copyright is the principle, usage right is where you monetize. Usage is where you need to focus your energies, not the ‘protection of Intellectual Property’. This is a tough spot but again… do you want total control, or do you want revenues?
5) Very few things end completely when new inventions are taking hold – usually, the market just grows larger. And it will be no different here. Yes, the fax machine and the Internet killed the Telex and telegraph, but we still have books even though we have Xerox machines. CDs will decline, and may fade out completely, eventually, but nothing you do in digital music will completely wipe out physical media. This is just another format, and it’s called ACCESS. And even better: after you provide access, you can sell ownership again, too (think HD!)
6) Remember that the only real limit to growth, in music and in media, is TIME. Media consumption will rise and rise and rise, as the offerings become cheaper and more ubiquitous, and as more of the “Digital Natives” consume multiple media at the same time. You are now engaged in a battle for the wallet and the clock – but the clock comes first. Mind share means time-spend means money spend! Again, this is where attention translates into money, and this is why the first objective is to get attention, and only then to get money. The biggest problem for most artists (and their labels) is obscurity not piracy!
7) Engage not enrage: stop anything that enrages the users. And do it now.
8) Guess what: you can compete with free because what you can offer is not free. Yes, a copy of a file is free. A CD burned from another CD is free, a USB stick’s content copied to my computer is free. But the real-life connection to the artist, the experience that is happening around the music, the added values such as videos, films, games, chats, books, concerts and merchandising, the context (!!!) - all of that must not be free. You must stop the obsession with trying to make money merely from selling copies, and instead provide access, because only the legitimate and authorized source (i.e. agent-label-manager) can provide the whole bundle of values that the users, fans, the people formerly known as consumers, will buy.
Music2.0 is an unprecedented opportunity, very much like when music when from acoustic to electric. Everyone wants music. More music is used on more platforms, all the time. An unprecedented hunger for music that you need to fulfill!
Finally, here are some challenges that I believe a music industry led by Independents must embrace.
1) Once released, a recording becomes, in reality, available by default and must be made ‘usable’ under a default license – all else equals tacitly conceding that it’s free to use without permission. As a result of such a new ‘default license’, some rights principles that we have gotten used to probably won’t translate in this environment – such as the moral right of deciding where you music is being performed or maybe even otherwise used. However, I don’t think this will apply to commercial use in films or ads - unlike the private or semi-private use in UGC and web-generated content, and of course, to public performance.
2) The traditional definition of ‘copyright’ and ‘intellectual property’ can, for the time being, not be the sole key to monetizing your creations. Because it is no longer about copies, it’s no longer about the right to copy, it’s no longer about reproduction – it’s about how music is being used and how to participate in those much larger revenues. Call it ephemeral copies, tethered downloads, rented media, streaming, buffering, caching, storing, time-shifting, downloading, ripping or whatever – the fact is that digital technology has done away with the distinction of a so-called performance being different than a so-called DPD (digital phonographic delivery). All computers - and that means all cell phones, too ! – are by definition copying machines. As overwhelming as this may sound, you must therefore discard the idea of charging more to ‘keep’ music, as opposed to just ‘listening’ to it as in radio. Instead, you must focus on charging for added values (such as a better way to keep the music ;), and on collecting revenue at every point of access, and then go from there. I don’t want to get into my good old ‘music like water’ rant again, but charge for music like utility companies charge for basic water & electricity service, and then charge more for all the other options. The bottled water business is a $100 Billion industry!
3) Your revenues from selling ‘copies of songs’ will soon dwindle down to maybe 30% of your total income – the rest will be revenues from licensing, sync, performance, bundling, flat rates… revenue sharing and the many other streams that are yet in their embryonic stages. Get busy creating and supporting those new revenue streams!
4) You can’t afford exclusive rights representation at high rates any longer, unless these institutions give you 100% coverage and a flawless solution.
5) Forget territories except for when serving local repertoire (which is on the rise, too). Most talent is global, and your audience is global, or at least virtually local. Internationalize right from the start and build systems that will support that. Build a worldwide licensing and B2B-transactions system that makes all repertoire available for all types of use, and build it quickly.
6) Resist the temptation to do as the major labels have done (e.g. extract huge one-off payments, extort equity shares, license at unreasonable rates, refuse access for no reason but for market control concerns, sue their own customers etc) – that is a certain death wish. In fact, now you can force them to follow you!
7) Resist all attempts at locked / protected formats, and go for open systems.
) Bundle and package music in new ways: with other services, with other products. And prepare for the Flat Rate because this is certainly coming.
9) Remove any and all hurdles to complete market liquidity: pricing inflexibility, lack of standards (technology), lack of licensing transparency, territorial differences, monopolies.
10) Embrace outsiders to jumpstart the music business. Niklas Zennstrom disrupted the telecom business, Hotmail changed email, Stanford dropouts started Google – the innovation often comes from the outside.
Call me a Utopian, call me a Dreamer, call me a ruthless Optimist, but I think this is the Future of Music.
Gerd Leonhard, Basel, Switzerland, July 1, 2007
Source: http://www.futureofmusicbook.com/music_marketing/index.html
On June 29, 2007, while at London Calling, I was invited to speak to a small group of indie record label leaders at the annual AIM / WIN gathering in London. I took this opportunity to take a good look at what needs to happen in order for the independent music companies to actually take advantage of the new music economy that is unfolding right now. So... some of my thoughts are shared below.
Today I want to present my views on what I like to call “Music2.0” – the next generation of the music industry that is being created as we speak. This new model is dramatically different: many old ways of doing things, many old relationships, and many outmoded traditions cannot and will not survive.
I want to seduce you, the leaders of the independent music industry, to go down this new road with me, to take a leap, to leave some of your assumptions and your ‘religions’ aside, and to make bold moves – because this is required to turn this ship around.
Scott Fitzgerald, the famous novelist, said: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”. This will clearly be the music industry’s challenge going forward!
Technical and economic innovations have, for the past 10 years, stripped away many traditions, social and economic hierarchies and monopolies in the music industry, and if there is one thing we can say for sure I guess that would be that it’s now show-time: the music industry is finally reaching a major inflection point; 10 years after the first .com ventures shook the ground. It took a lot longer than we all thought but it’s hitting much harder now: CD sales are down between 20 – 40% YTD, and digital sales are not making up the difference, any time soon – and the one-horse race with iTunes clearly is a dead-end.
We are very quickly nearing a point to where we are forced to dive into what I like to call “Music2.0” – a new ecosystem that is not based on music as a product, but music as a service: first selling access, and only then selling copies. An ecosystem based on ubiquity of music, not scarcity. An ecosystem based on mutual trust, not fear.
As Don Tapscott says, in his great book “Wikinomics” , we can think of Web1.0 – the ‘old’ web - as some sort of digital newspaper, while Web2.0 is a canvas that allows information to be put up, shared, changed, and remixed. It’s about the interaction, the send-and-receive options that make it useful and ‘special’. And in music, it’s always been about interaction, about sharing, about engaging – not Sell-Sell-Sell right from the start.
Stop the sharing and you kill the music business – it’s that simple. When the fan / user / listener stops engaging with the music it’s all over. Today, you urgently need a canvas for music not a one-way product (such as the CD).
Let’s face it: most ‘leaders’ of the major record companies as well as some independents are, by and large, still in denial about the fact that their unit-sales-based model is utterly broken and crashing quicker than they can fathom, and many still hope for some magical technology solution to solve a business problem.
Billions of $$ have already been lost due to misguided strategies, outdated policies, and lack of true leadership. Forgive me, but it's time to get your act together and do whatever it takes, not just what fits comfortably into your current landscape – this is a make-it or break-it moment.How come many societies and PROs / MROs are still at a total loss when it’s about ‘licensing the un-licensable’ (as my dear friend and colleague Jim Griffin puts it)? 1000s of companies with innovative business models are left unlicensed, by default (or shall I say by design?), and most of them have given up on even trying. Major money is left on the table due to tardiness and internal squabbling. Many of the traditional music licensing organizations have utterly failed in their mission of making music available – in fact, they have, by non-action, succeeded to make it unavailable. What you need now is action not continued excuses.
Today, we have the paradox situation that any startup that wants to use music will not even try to go legal right from the beginning, since there is no reasonable way of doing so. Look at the biggest exits in this turf, during the past 2 years: myspace, youtube, last.fm – either they did not bother with proper music licenses, or it was unclear if and where and when they would even need one. Non-compliance succeeded and was handsomely rewarded.
The music industry must admit that it has failed to act. Their leaders’ clueless-ness, incomprehension and general lack of willingness to embrace true change allowed the paying for music to become voluntary. Congrats.
Don Tapscott points at the year 2006: the losers built digital music stores, and the winners built vibrant communities based on music. The losers built walled gardens while the winners built public squares. The losers were busy guarding their intellectual property while the winners were busy getting everyone’s attention. Warner Music Group’s stock nose-dived from $30 to $14 in less than one year; Google rose from $323 to $526, Apple went from $50 to $127.
For the independent music industry, the question is: which side do you want to be on? Do you want to become another ‘major player’, and stay stuck in music1.0, or do you want to lead the way into music2.0?
In this context please allow me give you a glimpse of the future, so that you can make some decisions based on what is coming.
1. Within 18 months, in many key music territories around the globe, wireless broadband networks and device-to-device ad-hoc networks will connect every conceivable device with each other, as well as with gigantic online content depositories – or shall I say switch-boards - that will contain every imaginable song, film, or TV show.
If you think ‘sharing’ is a big deal now, wait another 2 years – it will be 100x as fast and enabled on every single device (not just computers). 3 Billion+ cell phones and 1 Billion+ music players will connect seamlessly to each other.
Wireless broadband access and devices will become so cheap, super-fast and ubiquitous that sharing content will become the default setting, at very high speeds and with anyone that is close by. Search – Find – Select – Exchange. Click and get.
How can you monetize this? By licensing participation – and the networks and the devices that enable it. You must license the use of any and all music on these networks, and make irresistible, irrefutable and compelling blanket offers to those that run it. These license deals must be conversations not monologs. Not a stick to the ISPs but a huge, shining and attractive carrot.
2. 10s of 1000s of new TV, online video, and gaming channels will be born in the next 2-3 years – and all of them will need music to go with the visuals. Millions of songs will be synched to video – this market will positively explode. It may well be that those B2B licensing revenues end up being more than 50% of your future income.
However, exploiting these opportunities will only be possible if an efficient and frictionless system for transactions is available – this is, imho, where the huge opportunity for the Merlin initiative (where AIM is a member) lies. Think ebay+ chemdex +ricall + pumpaudio+. Every $ invested in better B2B processes will make 10s of 1000s for music rights holders… while they sleep, or better yet, make more music.3. Streaming music, on demand, will be everywhere. On every website, every widget, every mobile, every device – supported by ads, sponsorships and commissions on transactions. Performance-based income will surge beyond your wildest imaginations, But again, only if you finally chose to play ball, to participate, to make irresistible license and rate offerings, create reliable standards and go flat-out for liquidity not try to maintain artificial scarcity. BMI’s revenues have grown from $630 Million in 2003 to $779 Million in 2006 – not bad considering the overall demise of the recorded music market, at the same time! So read my mouse: It’s not the copy of the recording that makes all the $$$, it’s the use. In fact, the use of your music is the next big format you have been looking for.
4. Rich media (i.e. ads with music, video, animations, audio etc) will become the default advertising format for online advertising, representing yet another huge growth opportunity for music. Soon, 10%+ of all ad-spending will be on the Internet; and 16% of all Internet ads in 2009 will be rich media. With an estimated $ 700 Billion of global ad spending by 2009, that means $70 Billion for online ads, and over $10 Billion spend for rich media ads. 100s of millions of $$$ for music licenses!
5. Digital radio will deliver 100% time- and place shifted music experiences, stopping only a tiny bit short of becoming another iTunes. The reality is that net radio is just another Tivo for music. Radio will indeed become the feels-like-free, on-demand music box, once again: the only remaining ‘Radio1.0’ factor will be that it will continue to be curated and expert-produced, as well as taking in social recommendation and smart technology agents. The best radio stations will become very strong brands (Radio 1, KCRW etc), out-doing what used to be record labels. How will you license Radio2.0 if you insist on staying with a per-copy model?
6. All music companies will become video companies, too – music will be multimedia, by default (music + video + audio + text + games). If you aren’t already diversifying into video and TV you really should.
7. China, India, South America and Africa will explode with new models of usage rights – bundles and flat rates based on access. And guess what: they will indeed have those $100 computers that Negroponte is trying to bring to them!
But again, you will not have truly liquid (i.e. efficient, low-friction, vastly scalable) markets until you allow, support, and enable them. You must swing this ship around, because right now, the music industry is failing miserably: failing on technical and on licensing standards, on flexible pricing offerings, on competitiveness, on compatibility, on being trusted, on transparency.
The music industry’s past was based on:• Control• Exclusivity• Monopoly• Closed-ness• Guarding / Protection• Secrecy / Non-Transparency• Territoriality
Your future – if you chose to go there – is based on:• Openness• Total transparency• Peering• Sharing• A truly global outlook• Liquidity
I predict that as much as 60% of this new music business - and with that I mean a $100 Billion music business - will be independent within 3-5 years – but only if their leaders don’t follow the major labels into LIKING CONTROL MORE THAN INCOME. Update: watch this movie clip for more details ;)
Here are a few of my favorite bottom lines:
1) The media ecosystem of the future is frictionless. That means music anytime, anyhow and anywhere, ranging from free and ‘feels like free’ to bundled, up-sold and premium’ed. Your job as a music company is to do away with the friction, not to add to it, or even to re-insert it: on the Internet, every hurdle is treated as damage, and the traffic is simply routed around it. Create friction and be side-stepped.
2) It’s all about participation not prevention. Because of the utter impossibility of maintaining any real hurdles, it is absolutely crucial that you find ways to participate in any and all forms of commerce that use music. Charge smartly for access but make music available the same way that cell phone operators make cell phones available: a very low-cost, irresistible way of engaging people… and sell-up from there. Whether it’s streaming on demand, remixes and mashups, play-listing and social network music applications, to add-music-to-video, to digital radio – being part of it is what it’s all about.
3) Let’s face it: the web is like a giant Tivo, a huge recorder or DVR - all performances are or can be recorded, all broadcasts really are deliveries. You need to stop distinguishing between music ‘to keep / own’ and music ‘to listen to’ – our users have done this a long time ago! License the USE. Share revenues. THEN upsell to ownership.
4) Copyright is the principle, usage right is where you monetize. Usage is where you need to focus your energies, not the ‘protection of Intellectual Property’. This is a tough spot but again… do you want total control, or do you want revenues?
5) Very few things end completely when new inventions are taking hold – usually, the market just grows larger. And it will be no different here. Yes, the fax machine and the Internet killed the Telex and telegraph, but we still have books even though we have Xerox machines. CDs will decline, and may fade out completely, eventually, but nothing you do in digital music will completely wipe out physical media. This is just another format, and it’s called ACCESS. And even better: after you provide access, you can sell ownership again, too (think HD!)
6) Remember that the only real limit to growth, in music and in media, is TIME. Media consumption will rise and rise and rise, as the offerings become cheaper and more ubiquitous, and as more of the “Digital Natives” consume multiple media at the same time. You are now engaged in a battle for the wallet and the clock – but the clock comes first. Mind share means time-spend means money spend! Again, this is where attention translates into money, and this is why the first objective is to get attention, and only then to get money. The biggest problem for most artists (and their labels) is obscurity not piracy!
7) Engage not enrage: stop anything that enrages the users. And do it now.
8) Guess what: you can compete with free because what you can offer is not free. Yes, a copy of a file is free. A CD burned from another CD is free, a USB stick’s content copied to my computer is free. But the real-life connection to the artist, the experience that is happening around the music, the added values such as videos, films, games, chats, books, concerts and merchandising, the context (!!!) - all of that must not be free. You must stop the obsession with trying to make money merely from selling copies, and instead provide access, because only the legitimate and authorized source (i.e. agent-label-manager) can provide the whole bundle of values that the users, fans, the people formerly known as consumers, will buy.
Music2.0 is an unprecedented opportunity, very much like when music when from acoustic to electric. Everyone wants music. More music is used on more platforms, all the time. An unprecedented hunger for music that you need to fulfill!
Finally, here are some challenges that I believe a music industry led by Independents must embrace.
1) Once released, a recording becomes, in reality, available by default and must be made ‘usable’ under a default license – all else equals tacitly conceding that it’s free to use without permission. As a result of such a new ‘default license’, some rights principles that we have gotten used to probably won’t translate in this environment – such as the moral right of deciding where you music is being performed or maybe even otherwise used. However, I don’t think this will apply to commercial use in films or ads - unlike the private or semi-private use in UGC and web-generated content, and of course, to public performance.
2) The traditional definition of ‘copyright’ and ‘intellectual property’ can, for the time being, not be the sole key to monetizing your creations. Because it is no longer about copies, it’s no longer about the right to copy, it’s no longer about reproduction – it’s about how music is being used and how to participate in those much larger revenues. Call it ephemeral copies, tethered downloads, rented media, streaming, buffering, caching, storing, time-shifting, downloading, ripping or whatever – the fact is that digital technology has done away with the distinction of a so-called performance being different than a so-called DPD (digital phonographic delivery). All computers - and that means all cell phones, too ! – are by definition copying machines. As overwhelming as this may sound, you must therefore discard the idea of charging more to ‘keep’ music, as opposed to just ‘listening’ to it as in radio. Instead, you must focus on charging for added values (such as a better way to keep the music ;), and on collecting revenue at every point of access, and then go from there. I don’t want to get into my good old ‘music like water’ rant again, but charge for music like utility companies charge for basic water & electricity service, and then charge more for all the other options. The bottled water business is a $100 Billion industry!
3) Your revenues from selling ‘copies of songs’ will soon dwindle down to maybe 30% of your total income – the rest will be revenues from licensing, sync, performance, bundling, flat rates… revenue sharing and the many other streams that are yet in their embryonic stages. Get busy creating and supporting those new revenue streams!
4) You can’t afford exclusive rights representation at high rates any longer, unless these institutions give you 100% coverage and a flawless solution.
5) Forget territories except for when serving local repertoire (which is on the rise, too). Most talent is global, and your audience is global, or at least virtually local. Internationalize right from the start and build systems that will support that. Build a worldwide licensing and B2B-transactions system that makes all repertoire available for all types of use, and build it quickly.
6) Resist the temptation to do as the major labels have done (e.g. extract huge one-off payments, extort equity shares, license at unreasonable rates, refuse access for no reason but for market control concerns, sue their own customers etc) – that is a certain death wish. In fact, now you can force them to follow you!
7) Resist all attempts at locked / protected formats, and go for open systems.
) Bundle and package music in new ways: with other services, with other products. And prepare for the Flat Rate because this is certainly coming.
9) Remove any and all hurdles to complete market liquidity: pricing inflexibility, lack of standards (technology), lack of licensing transparency, territorial differences, monopolies.
10) Embrace outsiders to jumpstart the music business. Niklas Zennstrom disrupted the telecom business, Hotmail changed email, Stanford dropouts started Google – the innovation often comes from the outside.
Call me a Utopian, call me a Dreamer, call me a ruthless Optimist, but I think this is the Future of Music.
Gerd Leonhard, Basel, Switzerland, July 1, 2007
Source: http://www.futureofmusicbook.com/music_marketing/index.html
New business models in the recording industry
September 3rd, 2007 by Dan Wallach
The New York Times Sunday Magazine has a fascinating piece that interviews and discusses Columbia Records’ hiring of Rick Rubin as their new studio chieftain. Rubin has been a well-known music producer (among other things, he orchestrated the famous mash-up of Aerosmith and Run-DMC and worked with Johnny Cash later in his life), and is quoted in the article saying many things that Freedom-to-Tinker readers will find familiar.
For example, on DRM and spyware:
By the time [Columbia executive] Barnett first approached Rubin about coming to Columbia, Rubin had already decided that he would have nothing more to do with Columbia Records. This was because of the company’s handling of the Rubin-produced Neil Diamond record “12 Songs” in 2005. Diamond was a hero of Rubin’s, and he spent two years working on the album, persuading Diamond to record acoustically, something he hadn’t done since the ’60s.
“The CD debuted at No. 4,” Rubin told me at Hugo’s, still sounding upset. “It was the highest debut of Neil’s career, off to a great start. But Columbia — it was some kind of corporate thing — had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record. The spyware became public knowledge, and people freaked out. There were some lawsuits filed, and the CD was recalled by Columbia. Literally pulled from stores. We came out on a Tuesday, by the following week the CD was not available. Columbia released it again in a month, but we never recovered. Neil was furious, and I vowed never to make another album with Columbia.”
Still, Columbia managed to hire this guy and he’s now pretty much running the show. He thoroughly acknowledges that the music industry’s real problem is that its former business model isn’t going to work in the future and the solution is about completely changing the pricing model to be cheap enough and the quality of service to be good enough that piracy will no longer be rational for consumers.
Rubin has a bigger idea. To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, he, like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. “You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”
…
Rubin sees no other solution. “Either all the record companies will get together [for a unified subscription model] or the industry will fall apart and someone like Microsoft will come in and buy one of the companies at wholesale and do what needs to be done,” he said. “The future technology companies will either wait for the record companies to smarten up, or they’ll let them sink until they can buy them for 10 cents on the dollar and own the whole thing.”
I’ve always thought that something like this could be a successful business model. Of course, enforcing such a scheme (i.e., ensuring that the music dries up if you don’t keep spending your cash) requires a DRM strategy, which clearly isn’t going to fly. Is there an alternative? How good would a music service have to be that you would have no incentive to store local copies? If I’m totally comfortable keeping my email and calendar “out there” on the Internet, why shouldn’t I be comfortable keeping my CD collection (1500+ and growing) out there as well?
The article goes on to quote other industry experts on the difficulties of getting a subscription model correct, but I have to admire Rubin on his focus:
“I don’t want to waste time,” he said, sounding a little frustrated. “The existing people will either get smart, which is a question mark. Or new people will understand what a resource the music business is and change it without us.” Rubin paused. “I don’t want to watch that happen.”
It’s hard to argue with that. The primary focus of the article was on how Rubin is all about refining and polishing the music, and it’s great to know that somebody like that will help bring out the best in our artists. I just hope they can really sort out this whole business model thing in a technologically feasible fashion. My fear is that yet another new snake-oil company with yet another DRM scheme will promise to “solve” the piracy problem, when we all know that the real solution lies instead in completely rethinking the business model. Make the price cheap enough and the quality of the service compelling enough, and people will prefer it to the hit-or-miss world of piracy. Let’s hope it can be a hit. (Until then, I’ll stick with buying CDs)
Source: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1194
The New York Times Sunday Magazine has a fascinating piece that interviews and discusses Columbia Records’ hiring of Rick Rubin as their new studio chieftain. Rubin has been a well-known music producer (among other things, he orchestrated the famous mash-up of Aerosmith and Run-DMC and worked with Johnny Cash later in his life), and is quoted in the article saying many things that Freedom-to-Tinker readers will find familiar.
For example, on DRM and spyware:
By the time [Columbia executive] Barnett first approached Rubin about coming to Columbia, Rubin had already decided that he would have nothing more to do with Columbia Records. This was because of the company’s handling of the Rubin-produced Neil Diamond record “12 Songs” in 2005. Diamond was a hero of Rubin’s, and he spent two years working on the album, persuading Diamond to record acoustically, something he hadn’t done since the ’60s.
“The CD debuted at No. 4,” Rubin told me at Hugo’s, still sounding upset. “It was the highest debut of Neil’s career, off to a great start. But Columbia — it was some kind of corporate thing — had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record. The spyware became public knowledge, and people freaked out. There were some lawsuits filed, and the CD was recalled by Columbia. Literally pulled from stores. We came out on a Tuesday, by the following week the CD was not available. Columbia released it again in a month, but we never recovered. Neil was furious, and I vowed never to make another album with Columbia.”
Still, Columbia managed to hire this guy and he’s now pretty much running the show. He thoroughly acknowledges that the music industry’s real problem is that its former business model isn’t going to work in the future and the solution is about completely changing the pricing model to be cheap enough and the quality of service to be good enough that piracy will no longer be rational for consumers.
Rubin has a bigger idea. To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, he, like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. “You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”
…
Rubin sees no other solution. “Either all the record companies will get together [for a unified subscription model] or the industry will fall apart and someone like Microsoft will come in and buy one of the companies at wholesale and do what needs to be done,” he said. “The future technology companies will either wait for the record companies to smarten up, or they’ll let them sink until they can buy them for 10 cents on the dollar and own the whole thing.”
I’ve always thought that something like this could be a successful business model. Of course, enforcing such a scheme (i.e., ensuring that the music dries up if you don’t keep spending your cash) requires a DRM strategy, which clearly isn’t going to fly. Is there an alternative? How good would a music service have to be that you would have no incentive to store local copies? If I’m totally comfortable keeping my email and calendar “out there” on the Internet, why shouldn’t I be comfortable keeping my CD collection (1500+ and growing) out there as well?
The article goes on to quote other industry experts on the difficulties of getting a subscription model correct, but I have to admire Rubin on his focus:
“I don’t want to waste time,” he said, sounding a little frustrated. “The existing people will either get smart, which is a question mark. Or new people will understand what a resource the music business is and change it without us.” Rubin paused. “I don’t want to watch that happen.”
It’s hard to argue with that. The primary focus of the article was on how Rubin is all about refining and polishing the music, and it’s great to know that somebody like that will help bring out the best in our artists. I just hope they can really sort out this whole business model thing in a technologically feasible fashion. My fear is that yet another new snake-oil company with yet another DRM scheme will promise to “solve” the piracy problem, when we all know that the real solution lies instead in completely rethinking the business model. Make the price cheap enough and the quality of the service compelling enough, and people will prefer it to the hit-or-miss world of piracy. Let’s hope it can be a hit. (Until then, I’ll stick with buying CDs)
Source: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1194
Connect the Canadian Music Industry—and its Audience
I know there's a better way for the Canadian live music industry to connect. Build me a new web system that generates revenue and builds new business—a collaboration portal for live music entrepreneurs.
The intriguing request came from a 30-year veteran of the Canadian live music scene. How could the Internet help bands and artists be more successful? What kind of site would make it easier for venues, and even the general public, to find live performers? Which combination of online services could help musicians post their profiles, manage their calendars, build contacts, find back-up players, negotiate contracts, and above all, get more gigs???
How could one web system keep everyone in the Canadian live music industry organized, in touch and in business—while delivering profitable membership revenues to our client?
We needed to turn our client's pioneering business concept into a pioneering web system. Our first challenge was to develop a set of online tools for a wide range of different users-bands, artists, venues, managers, agents and merchants. Our second challenge was to make these tools work together in an integrated and marketable management and communications system.
We began by working closely with our client to learn about the needs of all members of the live music industry—musicians looking for gigs, venues looking for bands, and bandleaders and agents looking for fast, easy ways to track bookings, manage schedules and organize tours.
Guided by the objectives, market research and budgetary scope of the detailed Business Plan provided by our client, we prepared a customized Web System Plan-a blueprint that included a design "look and feel," a website schematic, detailed budget and a step-by step, phased approach to development. The Plan addressed each of our client's requirements, including:
Public Area designed to promote bands, artists, venues and merchants to site visitors.
Members Area to manage profiles, view Gig Alerts, maintain appointment and booking calendars and build contacts.
Build a Band ™ feature to allow members to collaborate on upcoming gigs.
Contract and Negotiations feature to streamline agreements between bands, artists, and venues.
Site Administration area that allows CanGig.ca™ staff to easily update content, send E-Newsletters and E-announcements, post features, and manage membership information and online payment transactions.
Now it was time to custom-design and custom-program Canada's first live music collaboration portal. A single but powerful performance image was chosen to anchor the website, instantly conveying the dynamism and energy of live music. A simple, mouse-over navigation approach was used to quickly direct visitors to appropriate areas. All-important Site Tour, Registration and Login features were placed clearly and prominently on the site's entry page.
A unique combination of online management, promotional, communications and administrative tools emerged as CanGig.caTM took shape, including:
Fully searchable public/private databases
Interactive calendars (with custom-designed Gig Alert function)
Online contracts and agreements
Secure, real-time credit card processing system offering a choice of payment options
Throughout the development process, our client remained in touch and in control. The completed site maintains that control. The custom-designed Backoffice features complete membership database and contact management, extensive content editing capability, and effortless broadcasting of e-Announcments and e-Newsletters. Built-in Client Control features provide site administrators with all of the tools they need to manage their online business quickly and efficiently, without any specialized computer knowledge.
Launched in 2004, CanGig.caTM is now in business, breaking new ground and delivering big benefits to everyone in the Canadian live music industry:
Musicians are getting hired more often
Bands are getting organized, staying informed, and keeping in touch with industry members from across the country
Agents and venues are finding performers, and saving time and money by arranging bookings and negotiating contracts online
Everyone, including the public, is learning more about the strength and vitality of the Canadian live music community
By providing unparalleled service to the Canadian music industry, CanGig.ca™ is now generating membership revenue and receiving a growing return on client investment.
Source: http://www.xynapse.ca/case_cangig.htm
The intriguing request came from a 30-year veteran of the Canadian live music scene. How could the Internet help bands and artists be more successful? What kind of site would make it easier for venues, and even the general public, to find live performers? Which combination of online services could help musicians post their profiles, manage their calendars, build contacts, find back-up players, negotiate contracts, and above all, get more gigs???
How could one web system keep everyone in the Canadian live music industry organized, in touch and in business—while delivering profitable membership revenues to our client?
We needed to turn our client's pioneering business concept into a pioneering web system. Our first challenge was to develop a set of online tools for a wide range of different users-bands, artists, venues, managers, agents and merchants. Our second challenge was to make these tools work together in an integrated and marketable management and communications system.
We began by working closely with our client to learn about the needs of all members of the live music industry—musicians looking for gigs, venues looking for bands, and bandleaders and agents looking for fast, easy ways to track bookings, manage schedules and organize tours.
Guided by the objectives, market research and budgetary scope of the detailed Business Plan provided by our client, we prepared a customized Web System Plan-a blueprint that included a design "look and feel," a website schematic, detailed budget and a step-by step, phased approach to development. The Plan addressed each of our client's requirements, including:
Public Area designed to promote bands, artists, venues and merchants to site visitors.
Members Area to manage profiles, view Gig Alerts, maintain appointment and booking calendars and build contacts.
Build a Band ™ feature to allow members to collaborate on upcoming gigs.
Contract and Negotiations feature to streamline agreements between bands, artists, and venues.
Site Administration area that allows CanGig.ca™ staff to easily update content, send E-Newsletters and E-announcements, post features, and manage membership information and online payment transactions.
Now it was time to custom-design and custom-program Canada's first live music collaboration portal. A single but powerful performance image was chosen to anchor the website, instantly conveying the dynamism and energy of live music. A simple, mouse-over navigation approach was used to quickly direct visitors to appropriate areas. All-important Site Tour, Registration and Login features were placed clearly and prominently on the site's entry page.
A unique combination of online management, promotional, communications and administrative tools emerged as CanGig.caTM took shape, including:
Fully searchable public/private databases
Interactive calendars (with custom-designed Gig Alert function)
Online contracts and agreements
Secure, real-time credit card processing system offering a choice of payment options
Throughout the development process, our client remained in touch and in control. The completed site maintains that control. The custom-designed Backoffice features complete membership database and contact management, extensive content editing capability, and effortless broadcasting of e-Announcments and e-Newsletters. Built-in Client Control features provide site administrators with all of the tools they need to manage their online business quickly and efficiently, without any specialized computer knowledge.
Launched in 2004, CanGig.caTM is now in business, breaking new ground and delivering big benefits to everyone in the Canadian live music industry:
Musicians are getting hired more often
Bands are getting organized, staying informed, and keeping in touch with industry members from across the country
Agents and venues are finding performers, and saving time and money by arranging bookings and negotiating contracts online
Everyone, including the public, is learning more about the strength and vitality of the Canadian live music community
By providing unparalleled service to the Canadian music industry, CanGig.ca™ is now generating membership revenue and receiving a growing return on client investment.
Source: http://www.xynapse.ca/case_cangig.htm
maandag 8 oktober 2007
EMI In Talks To Sell Music Online Sans DRM; Potential Deal Could Change Industry
By Jimmy Guterman - Thu 08 Feb 2007 06:16 PM PST
This may turn out to be the most interesting week in digital music since Apple opened its online store. First, Steve Jobs told the major labels to forget about Apple licensing out is FairPlay DRM system; the end game was going to be unprotected files. Then, just two days after the Wall Street Journal reported that EMI‘s digital-licensing efforts were particularly backward, comes word that EMI may be taking up Jobs on his offer. Forbes, which seems to have had the story first, notes that “Industry insiders have been buzzing for months that one of the majors was seriously exploring the possibility of freeing its downloads from restrictions.” That major, reports say, is EMI, and it is having negotiations with RealNetworks, Yahoo, MySpace, Napster and others. The talks are still on, and a decision could come as soon as Friday. This comes on the same day that Warner Music Edward Bronfman Jr. pooh-poohed such ideas, so EMI’s move, even if it is desperate, is quite bold and could have an enormous domino effect on the rest of the major labels. Marketwatch and others are passing on rumors that Apple has an event planned later this month that will focus on a Beatles-related announcement, made possible by the recent deal between Jobs’s Apple and the Beatles’s Apple. The Beatles are signed to EMI, which makes the whole thing juicier. Things are moving very fast. This could be enormous. It would drag EMI, which, as the WSJ notes, doesn’t even have a YouTube deal yet, to the front of the line in digital music and it would provide the interoperability that Bronfman and others say they want. Digital e-commerce won’t take off until there is a common standard--and it won’t take off until there is a common standard that doesn’t treat customers like potential felons. The endgame is clear indeed. The biggest seller of digital music wants to do away with DRM and one of the majors appears poised to do the same, too. Maybe, just maybe, our long national nightmare of DRM’d music might be over. Then, of course, we’ll see if Jobs, who in one of his other incarnations is one of Disney’s biggest stockholders, will call for taking DRM off movies.
Source: http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-emi-said-to-be-in-talks-to-sell-music-online-sans-drm-potential-deal-co/
This may turn out to be the most interesting week in digital music since Apple opened its online store. First, Steve Jobs told the major labels to forget about Apple licensing out is FairPlay DRM system; the end game was going to be unprotected files. Then, just two days after the Wall Street Journal reported that EMI‘s digital-licensing efforts were particularly backward, comes word that EMI may be taking up Jobs on his offer. Forbes, which seems to have had the story first, notes that “Industry insiders have been buzzing for months that one of the majors was seriously exploring the possibility of freeing its downloads from restrictions.” That major, reports say, is EMI, and it is having negotiations with RealNetworks, Yahoo, MySpace, Napster and others. The talks are still on, and a decision could come as soon as Friday. This comes on the same day that Warner Music Edward Bronfman Jr. pooh-poohed such ideas, so EMI’s move, even if it is desperate, is quite bold and could have an enormous domino effect on the rest of the major labels. Marketwatch and others are passing on rumors that Apple has an event planned later this month that will focus on a Beatles-related announcement, made possible by the recent deal between Jobs’s Apple and the Beatles’s Apple. The Beatles are signed to EMI, which makes the whole thing juicier. Things are moving very fast. This could be enormous. It would drag EMI, which, as the WSJ notes, doesn’t even have a YouTube deal yet, to the front of the line in digital music and it would provide the interoperability that Bronfman and others say they want. Digital e-commerce won’t take off until there is a common standard--and it won’t take off until there is a common standard that doesn’t treat customers like potential felons. The endgame is clear indeed. The biggest seller of digital music wants to do away with DRM and one of the majors appears poised to do the same, too. Maybe, just maybe, our long national nightmare of DRM’d music might be over. Then, of course, we’ll see if Jobs, who in one of his other incarnations is one of Disney’s biggest stockholders, will call for taking DRM off movies.
Source: http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-emi-said-to-be-in-talks-to-sell-music-online-sans-drm-potential-deal-co/
The New, New Music Industry
Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 6:00 PM PT
By Raghav “Rags” Gupta
The music business has been transforming before our eyes. Many players in the industry are struggling to survive amidst the tectonic shifts as the industry transforms itself for the digital age. And yet there has never been more demand for consuming music, and the ability to satifsy that demand, as there is today. The events of the past few weeks point to an acceleration of change that promises to make 2007 a landmark year in the music industry.
The Music Industry is Dead
The major music conglomerates, Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music and EMI, are having to transform themselves and their business model. Theirs is a hit-driven, high-risk/high-reward business model, not unlike that of VCs, in which singles promoted through mainstream, offline outlets (mainly radio but also TV and print) spur the purchase of albums via physical retail stores. All aspects of this model are under duress:
*Consumers have proven resentful of the ‘bait and switch’ in which they were made to purchase albums just to get the 1 or 2 songs that were good. The proliferation of digital music platforms, both legal and not, now enable consumers to only get the song(s) that they want.
*Offline outlets no longer move the needle as they once did. Terrestrial radio has been undergoing its own changes as a result of the landmark Telecommunications Act in 1996. There are now fewer music stations on the dial with tighter playlists and increased scrutiny of anything that smells of payola. As a result, it is harder to break an act on radio. MTV plays few music videos on its flagship TV properties, while print is proving increasingly irrelevant to the younger demographic — they’re not exactly rushing to the stores to get the new Rolling Stone to determine what music to buy. The hits that do break are not proving as durable as they once were. More titles churned through Billboard’s tops spot last year than ever before . Gold is the new Platinum.
*Illegal file sharing is rampant and has only continued to grow notwithstanding the legal and technological tactics that the majors have been executing. 1.5 Billion songs are available at any given time with estimates from Big Champagne of over a billion files being traded on a monthly basis.
*Of most concern is the removal of shelf space devoted to music products at retail stores. Tower’s bankruptcy removed millions of square feet and property owners will look askance at music retailers looking for space. The last decade saw the rise of discount retailers, Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy being the big 3, use cheaply priced CDs as a loss leader to drive foot traffic. This has been a successful strategy, however the question is how long these discount stores will continue to sustain this strategy. If they start devoting the space to other products — games, DVDs or even iPod and related accessories, it will hasten the demise of the CD-driven business model. As one executive at a major told me, ‘if Wal-Mart removes just 8 less square feet per store to CDs, it’s like losing 300 stores.’ This will be a major story to watch in 2007.
*Indie labels are also having a hard time. Although their acts have tended to be more album-driven, the loss of Tower has been a shock to the system and there will likely be losses from the inventory and/or receivables with Tower. There are few other major retailers that carry a lot of these records and so the savvier indie labels are being forced to sell a greater % of their music digitally.
*All in all, the declining physical revenue is not enough to offset the growth of digital revenues. That is causing the major labels to scramble for alternative revenue sources such as licensing music videos and advertising (two areas in which my company, Brightcove, is working with the labels). To spur the growth of digital further, they will also need to solve the interoperability issue, which many believe means selling their music without DRM. This has been in the news recently with Steve Jobs’ letter and the rumors of EMI selling their music as MP3s. Being both the smallest major label and the one under the most financial stress, EMI may well have to take such risks. This will be the other major story to follow in 2007.
Long Live the Music Industry
And yet there has never been as much demand for music from consumers. They are voting with their ears, eyes, fingers and wallets. They want music at a reasonable price whenever they want and wherever they are.
*The numbers around file sharing not only illustrate potential foregone sales (something that the industry continues to debate), but also pent-up demand for music.
New mediums such as internet radio, podcasting and satellite radio are attracting tens of millions of end users.
*Billions of music videos are streamed every year on the Web. Who needs MTV when you can watch videos on-demand on the Web while chatting with your friends?
*The worldwide market for flash or hard-drive-based players was 140 Million units in ‘05.
*Add in music-capabile mobile phones and it’s a much bigger pie. Already, ringtones are a multi-billion dollar market in the US. Mobile music promises to be an even bigger market if the operators and labels can figure out how to deliver music to consumers at a reasonable price. $2.50 per download + tax is not it.
*More people are buying instruments and related materials than ever before. Spurred by technologies to help people make and record music, the industry has doubled in the last decade to $7.5 B.
And so we have an industry transforming itself before our very eyes. If you would have told someone in 1999 that, 5 years later, Apple would become one of the most powerful companies in the music business, they would have thought you crazy. The overall market will be bigger than it is today but spread out over more entities. The music industry of 2012 will be markedly different than the one we have today with new winners and losers. One thing’s for sure — we will all be consuming more music.
Raghav “Rags” Gupta is VP of Consumer Services & Partnerships at Brightcove, where he has worked since ‘05. His blog can be found at www.ragsgupta.com.
By Raghav “Rags” Gupta
The music business has been transforming before our eyes. Many players in the industry are struggling to survive amidst the tectonic shifts as the industry transforms itself for the digital age. And yet there has never been more demand for consuming music, and the ability to satifsy that demand, as there is today. The events of the past few weeks point to an acceleration of change that promises to make 2007 a landmark year in the music industry.
The Music Industry is Dead
The major music conglomerates, Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music and EMI, are having to transform themselves and their business model. Theirs is a hit-driven, high-risk/high-reward business model, not unlike that of VCs, in which singles promoted through mainstream, offline outlets (mainly radio but also TV and print) spur the purchase of albums via physical retail stores. All aspects of this model are under duress:
*Consumers have proven resentful of the ‘bait and switch’ in which they were made to purchase albums just to get the 1 or 2 songs that were good. The proliferation of digital music platforms, both legal and not, now enable consumers to only get the song(s) that they want.
*Offline outlets no longer move the needle as they once did. Terrestrial radio has been undergoing its own changes as a result of the landmark Telecommunications Act in 1996. There are now fewer music stations on the dial with tighter playlists and increased scrutiny of anything that smells of payola. As a result, it is harder to break an act on radio. MTV plays few music videos on its flagship TV properties, while print is proving increasingly irrelevant to the younger demographic — they’re not exactly rushing to the stores to get the new Rolling Stone to determine what music to buy. The hits that do break are not proving as durable as they once were. More titles churned through Billboard’s tops spot last year than ever before . Gold is the new Platinum.
*Illegal file sharing is rampant and has only continued to grow notwithstanding the legal and technological tactics that the majors have been executing. 1.5 Billion songs are available at any given time with estimates from Big Champagne of over a billion files being traded on a monthly basis.
*Of most concern is the removal of shelf space devoted to music products at retail stores. Tower’s bankruptcy removed millions of square feet and property owners will look askance at music retailers looking for space. The last decade saw the rise of discount retailers, Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy being the big 3, use cheaply priced CDs as a loss leader to drive foot traffic. This has been a successful strategy, however the question is how long these discount stores will continue to sustain this strategy. If they start devoting the space to other products — games, DVDs or even iPod and related accessories, it will hasten the demise of the CD-driven business model. As one executive at a major told me, ‘if Wal-Mart removes just 8 less square feet per store to CDs, it’s like losing 300 stores.’ This will be a major story to watch in 2007.
*Indie labels are also having a hard time. Although their acts have tended to be more album-driven, the loss of Tower has been a shock to the system and there will likely be losses from the inventory and/or receivables with Tower. There are few other major retailers that carry a lot of these records and so the savvier indie labels are being forced to sell a greater % of their music digitally.
*All in all, the declining physical revenue is not enough to offset the growth of digital revenues. That is causing the major labels to scramble for alternative revenue sources such as licensing music videos and advertising (two areas in which my company, Brightcove, is working with the labels). To spur the growth of digital further, they will also need to solve the interoperability issue, which many believe means selling their music without DRM. This has been in the news recently with Steve Jobs’ letter and the rumors of EMI selling their music as MP3s. Being both the smallest major label and the one under the most financial stress, EMI may well have to take such risks. This will be the other major story to follow in 2007.
Long Live the Music Industry
And yet there has never been as much demand for music from consumers. They are voting with their ears, eyes, fingers and wallets. They want music at a reasonable price whenever they want and wherever they are.
*The numbers around file sharing not only illustrate potential foregone sales (something that the industry continues to debate), but also pent-up demand for music.
New mediums such as internet radio, podcasting and satellite radio are attracting tens of millions of end users.
*Billions of music videos are streamed every year on the Web. Who needs MTV when you can watch videos on-demand on the Web while chatting with your friends?
*The worldwide market for flash or hard-drive-based players was 140 Million units in ‘05.
*Add in music-capabile mobile phones and it’s a much bigger pie. Already, ringtones are a multi-billion dollar market in the US. Mobile music promises to be an even bigger market if the operators and labels can figure out how to deliver music to consumers at a reasonable price. $2.50 per download + tax is not it.
*More people are buying instruments and related materials than ever before. Spurred by technologies to help people make and record music, the industry has doubled in the last decade to $7.5 B.
And so we have an industry transforming itself before our very eyes. If you would have told someone in 1999 that, 5 years later, Apple would become one of the most powerful companies in the music business, they would have thought you crazy. The overall market will be bigger than it is today but spread out over more entities. The music industry of 2012 will be markedly different than the one we have today with new winners and losers. One thing’s for sure — we will all be consuming more music.
Raghav “Rags” Gupta is VP of Consumer Services & Partnerships at Brightcove, where he has worked since ‘05. His blog can be found at www.ragsgupta.com.
maandag 24 september 2007
The album: Obsolete to whom?
Despite declining sales, they're not going anywhere -- as an object or an idea.
By Philip Freeman September 20, 2007
Back in 1979, rock critic Greil Marcus asked a bunch of his colleagues to answer the ultimate music fan's question: What one album would they want to have if they were stranded on a desert island? Just over 25 years later, I offered the same challenge to a new generation of music aficionados. Nineteen music writers, bloggers and scholars were up for the task -- indeed, they leaped at the opportunity to pick a favorite and gush about it at length. Weirdly, though, I kept hearing from doubtful outsiders that the project didn't make sense because the album was dead, that it was all about downloads and iPod playlists, that people didn't listen to music "that way" anymore. Those doubters are wrong.Yes, album sales for the first half of 2007 were down 15% compared with the same period last year, and the record industry has entered what seems like a perpetual state of panic. And yes, most music that's being downloaded legally is bought a la carte, song by song. But that doesn't mean albums, or even CDs, are doomed. Certain genres -- pop, hip-hop, dance music -- have always been, and will always be, about the perfect song. Albums are more contemplative, presuming and demanding both commitment and patience on the listener's part. But for those of us who love the idea of being permitted into an artist's world for an hour or so, that's how it should be -- and these are good times. Ambitious, personal music, frequently in lavish packaging, whether by arty metal acts such as Sunn O))) or rap mega-stars such as Kanye West, is reaching the fans it's meant for. Last week's new-album showdown, pitting West's "Graduation" against 50 Cent's "Curtis," is a prime example of how albums can still make a mass-market splash. (West, with 957,000 sold in one week, beat 50 Cent's 691,000, according to Nielsen figures, and 50's now muttering about possible retirement.) Beyond such stunts, though, the album lives because of what it delivers. There's more music available than ever before, and no matter what panicked record executives say, people are still grabbing it eight and 10 songs at a time, exactly as the artists intended.For a few years now, it's been possible to download leaked copies of new albums days or weeks before the official release date. That's worrisome to pop performers and the label execs backing them, who, like the producers of big summer movies, live or die by opening-week receipts. For more indie-minded artists, though, this sort of samizdat circulation of their work has become a valuable, even crucial, marketing tool because real fans treat a download like a test drive or a listening booth in an old record store. MP3s posted on blogs and message boards may get the word out, but as long as the music is good, serious fans will still head to their favorite record stores, in person or online, and lay out cash for something they can take home, hold in their hands and examine as they listen.Furthermore, many albums posted and downloaded aren't new. They're old and frequently out of print, abandoned by labels that didn't see a profit in keeping them commercially available. So they're shared, fan to fan, among small virtual communities obsessed with '60s avant-garde jazz, obscure '70s hard rock or regional hip-hop from the '80s. Ever heard an MP3 crackle like vintage vinyl? Or one in which the sound wobbles like a cassette on the brink of unspooling? I have: It's the sound of the album preserved. The album remains vital because musicians make it so. Shuffling -- the juxtaposition of songs at a computer's whim -- offers its own pleasures; hearing Ornette Coleman, then AC/DC, then Big Daddy Kane can really liven up a morning commute. But artistic intent deserves respect. If it's safe to assume your favorite band sequenced their latest batch of songs the way they did for a reason, then common courtesy demands that you listen "in order." The anonymous music fans uploading at websites mostly exemplify this respect; when downloading from a blog, you almost always get a zip file containing a whole CD, not an individual track. Some sites even offer scanned cover art and PDF files of liner notes. Finally, the album as physical object isn't going anywhere. Media types frequently fixate on "early adopters," their own unacknowledged class biases allowing the actions of the ultra-hip few to overshadow the slower progress of the poorer, less tech-savvy majority. Even in the U.S., not everyone has an Internet connection fast enough to permit downloading of albums. I still see more Discmans than iPods in my New Jersey neighborhood; vinyl retains hipster cachet; and outside the U.S., especially in Africa and the Middle East, a whole lot of music continues to be sold on cassette. Ultimately, albums will exist as long as artists, and fans, want them to. Philip Freeman is editor in chief of Metal Edge magazine and the editor of "Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs."
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-freeman20sep20,1,2226261.story?coll=la-news-comment&ctrack=1&cset=true
By Philip Freeman September 20, 2007
Back in 1979, rock critic Greil Marcus asked a bunch of his colleagues to answer the ultimate music fan's question: What one album would they want to have if they were stranded on a desert island? Just over 25 years later, I offered the same challenge to a new generation of music aficionados. Nineteen music writers, bloggers and scholars were up for the task -- indeed, they leaped at the opportunity to pick a favorite and gush about it at length. Weirdly, though, I kept hearing from doubtful outsiders that the project didn't make sense because the album was dead, that it was all about downloads and iPod playlists, that people didn't listen to music "that way" anymore. Those doubters are wrong.Yes, album sales for the first half of 2007 were down 15% compared with the same period last year, and the record industry has entered what seems like a perpetual state of panic. And yes, most music that's being downloaded legally is bought a la carte, song by song. But that doesn't mean albums, or even CDs, are doomed. Certain genres -- pop, hip-hop, dance music -- have always been, and will always be, about the perfect song. Albums are more contemplative, presuming and demanding both commitment and patience on the listener's part. But for those of us who love the idea of being permitted into an artist's world for an hour or so, that's how it should be -- and these are good times. Ambitious, personal music, frequently in lavish packaging, whether by arty metal acts such as Sunn O))) or rap mega-stars such as Kanye West, is reaching the fans it's meant for. Last week's new-album showdown, pitting West's "Graduation" against 50 Cent's "Curtis," is a prime example of how albums can still make a mass-market splash. (West, with 957,000 sold in one week, beat 50 Cent's 691,000, according to Nielsen figures, and 50's now muttering about possible retirement.) Beyond such stunts, though, the album lives because of what it delivers. There's more music available than ever before, and no matter what panicked record executives say, people are still grabbing it eight and 10 songs at a time, exactly as the artists intended.For a few years now, it's been possible to download leaked copies of new albums days or weeks before the official release date. That's worrisome to pop performers and the label execs backing them, who, like the producers of big summer movies, live or die by opening-week receipts. For more indie-minded artists, though, this sort of samizdat circulation of their work has become a valuable, even crucial, marketing tool because real fans treat a download like a test drive or a listening booth in an old record store. MP3s posted on blogs and message boards may get the word out, but as long as the music is good, serious fans will still head to their favorite record stores, in person or online, and lay out cash for something they can take home, hold in their hands and examine as they listen.Furthermore, many albums posted and downloaded aren't new. They're old and frequently out of print, abandoned by labels that didn't see a profit in keeping them commercially available. So they're shared, fan to fan, among small virtual communities obsessed with '60s avant-garde jazz, obscure '70s hard rock or regional hip-hop from the '80s. Ever heard an MP3 crackle like vintage vinyl? Or one in which the sound wobbles like a cassette on the brink of unspooling? I have: It's the sound of the album preserved. The album remains vital because musicians make it so. Shuffling -- the juxtaposition of songs at a computer's whim -- offers its own pleasures; hearing Ornette Coleman, then AC/DC, then Big Daddy Kane can really liven up a morning commute. But artistic intent deserves respect. If it's safe to assume your favorite band sequenced their latest batch of songs the way they did for a reason, then common courtesy demands that you listen "in order." The anonymous music fans uploading at websites mostly exemplify this respect; when downloading from a blog, you almost always get a zip file containing a whole CD, not an individual track. Some sites even offer scanned cover art and PDF files of liner notes. Finally, the album as physical object isn't going anywhere. Media types frequently fixate on "early adopters," their own unacknowledged class biases allowing the actions of the ultra-hip few to overshadow the slower progress of the poorer, less tech-savvy majority. Even in the U.S., not everyone has an Internet connection fast enough to permit downloading of albums. I still see more Discmans than iPods in my New Jersey neighborhood; vinyl retains hipster cachet; and outside the U.S., especially in Africa and the Middle East, a whole lot of music continues to be sold on cassette. Ultimately, albums will exist as long as artists, and fans, want them to. Philip Freeman is editor in chief of Metal Edge magazine and the editor of "Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs."
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-freeman20sep20,1,2226261.story?coll=la-news-comment&ctrack=1&cset=true
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