February 28, 2004
More on the Music Industry
Links to a couple of articles from John Dvorak at PC Magazine.
Ode to Napster, Music's Last Hope
I can provide a data point to verify Dvorak's conjecture regarding the real reason for the downturn in music sales.
During the Napster and Kazaa heyday I spent $40/month on music. I learned about all the music I bought from these file sharing programs. I then went and bought cds because I didn't like the quality of what was available, and I couldn't trust the information associated with the song. I used to find a song and then verifying the album and artist info at Amazon (to check all the possible remixes). Sometimes I would then purchase the album from Amazon. When the RIAA started suing people, I stopped using all file sharing software and subsequently stopped buying music. I can't remember buying a single music album in the entire calendar year 2003.
Recently, the legal digital music sellers have actually produced a service worthy of interest. I use Itunes. Why? The interface. Apple just makes things that are easy and fun to use. But the selection at the music store sucks. Despite the limited availability of stuff to download I still find music that interests me. How? The shared music feature. People on a local area network can share the contents of their Itunes libraries with each other. This is exactly what Napster was, access to music other people burned of their purchsed cds. Smart move Itunes. Living in college dorms I learn of groups like Manu Chao and then find myself back in brick-and-mortar music stores, back on Amazon looking for more information and buying cds again. I've spent more in the last two months on music than I have in the last two years. All thanks to Itunes, thanks to the sweet interface and the reasonable allowance of music sharing.
For those of you who follow this log on a regular basis, I'd like to tie this explanation to two earlier discussions, Do You Live the Dijalog Lifestyle? and Grey Tuesday. The problem is one of information access, something with which those of us living the digital media lifestyle are intimately familiar. The big five labels of the RIAA have established channels for disseminating information via hype and know what's going to happen when they rev up their marketing machines. This creates a controlled situation in which they can make their money. They're slow and unwilling to recognize and take advantage of new mediums for the dissemination of information (which file sharing really is, it's not primarily about dissemination of product) because they lose control. They have a harder time hedging their bets that new talent will sell. Hence, the ridiculous response to DJ Dangermouse's Grey Album. If they were to take the money and run, they would be admitting that money could be made without the need for the bloated production, development and marketing budgets that allow artists to make $1 per cd that costs the consumer $18.
It's just a sad, sad state of affairs when Apple knows the future of the music industry better than the RIAA and builds a compelling, revenue generating product. At least the RIAA can be dragged kicking and screaming into the digital music world. Now if they would just stop the completely pointless exercise of suing people for helping them generate profit.
Posted by Keeper of the Blog at February 28, 2004 08:59 PM