When will the music industry wise up about digital music?

Great Debates
1

When is the music industry going to take a common sense approach toward the issue of digital music? IMO literally billions of dollars of consumer demand for easy to access, affordable, high quality legaldigital content is going unaddressed by the music industry. The content providers seemed determined that the retail album model that built their fortunes is somehow going to prevail in the era of broadband when entire albums of passable quality digital music can vacuumed up a matter of minutes. When will Rip Van Winkle wake up?

ISPs should be held accountable for the actions of their users

2

This is just the latest step in the entertainment industry’s plan to treat every threat to their business model as a crime to be prosecuted, rather than a competitor to be outsmarted–remember when they fought the VCR tooth and nail?

Unfortunately, it’s easier for them to fight file sharing than videotape sharing. They won’t change their business model until the crimefighting options have been exhausted, and that won’t happen for years if their peer-to-peer hacking bill passes.

3

They won’t change until they have to, and with their deep pockets and lack of ethics, it’s gonna be a while.

4

Good call Mr2001 - you identified the real issue at stake here - namely “the business model” which is involved.

Some of you who have read my posts over the last year will be aware I’m a very keen poster on the Foo Fighters postboard. I’m well over 3,000 posts there. The Foo Fighters aren’t the only band in the world - obviously - but they’re a good example of a current “honest hardworking band” who have the knack of creating “radio friendly hits”.

We often have very, VERY in depth discussions on these matters, and being a music website, such discussions probably get “flushed out” a bit more than usual.

The general consensus amongst most of the folks on the Foos website at the moment seems to be this - too many albums which are “marketed” as being a great album really only have 2 or 3 truly “strong” songs on them and the rest is filler. Services like KAZAA allow prospective buyers to try before you buy, as it were, and then the word gets out via the internet if an album is “genuinely” worthy of buying or not.

The problem for the RIAA (in particular), is that so many albums fall into the category of “smash and grab” music - regardless of the genre. That is, only 2 or 3 songs are “any good” and you’re a fool if you buy the entire album to then have to put up with the “filler”. As such, the existing business model is doomed because no longer can the RIAA pull the wool over the public’s eyes and get us to buy album’s which really aren’t worth the money which is being charged.

Also, at an industrial printing level, it only costs 37 US cents to press a disk. Add in the similar levels involved in mass production printing of the small 5" by 5" album liner notes and there is a huge perception amongst most “keen music buyers” that a modern CD is woefully overpriced in comparison to the “quality yield” that it delivers. This is why albums like “Nevermind” and “10” by Nirvana and Pearl Jam continue to sell like hotcakes after all this time - the new generation of buyers keep hearing about them on the internet and so they keep selling. Obviously, there’s a raft of other bands and genres you can quote here too as equally valid examples of the syndrome.

The reality nowadays is this - for $50,000 US tops, a band can buy every piece of recording studio equipment they need to make an album which “sounds” as good as anything ever made. Often, they don’t even need to spend even that much actually. And yet, they’ll still be able to get the “million dollar studio” sound. Accordingly, more and more artists are able to control their own destiny. No longer are they beholden to record labels for a $300,000 US advance just for recording costs alone.

Hence, the RIAA is now going to struggle to hold onto it’s current business model. And here’s why… the 4 golden points (traditionally) are as follows…

(1) Creativity and Talent

(2) Recording and Mastering

(3) Marketing and Awareness

(4) Distribution

Now, the two key points (1) and (2) can be achieved by the artists themselves out of their own pocket. The blackmail mechanism which has been in place for decades is now obsolete. As such, the RIAA only has control over Points (3) and (4). However, the nature of the “kickback” arrangement that Radio Networks like Clear Channel has is such that “the highest bidder” can now buy Radio Airtime, and this renders only Point (4) (Distribution) as being the only TRUE area that the RIAA now controls outright.

In this context, the landscape has changed now for the RIAA whether they like it or not. The cash cow has evolved into a different beast and they no longer have a stranglehold in the way that they used to have. The RIAA is despairing over this obviously, but there’s not much they can do about this.

It won’t take long before the major Radio Networks also enter into “under the table” distribution arrangements with major printing houses as well, and the business model which exists as we know it today will be all but over.

Right now, as we speak, I can put an album on the Mixonic website which is the equal in quality in terms of sound and appearance to anything on the market, and you can get it delivered to your front door next business day for only $5.50 US.

That’s the way of the future I suspect. Ahhhh… but I hear you say… “I like going into a record store and checking out an album before I buy it…” Well, this is where the landscape has truly revolutionised itself. Companies like Mixonic also sell in bulk. If you’re a record store owner (or a chain of stores) you can buy 100 or 1000 or more at a time from Mixonic. This is where the true revolution is taking place. Record Stores can now buy stock from places OTHER than members of the RIAA and this is where the rubber meets the road.

The difference is that I, or any other artist, doesn’t need to enter into a contract with Mixonic to achieve such a distribution agreement. They sell what they sell with impartiality. I could sell an album via 3 or more different printing houses if I wanted to. The only area requiring great investment nowadays is Point (3) - Marketing and Awareness.

5

Great post Boo Boo Foo, I have to agree with you and that your 3rd point is pretty much all they have left to go on. New albums, such as Cheryl Wheeler’s Different Stripe which includes a link to free sheet music to the album or Tori Amos’ Scarlet Walk which has a DVD, stickers, map, charm bracelet included with it, are a good tool to make sure the fans will buy the album to get the extras.

There is one point you’re missing though. For us audiophiles, the transfer bitrate on downloaded songs tend to be less than “CD quality”. I know that file transfer programs like Kazaa have built in limits in its system to prevent it from finding and downloading high bitrates. (There are hacks to this, I know, but it’s one way that Kazaa has an attempt at integrity.)

The big problem is the RIAA thinks they can shut down this system but it’s definitely a game of illegal whack-a-mole. It’s a shame that all of this could affect the future of quality music.

6

Stpauler I definitely agree with you on the quality of mp3’s - as a musician and producer of music, I look upon mp3’s as being little more than a “demonstration tool” if truth be known. And thank you for your kind words.

In my personal experience, if you’re prepared to offer an mp3 in 320kbps mode, you’re probably getting as close as 97.5% Redbook standard - but even then, I can still hear the tell tale “squelchy” sound on hi-hats and cymbals. Such sounds tend to chew up the most data of all, due to their high frequencies, and this is obviously the first “point of attack” in an mp3’s desire to reduce data size I find.

It gets worse, as you know, the lower the bit rate you choose. I find that a “Variable Bit Rate” file around 192kbps tends to be the best “compromise” in terms of quality vs ease of dissemination for most internet users. But there’s no way I would ever countenance such an mp3 as being even remotely close to being a true “replacement” for an entire wave file on a Redbook stardard CD - that’s for sure.

Oddly, the “extra features” that you mentioned above are the little things a lot of commercial releases are using now to try and make an album “better value”. I personally don’t like the DVD side of things though. That requires yet ANOTHER investment in yet ANOTHER piece of hardware which may or may not be obsolete in 3 years while the market still matures. I like the “Enhanced CD” option actually. Let’s say you have a 50 minute long album on a 74 minute long audio CD. That leaves you with about 150MB of room on the disk to create a PC interactive experience which can really be a lot of fun for the user if it’s made well. It can include videos and photographs and lyrics and similar little goodies which make the release really quite a buzz if you stick it in your PC or Mac.

It’s worth noting that that too is easily created and placed on your “master” disk which gets housed at the Printing House of your choice. The Printing House then simply burns copies as per the major Record Labels.

As I said Stpauler, thank you for your kind words. The real issue for me, as an Australian music lover and musician down here in Australia, is when is the landscape going to change in regards to the “marketing and awareness” issue? Allow me to elaborate please…

On Saturday morning, I flicked on a national music TV program which was doing the weekly Top 50 countdown. Now, before I go on, please be aware that Australia has an astonishingly vibrant and healthy music scene. In terms of talent and sound production, some of our acts are top flight - really REALLY top flight - and YET! As we got to the Top 20, I swear to God, the following syndrome manifested itself…

Avril Lavigne held #1 with her new single - not “Complicated” - it’s her current tune. Nothing flash - fairly middle of the road well produced stuff. Number 2 was a ballad by Norah Miles I believe. OK, fair enough. Then it got disturbing (and bear in mind here that I watched the songs unfold from Number 20 DOWN to Number 1 Ok?) The single GREATEST distress for me as an Australian is that only ONE act in the entire Top 20 was Australian (The Androids “I’d rather do it with Madonna”) The other 17 songs, I swear to god, were American black R&B rap stuff like Ja Rule and Nelly and Bobby Brown etc etc.

Now, I wanna ask you guys something here. (For the benefit of Aussie Dopers, the program was Rage by the way and they adhere to the legit ARIA figures) I have to ask, just how the blooming hell have 17 songs in Australia’s Top 20 become American R&B rap songs? I ask this because I listen to radio all day long in the background, and I hear a truckload of rock/pop songs which are played all the time OTHER than the schlop I was seeing in this Top 20 - and folks, it really is schlop… it’s so formulaic and predictable it’s just laughable.

Most importantly, and I mean no disrespect to my fellow American Dopers here - especially African American descendants - but guys, there’s just no WAY IN HELL that 17 songs of the Top 20 which are like Shaggy and Nelly etc are TRULY representative of what we Australians generally like to listen to. It’s a foreign culture to us. Research has found that we love to listen to around 35% local content. We like songs which reflect our own local culture at least in some small capacity. Just one Australian tune in the Top 20 is DEFINITELY NOT representative of what we Australians listen to, radio wise.

Accordingly, I ask the following… just who is stacking the charts nowadays? Who is pulling the strings to put music which (most folks seem to agree here) is of dubious musical merit so high in the charts? How are the calculations being factored?

I ask this because I believe that when we can answer this question, we’ll also have gone a long way towards achieving a situation where we can trust the charts to “somewhat” reflect quality again - and that will be a good thing because “an honest chart” is ALSO a fantastic means of “Marketing and Awareness” you see.

7

How do you suggest that they meet that demand? No matter what they try, no matter how cheap they get, I don’t see how it would be able to compete with getting music for free. I agree with the above posters and their statements regarding audio quality, but quality issues certainly seem to me like barriers that will fall in the near future.

If the industry found a way to distribute CD quality audio over the Internet cheaply and quickly and found a way to make that audio impossible to re-distribute, then I could see it as viable.

8

Of course, the music industry needs to realize that the main reason people aren’t buying music these days is that most of the stuff which gets heavily promoted is crap. Blame piracy all you want, but the truth is music sales are down (along with radio listenership) because the recording industry isn’t offering people what they want to hear! If the music industry wakes up to that fact, they’ll forget about all this supposed “piracy” (It’s legal to record a song off the radio, but not download an MP3 of the same tune? Come on, guys!) and start pushing music folks want to hear, they’ll find that sales will go back up to the levels they once were.

9

I never really considered it before, but you may have made a very important observation. I can only speak from a US perspective, but most of the kids in my children’s social cohort (mainly white, middle class technological “haves” with broadband and CD burners) are either DLing and burning various eclectic mixes of songs (techno/dance/rap/house/retro/metal etc. etc.) or goofing around with software mixing tools and retro stuff like vinyl. I wonder if the sales numbers of what constitutes a “number xx song” is being skewed toward urban rap because the tech “have not” kids skew more heavily toward minority populations and have to get their music at the retail level.

What really does “number xx hit” mean anymore if most of the listening population the number seeks to represent are moving/have moved out of the retail distribution matrix where sales and “popularity” are measured?

10

The Eminem Show is one of the biggest selling CD’s in history, despite the fact that its audience is exactly the kinds of people that download music from the Internet. This demonstrates that people will buy music they like.

Another problem with the RIAA’s interpretation of things is that they only focus on the negatives of file sharing. No one would dispute that there is piracy going on, and that some people get music for free that they should pay for. However, the file sharing networks are also one of the greatest advertising mediums for music there ever was. These networks are like the world wide web for music - allowing people to ‘surf’ for music. Since I started using Kazaa, my CD buying has quadrupled. And, I’ve become a solid fan of a couple of new bands I would never have otherwise heard of. One of them was just in town (Wilco), and they got $60 out of me in tiickets, courtesy of Kazaa.

The real danger to the record companies is not just copying of MP3’s, but a the much greater threat that the file sharing networks are a direct competitor to them as intermediaries for distributing music. The file sharing networks do exactly what record companies do, for a fraction of the ‘price’. If bands themselves start bypassing record companies and distributing directly on the internet, backed up with mail-order CD sales or something, then the record labels are truly screwed.

That’s why they are going the legal route. They can’t compete with the file sharing networks in the long run, so they’re going to use the big arm of government to squash them.

11

Certainly they can’t compete on price, but they can compete on quality. Peer to peer file sharing services have several problems:
[ul]
[li]Limited and unreliable selection - Maybe someone who has the song you want is online, maybe not. You’ll have no problem finding Top 40 hits, but there’s still plenty of music at Sam Goody or Barnes & Noble that you just can’t find online.[/li][li]Unreliable quality - Many songs are misattributed or mistitled. Many are poorly encoded (a 320 kbps MP3 made with Encoder X isn’t necessarily better than a 160 kbps MP3 made with Encoder Y), or contain skips and pops. Many are cut short because of failed transfers.[/li][li]Unreliable transfers - The only person with the song you want might be on a 28.8 modem. If he goes offline in the middle of a download, you can’t resume the song until he comes back on. You can download from different sources, but only if the files are exactly the same: encoded by the same person with the same encoder at the same time.[/li][/ul]
An industry-backed service could solve all those problems at once: offer their full catalog for download from central high speed servers. No need to guess if the song you want is available, or if the person who has it will be online all night, or if the version of “Fish Heads” you’re looking for is the one by They Might Be Giants or Weird Al Yankovic. (Actually, it’s neither. TMBG and Weird Al are common misattributions.)

Industry services could also provide more than just the song itself, such as discounts on CDs, band merchandise, and concert tickets.

Concerns about the audio quality sound more like a problem with the encoder than the MP3 format. A crappy encoder (Xing, for example) will produce crappy files no matter how high you crank up the bitrate. If you want to do a serious listening test, encode a song from your own CD with a high-quality encoder like LAME.

12

**

I have to ask how long you think it’ll take for computer software and hardware to overcome those problems. From what I saw of Napster there were hardly any songs that weren’t available for download, high speed internet is exanding so reliable connections won’t be much of an issue, and the unreliable quality caused by hardware or software will probably already be solved.

You’re right, with the system as it is now there’s probably always going to be the odd song that nobody can find. Of course that’s only going to bother the fringe market not the majority of users.

I’m not sure it is going to solve the problem of people downloading music for free. I know some people like to call that file sharing but really is is stealing. Well, if the distributors of the music don’t mind then it is sharing. I can understand the point of view of record companies and artist who don’t want their work distrubted without permission.

I’m also not sure how successful the record companies would be if they sold files on the internet. How would they prevent people from just giving them to their friends? I do see a very real possibility in the ability to go to a music store and have someone make you a CD with the tracks you choose for 10 bucks or so. That seems like a viable direction to me.

Marc

13

But here’s the way the music industry is evolving - because the internet can connect artists directly with fans, they no longer have to make all their money from albums. As it stands now, very few musicians actually profit significantly from their own album sales. Even million selling albums only net musicians an average salary, and many times they never see a nickel other than their advance (which has to be used to pay for the tour).

But if artists can connect directly with their fans, they can develop a following. This boosts concert attendance. It increases sales of merchandise like T-shirts. And it gets them a reputation, which gets them concert bookings.

And history has shown that people will pay for their favorite bands’ CD’s, even if they have the songs already in MP3. Many of my favorites songs are in my music collection multiple times. I own every Warren Zevon CD made, but that didn’t stop me from buying all three of his greatest hits CD’s. I buy anything he makes, just to support his art. And I’d buy his CD’s just for the liner notes.

In short, we’re evolving to a high-tech version of the old way musicians supported themselves - through patrons. Except we’re all patrons. They perform for us, we give them money.

There will soon be no need whatsoever for the RIAA - production is getting cheaper, and so is distribution. Marketing? The music becomes the marketing. Filtering and editing? The internet will get better and better than this. Already, many people go to Amazon and read customer reviews when they are looking for something.

So the RIAA is in danger of losing an entire industry. They’re not going down without a fight.

14

Indeed, these problems may be solved–in the future. The industry had better get their act together before then.

For now, less than 20% of American internet users have broadband. I live five minutes from downtown, in the biggest metropolitan area between Seattle and Minneapolis, and I’ll eat my hat if I can get internet access here faster than 28.8 within the next two years. (Satellite doesn’t count.)

“Copyright infringement”, please. I don’t want to get into another debate on the meaning of “stealing”. :wink:

Well, how do they prevent you from giving copies of store-bought music to your friends? I’d guess that CD burners are more widespread than broadband, and everyone has a cassette deck.

Answer: They don’t, at least without alienating their users with proprietary file formats. But they aren’t going after informal, coincidental copyright infringement anyway.

An industry backed service would make Kazaa-style infringement a little easier, since the “official” version of the file would be more common (making it easier to resume and multi-download) and would have guaranteed quality. But the unreliable transfers and availability would still be there.

Another point against Kazaa is the firewall problem. A lot of high-speed users are behind routers or firewalls, making it impossible for them to share files with anyone else who is also behind a firewall. This is likely to continue, because it lets ISPs and customers conserve IP addresses, and prevents abuse of service (running private web servers, FTP servers, etc. instead of paying the ISP for space).

15

I gotta disagree with you here, sorry, BBF. I reckon that the described top 20 is a fair summation of what kids are listening to today.

Now, I don’t know where Southport is, so I’m going to talk in Sydney radio stations and hopefully you’ll understand. As far as music radio goes, the big rating one is 2DayFM, whose playlist consists of pretty much what you described in the Rage Top 20. Nelly, Avril Lavigne et al all over the place. After 2Day, generally comes Nova and Triple M, who I will concede go some way to proving your argument. Nova, in particular has done well out of playing a big variety of music and Triple M plays the commercial rock thing that is the cornerstone of Australian music. The real supporter of Australian music, Triple J usually languishes at around 5% (I think - whatever the figure is, it’s one of the less popular stations) of the audience share.

Nova does play a reasonably large amount of R&B/Hip Hop music, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a large part of their audience buying the singles seen in the top 20 (incidentally, here’s the latest one, from the Rage website:

  1. We’ve Got Tonight - RONAN KEATING featuring LULU
  2. Family Portrait - PINK BMG
  3. Life Goes On - LEANN RIMES Sony
  4. Cleaning Out My Closet - EMINEM Universal
  5. Feel - ROBBIE WILLIAMS EMI
  6. What’s Your Flava? - CRAIG DAVID Warner
  7. Boys Of Summer - DJ SAMMY Central Station
  8. Round Round - SUGABABES Universal
  9. My Neck, My Back (Lick It) - KHIA Sony
  10. The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling) - ATOMIC KITTEN Virgin
  11. Do It With Madonna - THE ANDROIDS Fest/Mush
  12. Thug Lovin’ - JA RULE featuring BOBBY BROWN Universal
  13. Work It - MISSY ELLIOTT Warner
  14. Dilemma - NELLY featuring KELLY ROWLAND Universal
  15. Jenny From The Block - JENNIFER LOPEZ Sony
  16. Hey Sexy Lady (Spanish Fly remix) - SHAGGY Universal
  17. The Ketchup Song (Aserje) - LAS KETCHUP Sony
  18. Stole - KELLY ROWLAND Sony
  19. Born To Try - DELTA GOODREM Sony
  20. Lose Yourself - EMINEM Universal )

Another thing, purely from personal experience having worked in the Sound section of KMart, I’ve noticed who’s buying what. Singles seem to be the domain of older pre-teens and younger teens, particularly girls. Avril Lavigne leaps off the shelves, as does Nelly, Kelly Rowland, Eminem, J-Lo and Pink. We get reasonable sales of rock music and Australian music, but the buyers are usually older and they tend to buy albums rather than singles.

The latest ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) albums chart is a bit cheerier as far as local music goes:

  1. LET GO - Avril Lavigne
  2. 8 MILE Soundtrack - Various
  3. UP ALL NIGHT - The Waifs
  4. THE EMINEM SHOW - Eminem
  5. SIMPLY DEEP - Kelly Rowland
  6. BY THE WAY Red Hot Chili Peppers
  7. LIVE FROM THE PANEL VOLUME 3 - THE LATEST COLLECTION - Various
  8. THE RECORD (GREATEST HITS) Bee Gees
  9. COME AWAY WITH ME - Norah Jones
  10. ESCAPOLOGY - Robbie Williams
  11. ONE BY ONE - Foo Fighters
  12. DIORAMA - Silverchair
  13. THE LAST TIME - John Farnham
  14. LAUNDRY SERVICE - Shakira
  15. IT HAD TO BE YOU… THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK - Rod Stewart
  16. BEST OF 1990-2000 - U2
  17. #1 HITS - Elvis Presley
  18. JUSTIFIED - Justin Timberlake
  19. UP! - Shania Twain
  20. BARRICADES & BRICKWALLS - Kasey Chambers

This chart has 5 Australian Artists - 25%, including The Waifs latest album which debuted at number 3. The Panel collection also includes a lot of Australian artists. R&B/Hip Hop doesn’t dominate anywhere near as much as it does with the singles chart - only Eminem, Kelly Rowland and Justin Timberlake.

I’m not sure what research shows that Australians want a 35% Aust. artist mix - I was under the impression that the commercial radio stations were trying to lower the required Australian content because it means more money for them, and unfortunately John Howard is liable to listen to them.

Also, another reason for the poor showing of Australian artists in the singles charts could simply be that the big Australian acts don’t really have singles out at the moment. Alex Lloyd, The Whitlams and Powderfinger have all been a bit quiet lately, and Silverchair has already released 4 or 5 successful singles from Diorama. The big acts are in hibernation at the moment so it’s not surprising to see little representation of them in the charts.

So possibly we’re both right. The singles chart doesn’t accurately represent Australian tastes, but that doesn’t mean that what is in there isn’t wildly popular.

[/Hijack]

16

If the RIAA can sue ISP’s for the content people download , then I guess that Tower Records can sue most independant record labels for selling the same CD at half the price over the internet. I havent realy bought many CD’s from a store in about 2 years. The reason is that I can go here -> http://www.copint.com/ , here-> http://www.malignantrecords.com/ or here-> http://www.industrial-music.com/ and get the music I want for a fraction of the price and I get the added benifits of not dealing with some vapid chain store worker and not being bombarded with the weak mindless shit that most record companies put out these days.

17

know what really cheeses me off? The RIAA’s approach to Internet radio. Even the little guys who WANT to share their original music for free, are having to pay up for royalties they will never see. Speaking of which, when are they gonna start splitting that money up anyways?

I was at a panel discussion on digital rights this summer in Vancouver (New Forms Festival) that featured DJ Spooky. As someone who constantly finds his music downloaded and even remixed, I was interested to see what he had to say.

I don’t have the exact quote, but it was something like this:
“When I create music on my computer and it leaves my hard drive, I recognize that it is out of my hands. No longer in my control. It has a life of its own.”

The recording industry is reacting to digital technology the way all old, established fat cat industries react to emergent technologies. They fight it until the threat of monetary punishment is so real they have no choice but to embrace it. Let them squirm for a while I say. Squirm until they decide to take part, instead of take apart.

the bee

18

**

What history? I’ve seen no real evidence that says people who downloaded songs from Napster went right out and bought the CDs.

**

I have no objections to this. What I object to is distrubuting the intellectual property of others without their permission.
Marc

19

**

I understand but I’m going to call it how I see it. Copyright infringement is just another kind of theft.

**

So let’s just pretend the record companies make a bunch of music files available online. Would it still be ok to “share” files when someone could download it for a fee from a website?

Marc

20

That’s one way to say that you’re wrong, yes. How’s this… we’ll compromise. You can call copyright infringement theft if I can call copyrights that last longer than 14 years theft. We can all call it how we see it! You’re a thief, I’m a thief… we’re all thieves. I love it when terms get tossed around so freely they become totally meaningless.

-fh