In 1853, two Portugese gentlemen by the name of José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino wrote an English phrasebook and conversational guide. Nothing unusual in that you say. The book was called 'English as she is spoke' (not *exactly* its original name) and is still regarded as one of the most unintentionally funny works of humour ever created.
My point in bringing it up was to illustrate that although their intention was serious the results were hilarious as they completely ignored how English was used by actual English speakers.
We have a similar situation with our contemporary music industry. They have created their own phrasebooks and conversational guides using only the inadequate sources of information available to them. The music industry (as a whole - we are talking generalisations here after all...) lives in an ivory tower that they have meticulously (although unconciously) constructed for themselves.
They KNOW for a fact that the world and its mother wants another boy band or over-sexualised pre-pubescent teen, just as José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino KNEW that the world needed a Potugese-English phrasebook written by two gentlemen who had no knowledge of English and only had a Portugese-French and French-English Dictionary to help them.
I'll expound on what I see are the failings of the music industry at some other time, not to get off the point too much I wanted to establish that the music industry lives in a fantasy land. A land that has as much to do with the reality of the average music listener as lawn edger do for the inuit people.
I provide a partial list of the tenets of the music industry:
- The music industry is infallible - Any drop in sales is a result of increased filesharing not a result of poor quality output from the music industry
- Customers can only use approved media formats and players to access the music they purchased - anything else is theft
- Customers that attempt to exceed their rights are criminals and thus forfeit their music and property as a result
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This is plainly ridiculous. Yes, most people are happy with the muck that passes for popular music nowadays, but this has been true for many years. Not everyone has the high expectations of true music lovers. Favourite tunes often are tied to a fond memory or evoke a specific period of time in your life. It is never a simple case of 'this music is good' vs. 'this music is bad'.
However, suggesting that people will buy the same muck time and time again is fantasy. People are very quickly becoming jaded with 'the next big thing'. The amount of time that a tune spends at the 'number one' spot has reduced over the years - a measure both of the dwindling quality of popular music and the attention deficit of consumers
Studies have been done that conclude that file sharing may actually boost CD sales - and a very complete analysis here. This is attributed to the fact that people use file sharing to test the music before purchase, as there is very little chance for them to hear a wide range of music on the radio, TV etc, and as a result will purchase more music from a newly doscovered artist than intended.
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There is such a thing as fair use. In its general incarnation it alows customers to make backup copies of their music, and to do whatever they need to in order to access their media.
This should allow them to lawfully burn a CD to play in their car, rip the music from their CD to their home computer and then copy it to their iPod and from there to their computer in work.
The freedom required to allow the last case - free movement of your music from device to device - also allows you to take your music and give it to your friends. Strictly speaking this is theft. BUT - in my experience, sharing music with friends results in them seeking out more music from the artist, buying more CD's, attending concerts etc. not to mention word fo mouth and general good will. A net bonus in my opinion.
As it stands customers cannot do any of this. Music downloaded form iTunes can only be played on the one computer and your iPod. Problems arise when you try to move your music to a new computer, iPod, a CD for your car, your computer at work - oops! you have run out of licences to play your music. What happens when the curent 'generation' of iTunes customers discovers that they cannot move their music collection to their shiny new computer?
There will be a revolution. A day of reckoning that Apple must see coming and refuses to acknowledge. It will be a watershed in the battle between music industry and music consumers, a battle that so far has been fought silently.
I'm not just picking on Apple - its just a great example - all the online music stores that employ DRM face the same problem.
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Executives of the major music companies have suggested that people who fileshare or who attempt to break the DRM on ther music files should have their computers explode or at least have every file on their computer irrevocably deleted.
On other words, if I want to listen to a copy of some music I bought on iTunes on my home computer and I use a third party tool to restore my consumer rights y allowing me to copy the iTunes music, then I should have very file on my computer destroyed.
Does that make sense?
Most of the music industries thinking only makes sense if you realise that they consider all their paying customers to be criminals.
Customers expect the following (some of which are unrealistic)
- Music should be free
- It should be possible to play purchased music on any device.
- It should be possible to move purchased music from any device to any other device and/or format any number of times
- It should be possible to resell purchased music
- Purchased music should be available for download from the provider at any time
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Bizzare as it is this sometimes should be true.
It has been shown that giving away some music can pique interest in the rest of a band's music. It usually dosesn't lead people to think that the band will be giving its music away for free forever.
Magnatune proved that people will pay what they think the band deserves. Magnatune is an independent internet music company that signs what is essentially a non-exclusive distribution deal with their artists.
When people come to buy an album or a tune they can choose from a range of prices. The suggested price is usually 8 dollars for an album. The range goes all the way from 5 dollars to 18 dollars.
As expected, lots of people choose to pay only 5 dollars. Another large bunch of people choose to pay the suggested price. But strangely enough, there is a large number of people who choose to pay the higher amounts. In 2003 the average price paid for an album was $9.82 (couldn't find more recent data)
Obviously, people like free music, but people also like to reward the artist for a job well done. With an independent company like Magnatune the artist gets paid properly every time.
psst. Hey Kid. First one's free...
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This one should be a no-brainer. If you have bought music then you should be able to play it freely on any device you own.
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This is a little more difficult. It relies heavily on the assumption that the seller will delete all copies of the music from their system.
What about backups? If you burn backup DVD's of your data then you won't be able to remove just the files you sold. Reburning these backups is an onerous process.
This basically comes down to requiring that people don't try and sell their purchased music more than once. It comes down to trust
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Again Magnatune have this one covered.
iTunes allows you to re-download your songs ONCE and once only - with a special dispensation from the pope himself. ONCE!
Not sure about the other services as I havent checked. I am signed up with the very promising eMusic and I will let you know if they have this sorted.
I know this is only a cursory examiniation of the problems, lets just call it broad strokes to frame future arguments and lay out some ground work on exactly what my opinions are regarding the state of music.Suffice to say - the music industry, she is broke.
